Location, Locaton by Neil McGowan
I’ve been out and about the last couple of days, and with more to come. The reason? Twofold, really. One is to spend some time with my family – my wife and I have next week off, and it’s the school holidays here in Scotland so what better opportunity. The other reason is more selfish – I’m looking around for inspiration and ideas of locations that may fit into current or future stories. Although I generally write contemporary crime for adults, I try to place it in a setting I’m familiar with, which usually means Edinburgh and its surroundings. As I usually have a few ideas of certain key scenes when working out the details of a book or story, I find it helpful if I can ground them in real places. My most recent book for adults, The Missing, had certain elements of the plot altered when I wrote the first draft as I worked in real places. (Of course, I usually change the names of places, although a person familiar with the area will almost certainly know what I’m really referring to.) ...