North Vancouver Island – and I’m talking about the REAL North Vancouver Island – 200 kilometres north of Campbell River, is breathtakingly beautiful.
There are small isolated communities; island communities; and larger centres such as Port Hardy and Port McNeill.
So why did I fictionalize the communities of North Vancouver Island in my novel Anna Wells and the Mystery of the Dusty Duchess, and not the communities in the south?
I don’t really know – that’s the honest answer.
During the editing process I did ask my editor and project manager if fictionalizing some communities and using real ones in the same novel was acceptable – and they both said yes.
If I try and dig down into my subconscious and ask Why? I come up with a few things.
If I used Port McNeill, Port Hardy, Alert Bay, Sointula, Woss, and Port Alice
- some people may think I was basing a character on them
- I would have felt pressure to use real business names and would feel weird not using the real people
- I think I wanted to create my own ‘world’
#3 hits the nail on the head for me. I wanted to create my own world but keep it in the real world.
I’m certainly not the first author to mix the real and imagined and I won’t be the last.
If you live on the North Island I’d love to hear your thought – were you surprised? Disappointed? Intrigued?
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