Okay, so finding that inner muse is always tricky, but today I decided to go with the location theme. I closed my eyes, thought of a place I’d like to go to and decided to set my story there.

But then the classic problem arose – I know what it looks like to me. I know the shade of the light, the smell of the street and the sounds of the lapping waves. I know what my island setting in the glorious Aegean is. But my characters are not me.

I can get round that problem for a single character – they can view it the same way I can eg like this:

 

But stories have more than a single character. And characters that are not flat do not see things the same way. Or at the same time. So someone else views the same place like this:

And Google Maps view it completely differently (I’m not going to add that image here, but you get the drift).

Solution? I compiled a bunch of photos of my location at different times of year, day etc. Then I found other people’s photos of the same place – in magazines, blogs, adverts and so on.

And then I allowed my characters to choose which version they liked.