Setting a Book in a Small 1980s Town

Earlier this week, I wrote "The End" on my book manuscript, Evening of the Dragonfly. Writing those words at last gave a feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment. It also offered the opportunity for reflection about the setting.

Unlike my "Passenger to Paradise" books, this story features no exotic destination. Instead the setting is Jefferson City, Virginia. This fictitious town is a little like the community where I live but not exactly. Jefferson City is the same town I used for my novel, Daddy's Christmas Angel.

Small Town VA 2006  MMSikes

Creating a fictitious location gives the author a lot of opportunity for use of the imagination. While actual places can be sprinkled into the story from time to time, it's fun to watch completely fictitious locations develop and become real in a book.

This book, like Daddy's Christmas Angel, is set during the 1980s. I've chosen that time period because it's a time prior to 9 11 when we were more innocent and didn't know as much about hatred in the world. It was an era when people strolled along streets and looked around them at the scenery, not at the cell phones in their hands.

As in Daddy's Christmas Angel, the heroine of my story is a school teacher. Farrah Ferand is also an artist, and her paintings play a big part in the story.

In coming weeks, I'll write more about my new book.

Do you set your stories in fictitious locations? Do you set them in the present time or do you have a different time period that you like better?