I am excited to welcome fellow mystery author Marilyn Meredith to Not Even Joking today. This might sound silly, but I am really inspired by what inspires others. I’m not even joking! That’s why I have been asking my guest bloggers to tell me about what inspires them. Like me, Marilyn Meredith is often inspired by setting.
If we’re talking about overall, many things inspire me—my family and especially the little ones, a trip to the coast and viewing the Pacific Ocean, or the Sierra with the Giant Sequoias. I could go on and on. However, instead, I’m going to write about what inspires me in my writing.
I write two series: the Rocky Bluff P.D. mysteries and the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries. In both, the locations inspire me greatly. The Rocky Bluff series is set on the coast in Southern California in a fictional town located between Ventura and Santa Barbara. The area itself has given me many plot ideas.
Usually, the Deputy Tempe Crabtree series is set in the fictional mountain town of Bear Creek located in the Southern Sierra which also includes the Bear Creek Indian Reservation. However, with the latest book, Not as it Seems, Tempe and her husband Hutch travel to Morro Bay for their son’s wedding. I love that whole area along the coast and have visited often. Much of the inspiration for the plot itself came from setting.
Tempe is a Yokut Indian and often has visits from the supernatural, and it happens often in Not as it Seems when spirits of the Salinan and Chumash Indians give her confusing insights. Of course what I learned about these Indians was part of my inspiration for this story. So I suppose that research should be added to what inspires me.
Morro Rock plays a big part in this particular mystery, a place of both beauty and inspiration. I’ve visited often and always knew one day it would have a position of honor in one of my books.
Morro Rock and Trees. Photo Courtesy of Marilyn Meredith.
For me as an author, many places I’ve been have given me ideas and prompted me to include them in my writing. I suspect it is the same with many others. After all, the setting is an important part of any book.
Not as it Seems by Marilyn Meredith
Tempe and Hutch travel to Morro Bay for son Blair’s wedding, but when the maid-of-honor disappears, Tempe tries to find her. The search is complicated by ghosts and Native spirits.
Marilyn Meredith lives in the foothills of the Southern Sierra, about 1000 feet lower than Tempe’s Bear Creek, but much resembles the fictional town and surroundings. She has nearly 40 books published, mostly mysteries. Besides writing, she loves to give presentations to writers’ groups. She’s on the board of the Public Safety Writers Association, and a member of Mystery Writers of America and three chapters of Sisters in Crime, including the Central Coast chapter. Visit Marilyn at http://fictionforyou.com/ or her blog http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/
Thank you so much for hosting me today. The blog looks wonderful.
Thank you! And thank you so much for joining me today!
Setting can often inspire a writer to create a better novel. Even if the setting is not the exact inspiration for the plot, I believe the reader must ‘see’ the setting to feel she/he is right there with the protagonist, experiencing the story events. Creating a believable setting adds so much to the story.
So true!
Thank you, Elaine. I certainly agree.
Your description of the Indian reservation in the Tempe Crabtree novels is certainly vivid, Marilyn. I love it when a writer makes me feel like I’ve been to the place in their fictional stories.
Thank you, Gayle. Though the reservation I write about is there, and much of my descriptions are exactly as it is–I do fictionalize a bit. As I tell different Indians who come up to me and say, “You’re the lady who writes about us,” my answer is, “I borrow from you, but I’m writing fiction.”
Thank you, Gayle. Though the reservation I write about is there, and much of my descriptions are exactly as it is–I do fictionalize a bit. As I tell different Indians who come up to me and say, “You’re the lady who writes about us,” my answer is, “I borrow from you, but I’m writing fiction.”
I loved the change of scenery for Tempe!
I love Morro Bay and around, it was fun to write about it, Lorna.