Having lived in a small town during my teen years and after, I’ll be the first to admit that there are pros and cons to small town life. But I’ll also admit that I love writing books set there. Why? Maybe because it’s fiction, and I can show all the pros and skip the cons. You know, all the coziness of a small town without the gossip and everyone knowing everyone else’s business. Oops! I shouldn’t be telling tales, should I?
I was born in the big city and spent my early childhood there. Not BIG big city. Presently, our population is half a million, but that includes those surrounding bedroom communities. You know, some of those small towns. When I was twelve, we moved from the city to a small town where my mother was born and filled with relatives. Every time I mentioned someone from school, my mom would ask who “they belonged to”. More than likely, she knew something about the family, if not that we were somehow related, even in shirttail fashion. I became comfortable with it after a time and learned to adjust to a new style of life—a life full of cousins and knowing everyone and having lots of fun. Even better, I spent six years in the same school, more than I’d ever spent in one school before. It was heaven. Being a bit ornery, when my daughters attended school there later, I loved playing the “cousins” game with them, just as my mother had with me.
But after returning to that small town following my divorce and twenty-four years on a farm, I started to see a side to the town I’d never realized and wish I’d never known. Even my daughters noticed things had changed. So we’re back in the big city again, we being myself and my daughters, and I love having fast food within a few blocks, instead of a twenty mile drive away. I still miss the wide-open spaces of life on the farm and running in to friends in the small town grocery store. I’m saddened that the small town where I finished my youth became a refuge of city dwellers who eventually brought with them all the problems they should have left behind. I miss the small town it once was, so I fashion my fictional small towns on the good things I remember most. The funny characters who’ve lived there all their lives and make the town come alive, the friends who wave as you drive down the one or two blocks of “downtown” make small town living...comfy and warm and accepting.
Some of my best memories are of living in that small town, and I try to share some of those—although a bit fictionalized—with readers.
Showing posts with label Midwest Towns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Midwest Towns. Show all posts
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Setting Influences Character
Hello Everyone!
This month some of us are talking about settings for our stories, and I have to say I'm more excited to read this blog than ever. Back in the dark ages, all the romances were set in exotic foreign places. Now, I love those books and still read them, don't get me wrong, but I thought: hmmm, don't American men and women fall in love? Isn't there any romantic city in the USA? So when the first American settings appeared, with American men I might dream about, and American women who could just as easily be friends I grew up with, I was thrilled. (Anyone willing to believe I was also three years old?)
My first book is set in Chicago, a city known for its wind, chill, pizza, politics, and most recently, our President. There are little neighborhoods, impossible one-way streets, and places that are--well, let's just say you wouldn't want to be caught there after dark. I love Chicago. I asked the Harlequin art department to put skyscrapers on the cover of Marrying the Boss since Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright (plus others I can't think of now, sorry) "invented" the tall buildings there after the Chicago Fire. It's a big city so it has an "on the edge" feel, but with a Midwest twang. This influences the lives of my characters, of course.
For my second book, I created a fictional town outside of Kansas City, Missouri. "Howard" has a small-town flavor, where everyone knows everyone else and your mom's friends tell her if you're out on a date--or not. My hero in The Fake Fiancee had to deal with this situation after he told his mom he was "practically" engaged, when in fact he wasn't seeing anyone. Poor Joe had been out on the West Coast too long and forgotten how small towns work. His intentions were good (protecting his mom's fragile health), as he's a decent Midwestern man. I loved when characters showed up to bedevil them--at the Garden Society Exhibit, the movie theater, in restaurants, everywhere he and his "fake fiancee" went. It's fun to place the hero and heroine in boring locations (the laudromat, for instance) and see how their presence there makes the spot romantic.
The big city whirlwind and the small town coziness both appeal to me since they "grow" such different crops of characters. Do you have a preference?
Till next month,
Megan Kelly
megankellybooks.com
This month some of us are talking about settings for our stories, and I have to say I'm more excited to read this blog than ever. Back in the dark ages, all the romances were set in exotic foreign places. Now, I love those books and still read them, don't get me wrong, but I thought: hmmm, don't American men and women fall in love? Isn't there any romantic city in the USA? So when the first American settings appeared, with American men I might dream about, and American women who could just as easily be friends I grew up with, I was thrilled. (Anyone willing to believe I was also three years old?)
