Do you put your characters into your old houses?

I got to thinking this evening about the fact that I take houses where I used to live--or where my grandparents once lives--and turn them into settings in my fiction. Do you do this?

In this post, I mention that my characters' lives in those old homes are now more real to me than my own memories: http://knightofswords.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/old-homes/

Malcolm

I enjoyed that post, Malcolm, and replied to you there. One reason I
use the places I know is because... well, I know them! I try to use
places, houses and landdscape that I am familiar with and weave new and
different characters through them. It gives (I hope) the story life and
a feeling of "being there" for the reader.

"Write what you know" is some of the best advice I was ever given.

Phil Whitley wrote:: I enjoyed that post, Malcolm, and replied to you there. One reason I
use the places I know is because... well, I know them! I try to use
places, houses and landdscape that I am familiar with and weave new and
different characters through them. It gives (I hope) the story life and
a feeling of "being there" for the reader.

"Write what you know" is some of the best advice I was ever given.

I agree. Writing what you know, about places you've been or lived, gives your writing authenticity. It helps validate other segments of the story.

Starting with the places I know means less research. But more than that, it means I have strong conexions with those places that help me write about them.

Malcolm

I was going to say no, then I remembered that the series I've been doing for 21 years in Alfred Hitchcock features a boardinghouse set on the site of the place where I lived in East Akron. The location was ideal for the stories but the boardinghouse bears no resemblance to the house where we lived, now a vacant lot.

That vacant lot speaks through your work.

Malcolm wrote:: That vacant lot speaks through your work.

H'mmm. Food for thought here.

I hadn't really thought about it, but David (of And Adam was a Gardener) has a weekend home on Lake Conroe, north of Houston, which is a combination of the house Bill and I built before we divorced and another built by the same architect, in a similar style.

Malcolm, remember Gerson's first guided meditation? The one where you go through a door and find your muse? My door led into our old house. The architect had designed it based on my sketches and magazine picture file. Weird.

Ann

Maybe you need to walk through that door again and see if anything wild is going on. Who knows?

Malcolm

» YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS -TINY HOUSES 89 SQUARE FEET WATCH VIDEO
» HERE'S A GREAT SITE FULL OF INFO ON GARDENING-APTS.-HOUSES
» Where do you get your characters?
» Are your characters real?
» Unforgettable Characters