One of many advantages of being an academic is having the time to travel. Two years ago, my son and I went on a summer road trip to BayCon. With the end of the current semester, we’ve embarked on a new adventure.
I’ve had the good fortune to travel widely over my life. The experiences of many of the places I’ve visited have featured in my writing. Here are just a few:
Drenched with sweat and coated with dust, bouncing along on a wagon behind a tractor, stacking bales of hay under the hot sun.
An ancient Roman aqueduct, with a double row of arches, spanning a valley and still delivering fresh water thousands of years after construction.
The gritty, polluted atmosphere of São Paulo. Doors with multiple locks. Windows barred. Every big truck with a small follower car, a plastic dome in the roof that can pop off and, inside, several heavily-armed burly men.
The desert southwest of the United States with red rocks contrasting the dark green of the piñon pine and juniper. Scattered potsherds everywhere. Cool canyons with cottonwoods and huge tree frogs that are invisible until you spot one and then realized you were surrounded.
Climbing above the treeline of a high mountain pass with the sky all around and snow still in the shadows of the peaks. Beautiful alpine flowers blooming in the sunlight.
Thermal features steaming in a barren plain with twisted grey dead trees scattered across the landscape. The omnipresent smell of brimstone.
The golden sand of a tropical beach and the ocean in three or four shades of blue. Waves breaking over the distant reef, with huge cumulus clouds riding the trade winds out to sea.
Driving through mile and mile of sprawl — strip malls and auto dealerships — only to enter the boarded up decrepit buildings of an old downtown swallowed by the sprawl, and re-emerging on the other side to miles of further sprawl on the other side.
Standing at the rusty metal border fence, outside the United States, looking in, while armed border control guards drive white SUVs back and forth, watching — always watching.
Rolling through the run-down backside of the metropolis by rail, then diving underground into a subterranean warren of grimy cement pillars dimly glimpsed though uncertain light as the train rolls into Grand Central Station.
On a dirt road, trying to bicycle back onto the map. Racing a summer thunderstorm moving in from the west, and arriving at a country store just as the first drops start to fall. Lightning. Thunder. The power goes out.
Walking through a seemingly pristine forest, only to discover an old rail grade, piles of mine tailings, and old cellar holes, to remind you that, less than 200 years ago, the entire region was clearcut and occupied. Now abandoned.
I’ve posted previously about using geomorphology and botany for settings in fiction. Of course, it’s not just the physical and biological characteristics that make a setting. The people in a place are also essential components: How they look. How they dress. How they speak. How they interact. Plus the economic circumstances and level of development. And the cultural institutions and their manifestations in the landscape: houses, businesses, churches, government buildings, and their architectural styles.
When I first tried to write, I found myself frequently drawing from literary sources for my imaginary settings. But the longer I’ve lived, and the more places I’ve visited, I find my own recollections are so much more vivid and nuanced, that they are my primary source for constructing settings.
My current adventure has already taken me several new places I’ve not visited before. We spent several days in Asheville for a wedding and then drove through the Smoky Mountains, through Tennessee and Kentucky, to Illinois. Next week, we’ll go to the SFWA Nebula Conference in Kansas City. I look forward to all of the new experiences to come. Don’t be surprised if there are some new settings in my writing in the coming years!
