Michael Connelly & Setting-Write What You Know

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Erica Vetsch lured me onto this broken road about three months ago.

There's an Amazon Movie

Reading the Harry Bosch series. So however long ago it was, I have just finished book #17 in a #17 book series and a new book is releasing in November.

First I’ll say what deeply impresses me about these books is the complexity and originality of the plot. They are basic police procedurals but they are really intricate and interwoven and just amazingly well done.

So, having said that, what I want to talk about today is how Connelly (and yes, I typo his name EVERY TIME I SPELL IT!!!) weaves the setting into his books.

It’s a rule of thumb of mine to always fictionalize my setting. In fact I believe I've said that long and loud right here on Seekerville. Why? Because GETTING IT RIGHT IS HARD AND I DON’T WANT TO GET IT WRONG.

Michael Connelly also wrote
The Lincoln Lawyer

Well, Connelly gets it right. His hero Harry Bosch is a homicide detective with the LAPD. And Connelly makes Los Angeles come alive in these books. I went to Wikipedia to double check but I was absolutely sure Connelly must be from LA. The highway numbers, the restaurants, the scenery, the landmarks…it’s all so personal, so in depth.

Here's an example of Connelly setting a scene:
The Chateau Marmont sat at the east end of the Sunset Strip, an iconic structure set against the Hollywood Hills....

The Chateau offered Old World charm and a lack of interest in your personal business.

Just past the Laurel Canyon Boulevard the hotel rose behind the profusion of billboards that lined Sunset.

The hotel was technically located on Marmont Lane, which split off from Sunset and wound around the hotel and up into the hills.

There are just so many small details, the kind of thing you just can't get from a Google search. He just throws these things in, so casually and so SPECIFICALLY that you know he has to have seen it. I catch myself thinking as I read, Bosch really knows LA. And of course…how would I know…I don’t know LA. But there’s just something about the way Detective Bosch--when being told where the murder scene is, always listens to about five words and says, “I know where it is.”

And the way Connelly stays in the car with Bosch, makes the drive important, Bosch talking things over with a partner, or making phone calls or if he’s alone, reasoning through the case. ‘Grinding it down’ as Bosch thinks of it. But all while making casual references to the turn-offs and the highway numbers and restaurants they pass while driving.

The vibrancy of the setting of these books adds so much richness to them.

Connelly was a Los Angeles resident and he was also on the police beat as a journalist for years and his intimate knowledge of police lingo and all the interplay between cops that ring so true, but I’ve never heard of before, so how can I be sure if he's got it right, but it SEEMS right and maybe having such a solid fix on the setting makes you trust him in all the other little details. What it adds up to is Michael Connelly ‘writing what he knows’.

How do you all handle this? Does anyone … when it comes to setting … pick a place they know really well and use it? We don’t want to get it wrong, but what if we know our setting so well we are sure we can get it right.

CONNEALY-vs-CONNELLY
I AM ONE LETTER AWAY
FROM FAME AND FORTUNE!

Do you do this? Set your books in real places? If you do not, is it because of something I said? If so, maybe I was wrong. But then would I have to set all my books in small town Nebraska? I can see that would be limiting!!!

I know from setting the novella I wrote as backstory about Andersonville Prison that it really takes a lot of work to come close to getting it right through Google searches. And yet a research trip, wow, that’s not in the budget.

Let’s talk setting. How it can be a character in your book, how using a fake one gives you freedom, how using a real one can give you depth. Pros and cons.

All commenters get their name in the drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card, and if you’re around TOMORROW NIGHT, I’m at a Facebook party where we’re giving away an iPad Mini, so go here and join: https://www.facebook.com/events/502582596535165/

Then come to the party and talk with Robin Lee Hatcher, Debra Clopton, Margaret Brownley and me. We never get together that we don’t have a great time.