location – Almost An Author

The short answer is YES!

While falling in love can happen anywhere, the choice of your setting sets a tone.

If you can take your romance and put it in any setting, you need to take a good look at your story.

A story that takes place in a city can’t be changed to a small town. Nor can a small-town story be moved to the country or on a ranch. The same is true if you need mountains, lakes, or an ocean for your romance setting. Or a story that takes place in a tourist town versus a non-tourist destination.

There is a distinct difference in the feel of each setting and its impact on your story.

The setting becomes a minor or major character; therefore, it is essential to have done your research on the place. Go there if you can. Explore the region where your romance takes place. Meet the people because where your story takes place will affect how the other characters react, speak, and what expectations they may have.

In his book Setting, Jack M. Bickham states, “Setting – in real life as well as in fiction – tends to form character in ways you can analyze and use in your work.” It’s true, no matter what period you are writing. In the same book, Bickham suggests after visiting the location and talking to the people, draw up a “setting list” for your desired character.

No matter whether your setting changes during the story or stays the same, it can cause your character to change their perceptions, feelings, thoughts, motivations, and actions. Your characters live in the physical world of the setting and are subject to impressions that enter their consciousness.

Mr. Bickham goes on to say that “No mention of setting in fiction can be said to be wholly objective. Selection of viewpoint, as well as selection of the emotional lens through which the described place or event is seen, must be made with constant reference to the desired emotional feel of the story, its present plot situation, and the characters at the time of description.”

It matters where you set your romance so much that you need to carefully consider where you want your story to take place before you begin writing. Some authors will draw a map of a fictional location to keep it accurate within their manuscript. Others use real places and do extensive research to get the names of streets and landmarks correct.

So, yes, setting matters a great deal and should be treated as another character of your story.

If you want to learn more about your setting’s impact on your story, I highly recommend Setting by Jack M. Bickham as a resource for your writing library.

Award-winning writer, Rose Gardner’s journey toward publication has come in two phases. During the early years, she was a finalist in thirteen contests and won her category in seven, was a 2007 RWA Golden Heart finalist in the Long Contemporary Category, and 2nd runner up in the 2008 Harlequin Super Romance Conflict of Interest Contest. After a break from writing, she returned to writing with a renewed focus on clean, contemporary heartwarming stories about love, hope, healing, and the power of forgiveness. She has won or placed in several contests for unpublished writers since 2017 as she works toward publication. You can find out more about Rose at her website mrosegardner.com or on social media at Facebook at MRoseGardner/, Twitter MaryGardner6, Instagram mrosegardner/

Location. Location. Location.

When I first visited upstate New York several years ago, I kept getting the feeling I’d been there before, but that was impossible. I finally realized that I’d visited the area through the pages of a book. Several books, actually. Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Claire Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne series is set in that area. I’ve read them all and they take place in icy winters, muggy summers, and fiery-leafed autumns. So of course I recognized the hills with orange-tipped trees and houses with screened in porches and pumpkins.

Location is said to be the three most important rules in real estate. Although often overlooked in fiction, it’s pretty important there too.

The locations in our romance novels need to be such that the reader can’t imagine that story taking place anywhere else.

J.D. Robb’s In Death series could not be set anywhere except New York City in the near future. The urban grittiness of the series is a perfect match to Lt. Eve Dallas’s voice and the tone of the books overall.

Not strictly a romance, but I recently read Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind, set in North Carolina. The southern voice and idioms make it the perfect location. Ann B. Ross set her series in a specific time and place, and the hot humid summer weather rose from the pages of the paperback and frizzed my hair. Margaret Maron’s Deborah Knott series does the same.

How do we make our location into a character in our stories? Let’s look at the examples I’ve already mentioned.

Specificity. Spencer-Fleming talked about the crunch of ice underfoot, the slipperiness of the roads, the bone-numbing chill. And colors, like the flame-colored trees in the fall. Nora Roberts, writing as J.D. Robb adds aromas and noises to make the future New York come alive. She describes the smell of a chemi-head as he passes her in the booking department, and what a soy dog smells like being grilled by a street vendor, and the sound of a bus belching smoke as it rumbles by her.

Voice and Tone. For books set in the south or areas with distinctive speaking cadences, capturing those patterns are essential. But beware of trying to write accents and particularly showing ethnicity by speech. In a Sue Grafton book. Kinsey Milhone was interviewing someone over the phone and at one point she realized they were African American and let her surprise show. The interviewee was (rightly) offended, and put on an elaborate “black,” accent, asking, “Yo, dis better fo yo?” (Grafton was making an effective point.) Use patois and jargon sparingly. Some parts of the United States refer to a soft drink as “pop,” others as “soda,” still others call them all “coke,” or “coca-cola.” If you’re writing about an area you’re unfamiliar with, find out those little idioms and differences.

Use location to strengthen your characters. Could Scarlett O’Hara be from Missouri? No, she can only be from the South. She has a particularly genteel determination that’s bred into southern gentlewomen. Can Gidget be from Maine? Nope. She’s a beach girl with sand between her toes and sun-kissed cheeks.

In romance, location can be so much more than a setting for sunsets and picnics and first kisses. Those are nice, but with a bit of detail, your location will become a full character. One your reader can’t imagine your other characters and plot without.

Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever after. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. Carrie and her Stud Muffin live in Central California with their cat and dog and within driving distance of their six grandchildren.

You can find her online at:

Twitter: CarriePadgett

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Amazon Author Page: Carrie Padgett