A few months ago I attended a black tie event hosted at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. We were in the Hall of Architecture, which along with the rest of the museum offers over 140 plaster casts of architectural masterpieces from the around the world. For a few hours I was transported to the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in Greece, of which the Hall itself is a replication. I was also surrounded by Apollo Belvedere, the Venus de Milo, the Nike of Samothrace, the famous discus thrower by Myron, and the Gothic masterpieces Florence Baptistry doors.
Talk about fuel for the imagination. As a writer I’m always on the hunt for new and interesting settings for my stories. As a reader I’m always interested in experiencing the past or the future through a great book. World-building, either past or future, is always one of the most fun parts of a story for me. Right now, so close to the event, I can’t decide whether I want to use the night’s setting in a contemporary story or a futuristic one. Should my heroine attend a similar party in a similar venue, or should the venue take place in on another planet?
Setting grounds a story and I find I’m drawn to stories that portray a vivid physical center in any time period. Case in (inspiration) point, not too long ago I glommed onto Tara Janzen’s Crazy series of books, all set on Denver’s Steel Street, Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series set in Trenton, NJ, and Sandra McDonald’s Science Fiction THE OUTBACK STARS set on the T.S.S. Yangtze. All three have very distinct settings.
If you’re a writer, how does setting affect your writing? If you’re a reader, what novels’ settings most powerfully affected you? What are your favorite Science Fiction settings that you can read about over and over again -- is it the bridge of a starship or the surface of a far off planet? What settings are your Inspiration Point?
I watched Happy Days faithfully as a kid and remember Inspiration Point. Where I'm at now in my life, my point of inspiration is the kids out of the house and the dogs not barking at the squirrels. LOL
ReplyDeleteYes, peace and quiet is very inspiring!
ReplyDeleteNice post. I like the idea of an inspiration point. What inspires my settings is so vast it's hard to pin down just one! Starships, alien planets-- you name it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I remember Happy Days, well. For the longest time I thought Inspiration Point was named Blueberry Hill. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd you said the magic words, THE OUTBACK STARS. LOVED the concept of those "really big spaceships," the Yangtze and the Aral Sea. In the future Sandra McDonald created the starships of Team Space were named after environmental disasters. Gotta love it.
My inspiration point in TOS was MC Terry Myell's Zero-G work space. I loved the scene where he was supposed to be interrogated by a member of security, and she was so fascinated with the view and the lack of gravity she forgot to be intimidating. What a great scene.
As for my own work, yes, each of my novels has an "inspiration point" that I love to mentally linger in--whether it's a planetary observation deck, a hall of revered monarchs, or a particularly vivid state of consciousness one of the characters enters.
I find a stroll through the DeviantART website always inspires me. The futuristic landscapes these graphic artists have come up with are nothing short of stunning. Then it turns into a "Oh, why can't I be there!!!" mood and I sink into depression. ;)
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