Your Fictional World Needs a Setting or Location
Characters and plot are essentials in creating a fictional world. But that world also needs a setting or location.
Location is as important in fiction as in real estate. Our
characters don’t exist in a vacuum. They need a place, so to speak, to hang
their hats. And readers expect a certain amount of reality in that setting.
The Sticks Hetrick series is set in Swatara
Creek , Pennsylvania , a fictional
town of my creation near Harrisburg ,
the state capitol. There is a Swatara Creek and even a township bearing the
name, but the town is my invention. It’s representative of many of the older Susquehanna River towns which have become bedroom
communities for the more metropolitan areas of the commonwealth.
The town, which sits on a promontory in a bend of the stream
for which it’s named, owes its existence to one Jacob Koontz who acquired the
site circa 1754 after immigrating from Germany . Koontz opened a tavern in
a large limestone building which stands yet today on the square, though it now
serves as the town’s municipal building, police station and library.
Like similar small towns initially dependent on agriculture,
its economy was later stabilized by the addition of a shoe factory, a poultry
plant and other small industries. Agreement on naming the town got near the
fistfight stage after incorporation in 1958 until it was resolved with the
compromise of naming the community for the creek.
Because Swatara Creek is my creation I was free to lay out
the streets, describe the homes and other structures and develop businesses as
I saw fit. In a review of “Something In Common,” the first novel in the series,
Judy Clemens, author of the Grim Reaper and Stella Crown mysteries, said I did
“…a wonderful job of bringing his fictional small Pennsylvania town to life by
getting us into the minds of a multitude of characters.” Coming from a writer
for whom I have great respect, I believe I did my homework on this one.
Save for “Practice To Deceive,” in which Sticks and his love
interest, Anita Bailey, took a Caribbean cruise,
all of the books have been set in the environs of Swatara Creek and the locale
has become familiar to readers.
“A Burning Desire” is the sixth in the series.
(Blurb)
The past comes back to haunt former police chief Daniel
‘Sticks’ Hetrick and his protégé, Officer Flora Vastine as an outbreak of arson
shakes residents of rural Swatara Creek, Pennsylvania.
At first, the minor nature of the fires inclines authorities
to see them as pranks, possibly the work of juveniles. Then, tension increases
in the wake of a murder at the site of one fire and an increase in the value of
targets.
Hetrick and Flora must confront troubling, dangerous people
from the past, and errors in judgment add to their jeopardy.
To purchase books in the Hetrick series:
Other places to find J. R. Lindermuth:
Bio: The author of 13 novels and a non-fiction history, J.
R. Lindermuth is a retired newspaper editor and currently serves as librarian
of his county historical society where he assists patrons with genealogy and
research. His short stories and articles have been published in a variety of
magazines. He is a member of International Thriller Writers, EPIC and the Short
Mystery Society. His two children and four grandsons do their best to keep him
busy and out of trouble. When not writing, reading or occupied with family he
likes to walk, draw, listen to music and learn something new everyday.
Comments
Loved the town's description. Since I grew up on the other end of PA, nearer Philadelphia, I could visualize the town as I read.