March 30 – The next-to-last panel I attended on Saturday was The Great Outdoors, consisting of Dave Butler (moderator), Ellie Alexander, Christine Carbo, Owen Laukkanen, and Margaret Mizushima (left to right in photo above). The conversation centered on the role the great outdoors plays in our novels, how real-life outdoor experiences influence your characters, the importance of getting the various “areas” correct, writing national vs. regional vs. local geography, the ways the natural environment and laws of nature impact characters and the story, and if or how the environment can become a character. And errors are strictly on me, due to faulty notetaking and/or memory.
Ellie
- Our environment is a blessing
- There is so much rain in Portland, the year she left Portland there had been 180 straight days where she didn’t see the sun
- Ashland, OR – 300 days of sun per year, she doesn’t miss the rain
- Because she lives in the wilderness, she is much more aware of her interaction with nature
- Biking every day takes her through cougar country (these cats only attack from the back)
- Starts a book with environment, sometimes it’s a protagonist and sometimes it’s an antagonist, wants to get it right and be real
- When in the wild, she does not carry a weapon
- Nevada Barr is a favorite outdoor adventure writer
Christine
- There are a lot of wild, remote, desolate places where you can hide a body or kill someone
- Setting is character, character is setting
- The place shapes who people are and how they interact
- If you write a good character, he/she is very tuned in to that place
- Pecking order in nature is just like in human society
- Very close to nature, death and destruction in “wild” society is just like in human society
- Characters that come out of the rural areas are fascinating – these areas have lots of crime due to poverty, stress, etc.
- Likes to figure out the character and how they interact with the environment
- Is the character born here or is he/she running from someone and came here
- When in the wild, carries capsaicin in case she runs into a grizzly bear, bullets don’t do much against a grizzly
- Her characters come from Florida and other places and she provides settings from those places
- Agrees with Margaret on authors, plus James Lee Burke, in nonfiction likes Doug Chadwick
Owen
- Important to get areas in general correct, you can find no shortage of inspiration and there are many tax-deductible reasons for looking around
- Always drawn to the Pacific Northwest as both a resident and a writer
- Uses lots of rain and descriptions of rain
- Description of being seasick on the ocean, the worst feeling ever
- Must establish place and environment without overwhelming the story
- Law of nature boils down to survival, eat or be eaten
- Norms you would adhere to in the city aren’t relevant in the wild
- Desperation, fight for survival in people eventually begin to mirror the wild
- The wild tends to attract people who don’t fit in or are on the run from someone or something
- Nature in real life is a character, usually an antagonist
- If you can’t take care of yourself and a bad guy is chasing you, you will probably die
- His dog is grizzly bait, so he carries bear spray when in the wild
- Tries to write Pacific Northwest as a type of southern noir
- Reads a lot of nonfiction, likes Wilbur Smith
Margaret
- Publisher wanted a forest fire in book four, so Mattie and Robo find a charred body on Redstone Ridge and both become targets of the killer
- Chose Colorado because that’s what she knows
- Colorado mountains are dry, can do so much with the mountain settings in a mystery (many places to hide bodies)
- People living in rural parts of the country are so fascinating and are very different, partly because they have to be so self-sufficient and resilient
- Lots of murders in Sawatch, Colorado (where Margaret went to high school)
- Uses setting as an antagonist
- Two protagonists – Mattie and Cole, usually Mattie getting challenged by the great outdoors
- Loves to hike alone but is more afraid of humans than wildlife, she used to carry a pistol
- Grew up in the Texas panhandle but couldn’t set a book there, more drawn to Colorado
- Margaret likes Mark Stevens, Scott Graham, Pamela Beason as outdoor adventure writers