Lari’s Writing blog

I visited Traquair Maze again last week, filming an interview about Maze Running. I’ve been to the maze several times now, the first couple of times to research the novel, then another couple of times for press and publicity things (research is far more fun!) But this time, something had changed.
We came round the corner of the lovely old house, lugging cameras and tripods and copies of the book, and we walked into a
BEAR.
A bear. Just standing there. Ignoring us.
It took a minute to realise that it was a statue of a bear. There were two of them: one bear near the corner of the maze by the house, the other bear near the entrance of the maze. And they were obviously permanent residents – there was even a sign saying ‘do not lean on the bears.’ It’s probably ok to feed them, or tell them stories, though!
They were lovely bears. But they annoyed me, because they weren’t there when I researched the book! So when I described Helen running round the maze, or Sapphire landing between the house and the maze, I didn’t mention any bears. And now someone reading the book who knows the maze, or someone who visits the maze after reading the book, might say: ‘How came Helen never saw those big bears?’ or ‘Why didn’t that writer research the maze properly before she wrote this book?’
I did research it! And if the bears had been there when I first visited, Helen would undoubtedly have used them in some clever way to defeat the Master.
But the bears weren’t there last year. So they didn’t make it into the book, and now the book is already out of date, even though it was only published a couple of months ago.
Does it matter? Is it just one of the risks of using real life places, that they don’t stay the same? It’s happened to me before though…
When I first visited Dunvegan Castle to case the joint for the break-in during Wolf Notes, there was a ‘prisoner moaning’ sound effect in the dungeons which sounded like a monster howling, so I put that in my book. When I went back to do an event about Wolf Notes, they had changed their sound track and the moan wasn’t there any more. (So I read a different bit that day!)
These changes in a location can make me feel like the world is moving my goalposts without telling me. And every time it happens, I think, ‘oh no, I should never revisit locations!’
I never regret using real locations, though, because I want the fabled beasts to have their adventures in the same Scotland we live in!
But sometimes these new discoveries at locations can enhance the book, in a way which is almost magical.
I researched Smoo Cave for Storm Singing in the winter, so there were no boat tours to the inner caves (that didn’t affect my research, because all the action happened in the outer cave and the first cave, which you can see from the viewing platform.)
I went back the next summer, to read the quest in the cave to a group of kids in the cave, and I went on the boat trip too. When the tour guide dropped bread in the water of the dark cave, where I had imagined a giant eel snapping at Helen’s feet, suddenly the water was alive with fish, snapping at the bread. That was a spooky and shocking realisation that what I had imagined – predators under the water – wasn’t very far from the truth!
Locations change, of course they do. That’s bound to happen if I use real life places. Sometime they change in a way which makes my research a wee bit out of date, and sometimes they change in ways which make the adventures seem even more true!
And I didn’t really get too annoyed about unexpected bears. Especially when they were happy for me to read Maze Running to them…

Reading Maze Running to a Bear

Unexpected bear, at Traquair