Is your book set in a hobby store?
My mystery series is set in a White House dollhouse store. I started having problems almost immediately because of the age differences between the person who raised her from a little girl and her knowledge of the first ladies. How could a girl in her early twenties know so much about the first ladies plus all the nuances surrounding the many presidents? I had to make her educated and a little older.
My corner of the characters’ universe was drawn, I decided upon the First Lady Dolley Madison as the first miniature doll plus the president. I had already researched Dolley and was in love with her. I wanted to make her as important as the main character. So, I speak to my dolls frequently which allows the reader to learn a little bit of history.
In all four novels the store is in a brown stone building which was built at the turn of the 20th century, right around 1880-1920. The building age fits the concept of what I was after—older buildings—quaint and interesting. However, I change a building here and there, using new ownership and businesses.
As the reader follows along in SPANGLED to DEATH I have the characters eating at a local coffee house near where she lives, The Riverview.
Who occupies the diner? Coffeeshop? Do you have a garden? This and more is all part of your setting? Who tends the garden and buries the dead at night under a moonless night? Are there bushes nearby for the killer to hide behind? Maybe you’re not writing a mystery, but there is always a character that’s a little odd or different, isn’t there? What makes them odd? The block they live on or what the house looks like?
Know your setting and characters then the book will come to you.
Happy writing and have fun!
Please feel free to share and respond.
Barb
