Paranormal Mystery/Urban Fantasy:
I asked Gail about what she had to do to use Charleston as the setting for the first book in her new paranormal series Deadly Curiosities. I had been to Charleston and knew some of what was real but wondered about the things I had not seen or heard about. Read her post to see what she decided to use and what she made up. Then follow this link or scroll down to see my review of Deadly Curiosities.
The
Haunting of Charleston: Setting Deadly Curiosities in the Real World
By
Gail Z. Martin
My
new urban fantasy novel, Deadly Curiosities, is set in modern-day Charleston,
SC. Charleston is one of the most-visited tourist cities in the U.S., and it
deserves its fame. It’s an old city in a young country, and it’s played a big
role in history, from the American Revolution through the Civil War and into
the current headlines. It’s beloved for its food, its architecture, its
horse-drawn carriage rides and its multitude of ghost stories. And when I
visited Charleston a few years ago, I thought that all of those features made
it a perfect setting for an urban fantasy series.
So
how does an author handle writing fantasy in the real world?
Carefully,
and with a lot of fact-checking.
In
my Chronicles of the Necromancer series and my Ascendant Kingdoms Saga books,
the setting is entirely of my own making. Yes, the kingdoms have a medieval,
somewhat Western European look to them, but their history, their geography,
everything about them is completely out of my imagination. There’s no historian
who can gainsay me that I got the dates wrong for King So-And-So’s reign, or
that some other historic point is incorrect. My world, my history.
That
all goes out the window when you’re writing about a city where hundreds of
thousands of people actually live, and many thousands more have visited.
I
remember talking to someone who actually lived in Hawaii when Hawaii-Five-0 was
on TV back in the 1970s. When I asked about the show, he said that people who
lived in Honolulu regularly had a good chuckle when the cops on TV went to the
corner of streets that didn’t intersect, buildings that didn’t exist, etc. Some
of those “errors” might well have been intentional to avoid causing problems
for real businesses. (There have been horror stories about companies or
individuals who had an address or phone number used in a movie, TV show or
song.) But whether intentional or
not, the locals noticed.
On
one hand, there’s no point setting a book in a real city if you aren’t going to
use real landmarks and snippets of the city’s actual history. Otherwise, you
might as well just make the whole place up and be done with it.
On
the other hand, as an author you don’t want to accidently cast aspersions on
real people (living or dead—unless they are so famous that they are essentially
in the public domain, like Abraham Lincoln). And if you’re looking for a
location for a gruesome murder, vicious ghoul attack, human sacrifice or some
other less-than-flattering activity, it’s reasonable to think that private
businesses don’t want that kind of thing linked to them, even in fiction.
(Public sites, like monuments, parks, government buildings, etc. are fair
game.)
So
while the locale in which a major event happens in the book does exist (the old
Navy yard), the buildings I reference are completely fictitious. So are the
businesses that Cassidy patronizes as well as their owners. On the other hand,
landmarks like the Charleston City Market, Battery Row, and White Point Garden
do exist, grounding the story in some reality and giving visitors to Charleston
a clear image of where the action takes place.
Some
of the historical figures I mention (like the famous murderess Lavinia Fisher)
are real. Others I created based on historical precedent, but not on a single
historical person. When writing in a modern-day setting, I Google names to
avoid accidentally using the name of a local person, and I’m cautious about
using references to influential people from the past since they may well have
living relatives in the area. None of these were things I had to worry about in
my epic fantasy!
I’ve
taken some liberties with the city’s history as well. If I can find an
interesting event in history that works into the story, that’s great. But if I
need something to advance the plot, I’ll insert a little alternate history to
make it work. After all, if magic is operative and Charleston is filled with
vampires and Voodoo, adding a new pirate or an extra hurricane here or there is
not such a big stretch!
At
the end of the day, I want the series to feel comfortable and familiar to those
who know Charleston well. Maybe the Charleston in my books isn’t exactly the
city they’ve visited or lived in, but all the right touchstones
are there to make them feel at home. And with luck, the ways I’ve altered the
city and its history to meet the needs of the story feel authentic, the
Charleston that could be or might have been. After all, this is fiction!
About
the Author:
Gail
Z. Martin is the author of the new epic fantasy Reign of Ash (Orbit Books 2014) and Deadly Curiosities, a new urban fantasy novel (July 2014 Solaris
Books), set in Charleston, SC. She is also author of Ice Forged in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, War of Shadows (Orbit Books, 2015), and Iron and Blood, a Steampunk novel (2015, Solaris Books). She is the author of The Chronicles of
The Necromancer series (The Summoner, The
Blood King, Dark Haven & Dark Lady’s Chosen) from Solaris Books and The
Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn and The
Dread) from Orbit Books. She
writes two series of ebook short stories: The
Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly
Curiosities Adventures.
Gail’s
work will appear in at several new anthologies in 2014: Clockwork Universe Steampunk vs. Aliens, Athena’s Daughters, Dreams of
Steel 5, The Big Bad 2, Dance Like a Monkey, plus an illustrated
story in Icarus: A Graphic Novel, Heroes (stretch goal author) the British
Fantasy Society’s Unexpected Journeys
and With Great Power, a superhero
anthology. Other US/UK anthologies include Magic
(Solaris), The Bitten Word, Rum
& Runestones, Spells &
Swashbucklers, and The Mammoth Book
of Ghost Stories by Women.
