YOU'RE WRITING IN THE WRONG PLACE
HOW PLACES INFORM MY WRITING
Heartfelt thanks for subscribing and reading as I ramble my way from winter into spring in my little writing corner in Scotland.
After days of mizzle (drizzle and sea mist), the clouds have broken and the sun is reflecting in the kitchen window. Today, I can see clearly across the Firth of Forth towards Edinburgh and the Lothians as far as the inverted V-shape of Berwick Law at North Berwick. At sea, where ships turn on the tide, stands the jagged mound of the Bass Rock where seabirds scream.
Place. Setting. Are you inspired by places? I am. Maybe it’s because I live in coastal Scotland only steps away from a castle, with access to trees, countryside, beaches, mountains, castles. From here, it’s easy to travel into breathtaking cities too. The Fife coastal route by train to and from Edinburgh is a most beautiful train journey over the red Forth Railway Bridge and the train then hugs its way along the sea edges along the picturesque coast of Fife!
Sometimes place helps set the story, or improves it - other times the place is a gorgeous creative tap. It’s not always the picturesque, quiet place that helps the imagination! Here’s me on a recent Glasgow weekend. I could’ve sat here all day and night reading and writing! People say the architecture of Glasgow inspired New York, so much so that the Glasgow streets are often used as a filming backdrop for car chases of New York, or in one case…zombie chases (hello, Brad Pitt!)
My stories often centre around beautiful places. My published stories have featured: the highlands and islands of Scotland, the city of Dundee, the west end of Glasgow, the old town streets of Edinburgh, a cruise ship, Cornwall, Rome, and Florence. Some are directly mentioned, others inspired the story-writing.
When drafting a story I will ask myself:
Is there a place, a setting, that will enhance this story?
I wonder what story could happen there and only there?
Other times, I file away the knowledge of a special place.
That’s exactly what happened with one of my first acceptances of 2025. I’d wanted to set a story in the stunning location of The Minack Theatre in Cornwall: the theatre at the edge of the world.
I can’t describe how stunning this place looked as we walked down a pathway and entered. There was no warning that it would take your breath away, root you to the spot.
At Porthcurno in Cornwall, an amphitheatre has been hewn out of a rock cliff. Surrounded by the most colourful terraced gardens, it’s the typical case of what is in the writer’s head is so very difficult to put into words. Breath-taking is a cliche description, but it did make me gasp. Quite apart from the wonder of this place and how it was built, the location itself is unbelievably pretty. On that sunny day, turquoise waters stretched out beyond the Minack, white sandy coves sprinkled like lacquered pearls.
Rowena Cade was brought up in a genteel Edwardian family, inspired to transform a Cornish cliff-face into an open-air arena, much of it literally built with her own hands.
Each year, over 200 live performances are staged at the Minack, including plays, musicals, opera, music, and children’s events. Tens of thousands of people attend under the stars. If you are inspired to visit, please book a ticket in advance so as not to be disappointed. More so, if you want to attend a performance.
My first thought was to set a proposal story here but that immediately felt too cliched, too predictable. The initial thrust of my story was much more melancholic, with a long-married couple returning to a place where they’d enjoyed a family holiday many years before.
I’m going to write more about the sprinkles of magic that made that story work. The setting was one very particular element, but there was more. It will appear in print in a few months time, so I’ll post more details then. The Minack Miracle is a story I’m proud of and I love, love, love the setting and…sssshhhhhh! I really can’t say any more, not yet!
There’s another reason that setting, or something particular about the place of a story, is so very important for short stories in print or on the internet - and that is, illustration. I’m lucky to have had many of my stories illustrated by professional artists and it’s always a thrill to see how they’ve interpreted the characters, setting, and key elements of the story. Would you like to see some illustrations from my stories? I’ll get some of them together and share in a post!
Our upstairs renovation is 80% complete and when that room is finished, I hope to frame and hang some of those illustrations on the wall. The thought is keeping me going at the moment!
Thanks once again for being here. I really do appreciate you more than you can know.
Until next time.
From my Little Writing Corner in Scotland.
Happy reading…and happy writing x x
Nice, and resonates with me. After 30 years writing non-fiction, mostly about the outdoors, which involved a lot of travel to wonderful places, I'm much more focused on fiction in the last few years… but my outdoor experience feeds into the stories and the settings in all sorts of ways. My current series is set in an imagined world; it's essentially a future Earth, but not tied to a specific geographical location. Still, individual places within the world are mostly hybrids or approximations to real places I've been.
I enjoyed listening to your reading of this post last night in bed; it made it much more personal. Then today looking through your photos. They remind me that Fife has o lot more sunshine than west Perthshire, where west coast weather blows through the glens!
Yes, it would be lovely to see some illustrations of your stories.