Talking Location With… author John Dean – the importance of place

11th June 2020

#TalkingLocationWith…. John Dean, author of The Killing Line (set North Pennines)

Setting is a good place to start!

As a writer, I am always inspired by a sense of place. Whether it be a gloomy city or a stunning hillside, a glass-strewn council estate or a majestic waterfall, something about my surroundings repeatedly triggers ideas.

Let me take you back a few years to a hillside in the North Pennines in an attempt to show you what I mean because the area gave birth to a series of crime novels.

I was on a family holiday and we were staying in the village of Slaggyford, not far from Alston, with the idea of exploring the area taking in the Durham/Cumbrian/Northumberland borders.

Hartside Pass

There was a play area in the middle of the village and every evening my two children (now grown-up) would go for a swing and I would wander out to keep an eye on them – they had gone past the ‘Dad, give me a push’ stage but had not quite reached the stage where they could be left alone.

Hartside Pass

In such circumstances, a person has a lot of time to think and, as they swung, I found myself staring at the hillside opposite. And as with all writers, ideas started to swirl around in my mind.

Something about the hill’s slopes and its late evening shadows, the way the buzzards hunted across the ridge, the sound of the sheep bleating and the distant barking of a farm dog, worked their magic on me and by the end of the week, an idea was born.

Eventually, it turned into Dead Hill, the first in my DCI Jack Harris series published by The Book Folks (there have now been seven in the series and I am working on the eighth).

Hartside Pass

My experience as a journalist meant that I knew a lot about wildlife crime and the more I looked at the buzzards on the hillside, the more the place and the idea came together as a good theme for the plot of the book. But place came first.

Character arrived third when striding into my mind came Detective Chief Inspector Jack Harris, a disillusioned officer working in the rural area in which he grew up, dragged back by the pull of the hills despite his attempts to stay away.

Mix in a bit of gangland intrigue, a few friends with secrets to protect, the DCI’s re-awakening as a detective and the ever-changing northern landscape and Dead Hill assumed a life of its own.

John Dean

The story itself told about the discovery of a dead gangland figure in a quarry that brought back dark memories for Harris and the hilltop community in which he works. As the detective investigated the murder, not only was he forced to deal with hostile villains, frightened townsfolk and colleagues who doubt his capacity to bring the killer to justice, he also had to confront part of his past that he had hoped would be forgotten. And all from that a hillside!

I do a lot of creative writing teaching and I always contend that despite the many elements of fiction, it comes down to a triangle, three things that come together to make the story work right from the off – plot, people and place. Get them right and pace, economy of words, themes, emotions, the lot, fall into line.

Different writers would put a different thing at the top of the triangle, identifying it as most important.

I know writers who would say it all starts with the story, a strong idea which drives the narrative and everything else follows. They get the idea then search round for somewhere to set it.

Others would put characters at the top. I have worked with many writers who contend that their stories begin with a person, a character from whom everything flows, whose experiences and views shape the narrative.

Me? I start with the place, always the place.

(Landscape Photos: Eden Cumbria Tourism)

Tips for getting sense of place right

The key thing is to be selective – you may know thirty things about the area but you do not want to overwhelm your reader with information. Pick half a dozen but hone in one or two as your main themes – in the case of the Jack Harris books, I focus on the sense of isolation engendered by the valley and the way the light has an impact on the landscape.

And don’t throw all your description in at once – give the reader enough to be going on with then slot the rest in as the story develops.

John Dean

The DCI Harris books, plus his DCI John Blizzard series, set in a fictional city inspired by Kingston upon Hull, can be purchased via the TripFiction site in e-book and paperback format. Some are in audiobook format as well. The latest Harris book is The Killing Line, published in March 2020.

Catch John on Twitter and connect via his website

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