Salem's Lot

Long before I read much Stephen King (I only started on King in my late 40s), I had made up a fictional town.  King is well known for his fictional towns of Derry and Jerusalem’s Lot (‘Salem’s Lot) in Maine.  These are lands of magical realism where the paranormal happens, but people act just as people do.

My fictional town is Breck, New Hampshire.  One of my published stories, “Good for the Gander,” is set in Breck.  Since my fiction hasn’t yet found a wide readership, nobody would realize just how many of my stories are set in my fictional town.

Like most working writers, I write in fits and starts.  I begin each day with writing time, but occasionally it is harried by work and daily life issues.  I begin, continue, and finish stories and move on.  Most of them have never been sent out for rejection.

Recently I realized that my Breck stories might start to interlock.  I had started a novel about Breck some years ago, to introduce the town.  I had sketched out a map of downtown, and I knew several of the residents well.  While the novel didn’t get very far, it was good backstory.

I use Scrivener for much of my writing.  I decided to list my cast of characters in the wreckage of my Breck novel.  A clearinghouse, if you will, of the strange folk whose stories take place in Breck.  The list has grown impressively.

Small towns are well known to me.  I grew up in a town of less than a thousand people, but even there I didn’t know everyone.  Those I did know had stories.  Breck is a town of stories.  Like most people, only those closest to them ever hear their stories.  My fiction is my story.

So Breck may not exist as a real place, but there are many people who live there.  Their stories have been entrusted to me.  And if anyone ever takes a liking to my own brand of fabulism, there may be others out there who learn about where Breck really is.