Where do you locate the monsters?

You can place a story in a real location as I did by setting Steel Pennies in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and Hags in Naperville, Illinois. My other novel, Fulfillment, is set in the first century in ancient Israel. My Jude Nerdworthy short story series is set in Warrenville, Illinois.

Some authors like to make up their own world, either as a realistic place such as Winesburg, Ohio, or one of imagination such as the shire of the Hobbits. In my current work in progress, I have both the real and the fantastic. The novel is set in Wheaton, Illinois, but quickly takes the main characters on a journey into a fantastic underworld inhabited by a vicious group of trolls and other monsters.

Location sets the mood of the story. Hemingway wrote about seeking a “clean, well-lighted place” but his characters never quite find it until one goes fishing on the Big Two-Hearted River. Hemingway’s dark bars and apartments set a tone of decay and depression in a fallen world. That mood carries over into his brooding characters.

A happy place does the same thing. Oz sets a joyful mood to support a lighthearted scarecrow, tin woodsman and cowardly lion. But the location changes when the main characters have to face the wicked witch in a dark, scary castle.

My feature novel this month is Hags. It is set in a real location, the city of Naperville, Illinois, with side trips to Warrenville, Oak Brook and Chicago. The places may exist in the real world, but the story takes place in the realm of the fantastic as faeries, demons and hags populate a story filled with mystery as Micah Probert seeks two serial killers in a quest to clear his name. The Kindle version has been reduced to $.99 this month. For the Kindle or paperback versions, please click here.