Setting
A couple months ago, I attended a breakfast book event that featured author Elizabeth George, one of my favorite mystery writers. In the Q&A session that followed, someone asked Ms. George where she got her ideas. Elizabeth George writes a series in what the British would call crime fiction, and I'd have guessed her ideas mainly come from police blotters or the nightly news. Her answer surprised me: She gets the ideas. she said, from her settings. She visits the UK looking for a great setting and imagines what might happen there. Starting a book from the setting -- I wonder how usual that is. Does it depend on the genre? Certainly, setting is critical in sci-fi and fantasy, where worlds are created wholecloth...think of Narnia, Middle Earth, or Hogwarts. Stephen King said that his horror book The Shining was conceived after spending a night as the only guests in the grand old Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO the last night before it was to be closed for the winter. And c