One of the greatest pleasures of writing adventure books set in the Scottish countryside is researching locations: up hills, on beaches, and in lots of beautiful bits of Scotland.
But I don’t just go for a wander somewhere pretty! I visit potential locations to find out what’s there, but also to imagine what isn’t…
For the Fabled Beast series, I mostly researched locations I already knew from family holidays, like the Ring of Brodgar and Dunvegan Castle, or well-known tourist locations that were easy to find on the map, like Smoo Cave and Dunadd fort.
For the Spellchasers trilogy, I revisited woods and rivers and hills and moors that I knew from my Speyside childhood, and looked at them with a writer’s eyes, which was a slightly odd experience.
However, for my new series (which doesn’t have a name yet, and I can’t give away any spoilers – mostly because I’m not sure what happens in the end myself…) I’m mostly setting the action in places I’ve never been before, and often choosing to visit places that aren’t well-known, and aren’t always marked on a map…
So I might think: I want to defeat this monster, where could we do that? And after a bit of research I find an ancient poem hinting at a mysterious weapon used at a real historical battle, and decide to visit the site of the battle…
Or I might think: I want to write about that magical creature, where might she live? I know, perhaps she lives near the childhood home of my favourite folklorist…
Or I might say: I love that really obscure fairy tale, I wonder if I can find the (non-existent, magical) hill that fits the story?
So it’s like magical geographical detective work, with a fair bit of research and map-reading before I go. And when I get there, even if I can find the right location, it’s never exactly how I’d imagined it…
I’m discovering lots of bits of Scotland I didn’t know very well before, and lots of potential locations with historical or folklore connections which I think will be really exciting to write about.
Because that’s the point – I do all this research in order to write the best story I can. I visit all these places hoping to imagine new ways to use magic and ambushes and battles and surprises. I sit on rocks or walls or tree stumps, letting the landscape suggest new and exciting ‘what happens nexts’ for me to write, and new and challenging questions for me and my characters to answer.
I don’t tend to take photos of locations, because I reckon that if I can’t find the words to describe them when I’m actually standing there, I’m not going to be able to do it when I’m sitting at my desk looking at a photo.
But my very helpful location research quest team member and driver sometimes takes pictures of me while I’m scribbling:
Me on a very wet beach in Skye. I bought a waterproof notebook after this research trip.
Me on a windy rainy hilltop in Annandale. (Having foolishly left the new waterproof notebook in the car, at the bottom of the hill.)
My temporary desk on a sunny day in Angus. I remembered the waterproof notebook (that’s it on top of the OS map) but didn’t need it…
But it’s not just about the where, it’s also about the when.
It’s all about the right time of year. I often visit a location at completely the wrong time of year, because I’m writing it at the wrong time of year… The book I’m writing right now is set in early July, ie right NOW, but I’ve been writing it since the start of the year and will be writing it until the end of year. However, I’m trying to do as much of the location research as possible at exactly the right time.
And just as well. I first visited the place my baddie lives before Easter, and noticed that all the stone walls my main character would have to climb over in order to sneak up on the baddie’s lair were overgrown with brambles, so I wrote a very thorn-based scene. I went back last week, to check a few other things, and the three months of sun and rain and growth meant that while there were still brambles, they were barely visible past nettles, sticky willies, rosebay willowherb, and these lovely wild roses. So if I had written what I’d seen in March, as if that’s what my character experienced in July, I would have been horribly wrong… The landscape itself may not change from month to month but the vegetation does, and if you are on foot tracking a monster, that’s quite important!
But fitting all this research into the few days when the story happens, means that I have to research the scenes in the wrong order. One day this week, I spent the morning researching the location for the battle at the end of the book, then in the afternoon, I visited the village where the main character first meets the baddie, a scene which happens several days and many chapters before that battle. It’s a bit like time travel…
But it’s great fun, and I hope it means that my stories feel real and convincing to anyone who is familiar with the locations of my battles and quests. Also I’m sure that I come up with original and spontaneous ideas when I’m standing on rainy beaches and windy hilltops that I would never imagine sitting at my calm dry desk…
So, now I have lots of inspiration. All I have to do is write down all the ideas. In roughly the right order…
I hope you have a great summer, finding locations for your own adventures!
And here is a bonus baby roe deer that I met while researching last week. (At least, I think it’s a roe deer – happy to be corrected!)
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