Novel in Progress
 

Hi everyone. So I'm in the process of writing a young adult novel that takes place in the South. In which state, I'm not sure. I was in the hopes of visiting a small southern town for inspiration: to completely absorb and surround myself with how life in a small town moves. There is a writer's retreat in Charleston, SC every year, but it takes place by the seaside and I wouldn't gain inspiration from that. So with that being said, do any of you have destinations from which I could gain inspiration from? I already have one in mind but I'm curious as to what all of you have to say. If I travel there, I would be staying a week. Thank you so much in advance.

I have a suggestion based on the premise that it's important to write what you know. I think visiting anywhere for a week would give you very little insight with real meaning. I'd recommend rethinking your project with the idea that somewhere you've been for years might inspire you more deeply and produce higher quality work, assuming you can put it down, than any fictional "south" you might imagine.

"Writing what you," should be revised to be read, "Writing what you by the time you write it." There have countless books written from the imagination and or extensive research.

But...

The problem with writing about something of which you know nothing or little, is that there will always be someone who knows a great deal. And when you write about a location, there are phrases, references, ways of describing locations and people, etc. that are specific to that area.

You can do your due diligence but that will be expensive and time consuming.

Reed Farrel Coleman, the well regarded mystery writer, says, "You can write about guns. You can write about the Civil War. But if you write about Civil War guns, you better damn well know what you are talking about."

How to research for a book about a small town in 10 easy steps:

Step 1: convince spouse to move there. Wherever you pick must be less than 2,000 in population, and no movie theaters, restaurants or malls. "Civilization" must be at least an hour away. Part of the fun of small town life is those monthly trips to Costco.
Step 2: live there for no less than 20 years. Still fell like an outsider in year 20, but that's okay, your kids probably don't. Of course, they will leave for college and move to a big city at 18 because even if they didn't want to leave...no jobs.
Step 3, 4, 5: develop an unhealthy interest in church dinners, funerals, high school sports. Lose one friend to either meth, farm accident, or drowning.
Step 6: get the hell out of Dodge and retire to the "big city" I.e. the town of 30-80,000 people an hour away.
Step 7: complain about the traffic, crime, and cost of living.
Step 8: Move back to small town.
Step 9: write the book
Step 10: self publish and have the gas station sell it. The only people who will read it are the people who live in the town.


In other words, I agree with Mme Perdu. But on the other hand, if you want no realism at all, stick a pin in a map about a town no one has heard of and that you've never visited and populate it with...I dunno...sparkly vampires. It worked out for both Stephanie Meyer and Forks, WA;)

IMHO, writing only rings true when the writer writes about things, people, places he/she knows and understands. That takes much longer than a week.

Everyone has said it well--and the South is really NOT the easiest genre to learn in a week.
And not sure why the seaside in Charleston wouldn't inspire!!! It does it for me! LOL

I'd be interested in the one you have in mind.
Try Chester, SC or Ridgeway, SC. Dillon, SC. where there is still the sign for the 2 story main street opera house. Troy, NC. a mill town. Fort Mill, SC for a town with the wealthy "mill owner" still there but a great philanthropist and ecological maven. Mountain towns of NC for an entirely different take on life. New Bern, NC for old colonial history and money. York, SC for historical setting.

So what was yours.

Gretchen, yours was the most helpful. Thank you. I was thinking about Aiken, SC.

As far as inspiration is concerned, I always mention the advice of Chuck Close, perhaps the greatest living American artist, which also applies to writers:

Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will - through work - bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art [idea].' And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you'll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you [did] today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.

IMDonehere, great advice. I know several successful authors, and they would agree.

Thank you History. I am on a few boards with young or inexperienced writers and they become mired in the romance and the stereotypes that surround writing. But the only way to be successful is to sit your bony ass down and do the hard work, write.

Some of my professors were brand name writers who specialized in historical fiction. There is so much in making that work beyond research. What young or inexperienced writers do not understand is that the sense of time and place as is important as dry facts. That introducing exposition is an art unto itself. And that creating vivid, original, and interesting characters and events that reflect that time and place and the research is the substance of the imagination.

Aiken or Camden aren't bad choices. They are the horsey set if that is your bent. Different from a lot of other places.

In a way, Durham and Winston Salem would be interesting towns--both with a LOT of wealth and a lot of industry plus the town and gown. And the wealth in WS was of the kind that there was a lot of class strata

Addendum, the class strata of towns often makes even larger cities, "small" and insular.
SO much has changed in all these cities in the last 50 years however

Typical small town, not famous for anything - Conway SC.
Look in Georgia too. If it does not have to be the Deep South, look in Kentucky and Missouri.

Still think a week won’t help in creating a setting.

Madison GA

Elmore Leonard, famous for his realism, wrote westerns while living in Michigan and employed a full time researcher once his writing career took off. That guy’s job was to travel to places and collect information Leonard used in his books.

Stephanie Meyer set the hugely successful Twilight series of novels in Seattle, but she lived in Phoenix and had never been to the PNW. When she was writing the first book in the series, she couldn’t afford even a trip there. She did her own research.

There are as many ways to write fiction as there are writers. “Write what you know” shouldn’t be taken literally.

How about Mount Airy, NC? Not the Deep South, but it was the inspiration for Mayberry...

Elmore Leonard, was one of America's most under rated writers. His skill went far beyond incorporating research.

The Twilight series is not about Seattle, it is about teenage creatures in heat, whose readership I assume cares little about the backdrop.

James Michener had many researchers but his writing seemed to about constipation.

The American south is a well-trodden source of literature. As soon as anything is written, the comparisons will be fair, unfair, and critical. It behooves the OP to know what she is talking about.

I agree that you can’t spend one week anywhere and think you understand the place. Write about things you know.

BTW: “do any of you have destinations from which I could gain inspiration from?“
First, learn how to proofread.

Gee, I thought this was a travel board...