• Home
  • She Taught Me Everything
  • Blog
  • Publications
  • Me. Me. Me.
  • More!
  • Contact
  • Signed Copies for sale
  • Get a Book
  • Reviews & Awards
AMY SMITH LINTON

Bloggetty Blog, life Blog...

Fictional Places

2/3/2022

4 Comments

 
Fictional places? Even as the letters pop up on the screen, I wonder: is a place ever fictional? Or if it's fictional, would it NOT be a place?  

This kind of thinking, by the way, has probably kept me from achieving my full potential as a human bean.

But what I mean to write and think about today are those places that one figuratively goes when in the grip of a story.

​Narnia, for instance, and Treasure Island, the Brooklyn in which Betty Smith's tree grew, King's Landing, or that idyllic Pennsylvania farm in Springfield that Mumsie loved so much. 
Picture
Picture
As part of an ongoing project with my writing group (Hi writers!), we're working through some exercises from Bill Roorbach's Writing Life Stories.

Each of us in the group has lived a life or two; we all (except that one introvert! Hey!) hare off on tangents talking about our stories... So, as a way to harness this superpower in written rather than spoken word, enter Bill Roorback.

(If you haven't already read it, go curl up with Mr. Roorback's The Remedy for Love. You'll thank me for the recommendation.)
The first big exercise of the book is to sketch a map of a place.

I chose my oldest hometown, in Pennsylvania. I lived there until around age 8, with that little fish pond behind Mrs. Smith's (no relation) house, the strawberry fields, Sayre's horse barn. As I sketched it out, I led the names of the horses from all those remembered stalls by their oily leather halters. The exact bouquet of hay, oats, and horse manure arose like the flavor of a Madeleine dunked in tea.
Picture
The dusty yellow clapboard and the cadet-blue shutters of my great-grandmother's house returned.

As did young married next-door neighbors Dick and Marleen (Donna?) Briese.

I don't know how to spell their name, but I vividly remember Dick carrying me home across the street in his arms in the suburban dark. I was perhaps 3, inconsolable with homesickness. I had black-and-red cowboy boots that I rarely removed and which clunked together with each stride across the dewy grass; I'd been meant to stay overnight as a trial run for them to have children of their own...

Anyway, maps.  It was a productive half-hour exercise and fun. So my thoughts naturally turned to doing the same activity with the longer novel I am working on.
It's set in an imaginary world (or, to be factual, a more-than-usually-imaginary one), so I don't need worry if someone else lived between the Ayers' and the Briese's places.

But it's also a real brain-teaser, trying to figure out the climate zones, distances, and what natural resources encourage what kinds of countries.

If one character moves at goose-pace, how long will it take, and what countryside will she pass?

​Who knew Social Studies would come into play this way?

Picture
Perhaps you are a fan of those maps that appear in some historical and fantasy novels –– I usually give them a cursory glance before diving into the story, but I appreciate a little better the effort.  

Someone has ruminated on how to illustrate the scope of this new world. They've translated four-dimensional ideas into 2-d ones: a thread of ink to represent a raging river, a star instead of a sprawling metropolis, the little crenelations of a rocky shore. 

Now, how to hustle my rag-tag band of heroes along to the end of their roads?
Picture
4 Comments
Edwin Nelson
2/3/2022 03:28:08 pm

I doubt you are a human "bean". Please don't become a "bean". This country has reached a new level of "beans" - non-thinkers.

Reply
Amy
2/4/2022 12:43:11 pm

Thanks Edwin --
I don't think that's my current fate, but thank you!
Beans are an inside joke/reference to a pair of children's books. Human beings are mispronounced in Mary Norton's wonderful novel "The Borrowers." (She also wrote "Bedknobs and Broomsticks")
The same mistake is used comically in Roald Dahl's "The BFG."

Reply
Sarah Ellen Smith
2/3/2022 08:24:00 pm

We’ll you filled in some blanks for me.
Good stuff sis.

Reply
Amy
2/4/2022 12:47:09 pm

Hi Sis!
Cousin Shirley reminds me that it was Springville, not Springfield, and the MacMillans are in point of fact the McMillans. Which is exactly how old family stories migrate into new territory...

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    About the Blog

    A lot of ground gets covered on this blog -- from sailboat racing to book suggestions to plain old piffle. 

    To narrow the focus, select one of the  Categories below.

    Follow

    Trying to keep track? Follow me on Facebook or Twitter or if you use an aggregator, click the RSS option below.

    RSS Feed

    Old school? Sign up for the newsletter and I'll shoot you a short e-mail when there's something new.

      Newsletter

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    December 2023
    September 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    Beauty Products
    Big Parks Trip
    Birds
    Boatbuilding
    Books
    Brains
    Contest & Prize
    Dogs
    Everglades Challenge
    Family Stories
    Farming
    Fashion
    Feminism
    Fiction
    Fish
    Flowers
    Flying Scot Sailboat
    Food
    Genealogy
    Handwork
    Health
    History
    Horses
    I
    International Lightning Class
    Mechanical Toys
    Migraine
    Movie References
    Music
    Piffle
    Pigs And Pork
    Poems
    Sailboat Racing
    Sculpture
    Social Media
    Song
    Subconscious Messages And Dream
    Travel
    Wildlife
    Writing

Picture
© COPYRIGHT 2023. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • She Taught Me Everything
  • Blog
  • Publications
  • Me. Me. Me.
  • More!
  • Contact
  • Signed Copies for sale
  • Get a Book
  • Reviews & Awards