Settings - Find a Place in The World

Setting is one of the major components of writing. A challenge is to make the world real to the reader. An author has to draw a reader into the story and keep them centered in a given time and place. Since machines to travel through time or to other dimensions are not parked in every garage, it falls upon the author to make the setting detailed and familiar enough for the reader to be able to visualize it without turning the novel into a history book or encyclopedia.

Pictures are a way for an author to take themselves to foreign places and exotic locales that we cannot go to in person. Calendar images are beautiful, but not all novels are set in picturesque woods, alongside waterfalls, or on the beach at sunset. Artwork can take me to a world where dragons fly and magic rules, or to abandoned ruins.

A new book, Abandoned Asylums caught my eye for settings of a different mindset. Although I usually showcase fiction as a Tuesday's Title, I decided to shift the format a little to a darker side and feature Abandoned Asylums.

The images captured by photographer Matt Van der Velde of abandoned asylums and psychiatric facilities are powerful, haunting and emotive. One image showed the perfect corner to write a book in, as long as you don't look at the rest of the interior.

Find out more about the book online at http://www.abandonedasylums.ca/ or facebook.

Available: Nov. 17, 2016 at Amazon / Barnes & Noble.com. Buy links and more can be found at http://www.abandonedasylums.ca/