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There’s no denying that research is a part of writing.  But there is an area of research that is often considered trivial or inconsequential in the overall scope of your story.  And that’s the location where your story is set. Certainly the setting is important, but as a matter of research it seldom makes it to the top of the list.

A contemporary novel set in your home town requires little in the way of research for location.  You live there so you know about the geography, weather, the businesses, the good neighborhoods vs. the bad neighborhoods, streets and highways, tourist attractions, places of special interest and historical interest.  That’s easy.

But, what about setting your contemporary story somewhere that you have never been?  If that is the case, you have options available.  The most obvious for accuracy is to visit the location””take in the ambiance, make note of the geographic elements, study the activities of the residents, and grab the tourist brochures the hotel makes available.

All major metropolitan areas have certain ‘must see’ tourist attractions that are common knowledge around the world.  The Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower.  Well known tourist attractions can certainly be included in descriptive passages of your setting or become part of a scene where some action takes place.  That gives the reader an immediate mental image reference to go along with your descriptions.

Travel and tour books can be a great help for general research information.  The Auto Club (AAA) publishes tour books for all the states that includes information about the major cities in that state and certainly the tourist areas.  A real estate search of a city will give you knowledge of the various neighborhoods.  A city’s website will tell you about the educational system, shopping, cultural events, sports activities, etc.

I had several decisions to make regarding setting in my latest release.

 DEJA VU is my January 15, 2010, release from the Crimson Rose line of romantic suspense/mystery novels at The Wild Rose Press (www.thewildrosepress.com) available in both ebook and print.

DEJA VU blurb: When Alexandra Caldwell is hired by a reclusive author to research the thirty-year-old disappearance of a big name newspaper tycoon and his wife, she wasn’t sure what she would discover.  As she embarks on this project, she finds herself in the middle of a series of frightening events and an unexpected attraction to Gable Talbot, the current owner of Skull Island where the disappearances occurred…a man with a magnetic sex appeal and a past as mysterious as the case she’s researching.  Will she be able to do the job she was hired for, or has she stumbled too close to the truth?

You can check my website for several excerpts from DEJA VU.   www.samanthagentry.com

I set the story in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state.  I’ve been to the San Juan Archipelago several times (both the San Juan Islands on the U.S. side and the islands on the Canadian side of the Archipelago).  That, combined with a television show I’d seen on privately owned islands, led me to create the specifics of the fictional Skull Island where the story takes place.

I was able to be true to the geographic area and also the feel of being in that type of location without being concerned about infringing on a real location and taking a chance that my “creative license” might cause a problem if someone believed I was intruding into their private and legally owned domain.

My most interesting location research experience was for one of my Harlequin Intrigue novels, THE SEDGWICK CURSE, a romantic suspense written under my other pseudonym of Shawna Delacorte.

My contemporary story was set in a small stereotypical village of the type found in the Cotswolds in the English countryside.  A large estate inhabited by the Lord of the manor””land and a title that had been in the family for centuries.  An annual festival that had been held on the estate grounds every year for over two hundred years.  And murder involving the titled rich and powerful.

I needed to research several things including accurate information about the physical setting I’d chosen.  I had been to England several times and had another trip planned, so I included spending one week in the Cotswolds to do the research I needed.  I found a charming centuries old hotel in the town of Tewkesbury and used it as my base to explore the surrounding area.

While driving through the countryside and taking pictures as part of my research, I stumbled upon a major stroke of good luck.  About three miles north of Tewkesbury is the village of Bredon where I found everything I needed for my fictional setting of Lord Sedgwick’s property, including a large estate that hosted a village festival every year.  And the weekend I was there happened to be festival weekend.  I was able to wander around the grounds of the estate, take pictures, and get information directly from the owner.  One of the buildings on the grounds, the Tithe Barn, is part of the National Trust and dates back to the 1300s.  It is accurately described and used in my book, as are many of the features of the real counterpart of my Sedgwick Estate.

Obviously, traveling to a foreign country to research a location isn’t that practical.  If the location is a well-known tourist attraction, you will have lots of research material available to you.  But what if your desired setting is a typical small town or village in a specific area?  That brings us to the more practical solution of creating a fictional small town as the setting for your story.

If there’s someplace you’ve been, a vacation you enjoyed, and you want to recreate the feel and ambiance for your story setting without fear of getting some of the facts wrong about the real place, a good way to handle it is to create a fictional location.  Do some basic research including looking at lots of pictures of the general type of location you’ve selected for your story such as a fishing village on the coast of Maine.  That will give you basic generic facts for that type of setting.  Then you can take the feel of the real life place you visited and impose those memories and impressions on top of your researched facts for a fully realized story setting.  Your characters can then impart that sense of place to the readers with the words and actions you give them in addition to your descriptions.

Do any of you have any research tips for story setting that you’d like to share?