Conversation Post: Answer 1

[k_a_webb]

From: ysabetwordsmith at DW.

You mentioned using a local-to-you hotel as inspiration for the Donor House. What other influences does your environment have on your writing?

With pretty much all of my Earth based collections I try to set them in places I know, because that way I can describe the location better than I would if I was trying to set them in America or France or even Scotland. It is, of course, possible to research these places, but no amount of research can give you first hand knowledge of a real life setting. That’s why the second donor house will be located in the town I grew up in and it’s likely that the third one will be located somewhere in Devon. I know both of those places well enough to be able to write in detail about them.

The park the fae take over when they arrive on Earth in the Fae World collection in the park opposite where I live. The college that Anna goes to in the Pagan collection is the college I went to. The majority of the Kim’s World collection will be set locally, although it will be further in the future, so it will be slightly different to how it is now.

Personally I find it much easier to write if I know where I’m setting the story, although some do come to me purely with characters to begin with. There are still some stories that I need to work out where they’re set, like with Claire’s inherited hotel, but I know it’s local to me, as that’s closest to where one of the main doors was.

My environment can have an effect on my magical worlds too, as I’ve lived in the UK my whole life and know more about the weather here than I do anywhere else. However I’ve found it much easier to understand how it differs in other places than I have trying to understand a city by walking the streets on Google maps, which gives me more freedom to change the way things work. Aerith, for example, is a world that has only one season, because the collection is based on a dream I had where I walked through a magical doorway from Autumn into Winter. Originally the World Walkers collection was going to be a series of worlds with only one season each and I’m still planning on working that in somewhere.

The kingdom Aurora lives in has a very UK based weather system. Like me they deal with four seasons, although they are more seasonal than the ones we have, where you know what’s going to happen from one to the other, rather than wondering if they’re actually going to have a summer. Heliopath’s World is one I know a lot less about, although I know there are deserts, because it was always going to be set in the city.

With each of my fantasy collections I’ve tried to use a mix of what I know and what I can learn, along with a little magic, to make each of them different from the other and different from worlds that have already been created.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.