My first book is set in Chicago, a city known for its wind, chill, pizza, politics, and most recently, our President. There are little neighborhoods, impossible one-way streets, and places that are--well, let's just say you wouldn't want to be caught there after dark. I love Chicago. I asked the Harlequin art department to put skyscrapers on the cover of Marrying the Boss since Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright (plus others I can't think of now, sorry) "invented" the tall buildings there after the Chicago Fire. It's a big city so it has an "on the edge" feel, but with a Midwest twang. This influences the lives of my characters, of course.
For my second book, I created a fictional town outside of Kansas City, Missouri. "Howard" has a small-town flavor, where everyone knows everyone else and your mom's friends tell her if you're out on a date--or not. My hero in The Fake Fiancee had to deal with this situation after he told his mom he was "practically" engaged, when in fact he wasn't seeing anyone. Poor Joe had been out on the West Coast too long and forgotten how small towns work. His intentions were good (protecting his mom's fragile health), as he's a decent Midwestern man. I loved when characters showed up to bedevil them--at the Garden Society Exhibit, the movie theater, in restaurants, everywhere he and his "fake fiancee" went. It's fun to place the hero and heroine in boring locations (the laudromat, for instance) and see how their presence there makes the spot romantic.
The big city whirlwind and the small town coziness both appeal to me since they "grow" such different crops of characters. Do you have a preference?
Till next month,
Megan Kelly
megankellybooks.com
Thursday, August 16, 2007
People make Small Towns Special
The jitters are building as the weekend approaches. I have my first-ever book signing by myself (Yikes) at the Waldenbooks this Saturday in my hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin. I'll be signing the last book in my McKade Brothers series, Ryan's Renovation. The PR work that has gone into this event has made me appreciate more than ever "small-town" people. No wonder these towns play such an integral part in many of our American Romance books. To me, the people are as important as the setting in this popular Harlequin line.
Today, with a population inching toward 60,000, most poeple no longer consider Janesville a small town. But when I grew up there things were much "smaller". Few fast food restaurants. Posted speed limits of 25 miles per hour. The biggest retailer was K-Mart and Farm and Fleet. But amid all this change and growth the people in Janesville have remained constant--warm, friendly and supportive of one of their own...
I was hoping to secure a blurb announcing the time and date of the book signing in the Janesville Gazette. (Local newspaper) The editors gave me a front-page story above the fold. Then someone in town heard about my signing and called the Beloit Daily News (next town over) and a day later I did a phone interview with a reporter from that paper.
Then someone told someone else at the Headberg Library and the adult services coordinator contacted me to do a program for the library in the near future and another book signing. Then a friend of my sister's (Lorri) posted my book signing news to all the local media (radio/TV) internet lists and high school alumni lists. This action prompted several phone calls to the Waldenbooks asking if this Marin Thomas person was really Brenda Smith, the girl who grew up in Janesville.
So here I am sitting in my office typing this blog, while those wonderful people in my hometown are doing what they do best--spreading the word about my book signing and supporting one of their own. No wonder I love writing American Romances--small-town characters are part of my roots and what I know best.
Marin
Ryan's Renovation Aug 07
Today, with a population inching toward 60,000, most poeple no longer consider Janesville a small town. But when I grew up there things were much "smaller". Few fast food restaurants. Posted speed limits of 25 miles per hour. The biggest retailer was K-Mart and Farm and Fleet. But amid all this change and growth the people in Janesville have remained constant--warm, friendly and supportive of one of their own...
I was hoping to secure a blurb announcing the time and date of the book signing in the Janesville Gazette. (Local newspaper) The editors gave me a front-page story above the fold. Then someone in town heard about my signing and called the Beloit Daily News (next town over) and a day later I did a phone interview with a reporter from that paper.
Then someone told someone else at the Headberg Library and the adult services coordinator contacted me to do a program for the library in the near future and another book signing. Then a friend of my sister's (Lorri) posted my book signing news to all the local media (radio/TV) internet lists and high school alumni lists. This action prompted several phone calls to the Waldenbooks asking if this Marin Thomas person was really Brenda Smith, the girl who grew up in Janesville.
So here I am sitting in my office typing this blog, while those wonderful people in my hometown are doing what they do best--spreading the word about my book signing and supporting one of their own. No wonder I love writing American Romances--small-town characters are part of my roots and what I know best.
Marin
Ryan's Renovation Aug 07
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