Anne K. Albert: Sites, Settings and Scenery

Welcome, Anne, to my mountaintop.  It's always great to have you here. Please tell us about "Sites, Settings and Scenery."

Beginning writers spend considerable time and energy creating believable characters, writing snappy dialogue and developing action packed plots. It’s understandable, therefore, their tendency to ignore setting, but they do so at their own peril.

By definition, setting is the locale or period in which the action of a novel takes place. It can be urban, rural, tropical, wintry, foreign, indigenous, and/or everything in between. A sleepy English village on a clear, crisp winter’s day for example, is a profoundly different setting from a bustling Asian city of fifteen million battered by a category five typhoon.

Setting, however, is more than just scenery. It establishes mood. It creates conflict and causes turmoil. It impacts and changes the characters. A great setting can solve a sagging middle. 

It can (and should) move the story forward.

 For my romantic suspense series, the Piedmont Island Trilogy, I created a fictional island community in northeastern Minnesota near the Canadian border. It’s surrounded by Lake Superior, the largest body of fresh water in the world. It’s four seasons, tall pines, rugged rock cliffs and panoramic vistas are the perfect backdrop. This is a small island community where troubles outnumber residents. It allows for a small cast of characters who would naturally know each other. The setting fits the requirements of the genre, and resonates with readers.

Niagara Falls in western New York State is a very different place. It’s urban, hectic, touristy, and echoes the colorful characters and mayhem in Frank, Incense and Muriel, book one of the Muriel Reeves Mysteries. Readers around the globe are already familiar with the region. They think of Niagara Falls as a natural wonder and a romantic destination.

The homes, office buildings, and businesses frequented by the story people, however, are of my own creation because cities, like humans, are in a constant state of flux. Nothing stays the same forever. To retain authenticity in this series I provide a taste of Niagara Falls without being slave to its current reality. The city and surrounding area may change over the years, but its amenities, eccentricities and flare will remain consistent throughout the pages of each book.

Setting isn’t just scenery. It’s a vital tool in every writer’s tool kit. Use it wisely, and happy writing!

Blurb: FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL is set the week before Christmas when the stress of the holidays is enough to frazzle anyone’s nerves. Tensions increase when a friend begs Muriel to team up with a sexy private investigator to find a missing woman. Forced to deal with an embezzler, kidnapper, and femme fatale is bad enough, but add Muriel’s zany yet loveable family to the mix and their desire to win the coveted D-DAY (Death Defying Act of the Year) Award, and the situation can only get worse. This cozy, comedic mystery is recipient of the prestigious 2011 Holt Medallion Award of Merit.

Thanks so much, Jean. It’s always a pleasure to drop by and chat! I’d like to remind readers I’m giving away an e-copy of FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL at the conclusion of the Mystery We Write tour. Leave a comment to automatically be entered in the draw. The winner will be announced April 28 at http://anne-k-albert.blogspot.com.

Thank you, Anne. It's always a pleasure to have you visit here.

Anne K. Albert’s award winning stories "chill the spine, warm the heart and soothe the soul…all with a delightful touch of humor." A member of Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and married to her high school sweetheart for more than a quarter of a century, it's a given she'd write mystery and romantic suspense. When not writing she loves to travel, visit friends and family, and of course, read using ‘Threegio’ her cherished and much beloved Kindle 3G!

You can visit Anne at her website: Anne K. Albert. and her blog site.
You can buy her novel, Frank, Incense and Muriel at Amazon.com