How I Write About Places I Have Never Visited
A crime novel often begins in a place I know intimately: a street I have walked, a room whose proportions I can remember, or a landscape that still returns in dreams. Yet fiction also asks me to write beyond my own map. A remote island, an unfamiliar city, or a coastline I have seen only in photographs can become essential to the story.
The task is not to pretend that research is the same as experience. It is to understand what a place does to people. Weather changes their routines, distance alters their choices, and local history shapes what they fear or conceal. I try to make those pressures visible without turning the setting into a travel brochure.
This matters especially in crime fiction. A murder investigation depends on practical details: how long it takes to reach a house, which roads become impassable, who knows the harbour, and what a small community chooses not to say. Place is evidence. It can provide motive, opportunity, alibi, and atmosphere.
Australian readers bring a strong sense of geographical scale to such stories. Someone in Sydney may understand how a short distance can become a long journey in traffic, while a reader in regional Queensland or Western Australia may recognise the isolation of a town separated from essential services. Those realities help me think more carefully about distance wherever I set a novel.
Distance Is Material
When I write about a place I have never visited, I begin with its physical facts. I look at maps, satellite images, walking routes, weather records, public transport timetables, photographs taken by residents, and local news reports. A map tells me where the roads run, but a timetable tells me how people actually live.
A fictional detective cannot simply appear wherever the plot requires. If the nearest airport closes in winter, that changes an investigation. If a ferry runs twice a day, a witness may be unable to leave. In an Australian setting, the difference between a city suburb and a remote community may involve hours of driving, limited mobile coverage, and a very different relationship with emergency services.
I also pay attention to scale. Norwegian distances can look modest on a map yet feel immense in snow, darkness, or rough weather. Australia offers another form of scale: the long road between towns, the heat that discourages movement in the afternoon, and the way a local pub, service station, or roadhouse can become a social centre.
Research Before Arrival
Research works best when it moves from general information to small, stubborn details. I read local newspapers, council documents, historical accounts, property listings, menus, weather warnings, and public comments. These sources reveal what residents complain about, what they protect, and which parts of their home outsiders misunderstand.
I listen for language as carefully as I study geography. A person’s vocabulary can place them more precisely than a street name. Australian dialogue may include “mate”, “arvo”, or a relaxed understatement that carries more meaning than a dramatic speech. I would never scatter local expressions across a scene simply to announce its location; one accurate phrase is often stronger than five decorative ones.
Visual research must be tested against ordinary behaviour. A photograph may show a beautiful beach, but it cannot tell me where locals park, which path floods, or whether the wind makes an exposed veranda unusable. I look for repetition across different sources. When a detail appears in a police report, a resident’s post, and a local newspaper story, it begins to feel dependable.
Building a Place from Voices
People are the most reliable guides to a place they know. Interviews, recorded talks, memoirs, radio segments, and community histories help me hear how residents describe their surroundings. I pay attention to what they leave unexplained. Local knowledge often appears in a passing reference rather than a formal description.
For an international writer, this requires restraint. I should not imitate an accent I have never heard closely, nor make every character a spokesperson for regional identity. A Melbourne character might distinguish between a laneway, a tram stop, and a particular suburb without explaining the difference. A person from the Northern Territory may discuss heat, distance, and seasonal roads as practical facts rather than exotic features.
I also consider the local book culture. Australian readers may discover a translated Norwegian thriller through a library display, a regional bookseller, a festival event, or a recommendation from someone at a book club. They do not need a setting explained at every turn. They need enough specific truth to trust the story.
Letting Setting Shape the Plot
Setting becomes convincing when it changes the available choices. A storm should delay someone, isolate a building, or alter the visibility of a road. A crowded city should create anonymity rather than merely provide tall buildings. A small town should affect gossip, surveillance, and the speed at which information travels.
| Story element | Question I ask | Result in the novel |
|---|---|---|
| Weather | What can people no longer do? | Delays, accidents, altered routines |
| Distance | Who can reach the scene in time? | Stronger alibis and practical tension |
| Architecture | What can be heard, hidden, or overlooked? | More credible clues |
| Local language | What remains unsaid? | Social pressure and mistrust |
| History | What old conflict survives? | Motive beneath the present crime |
This approach prevents the setting from becoming a painted backdrop. In a Norwegian coastal community, darkness and sea conditions may govern the investigation. In Australia, bushfire warnings, floodwater, heat, or the isolation of a mining settlement could perform a similar narrative function. The exact reality changes, but the principle remains: geography must put pressure on the characters.
Signals I Check
I keep two kinds of notes while researching. The first records measurable facts. The second records emotional impressions: whether a place feels watched, exposed, temporary, proud, or tired. Both are necessary, since crime fiction depends on the meeting point between physical reality and private fear.
For international readers, I also check whether a detail is clear from context. A translated novel should preserve local character without forcing readers to stop for a glossary. When I recommend other writers, I look for the same balance in their work; my Norwegian crime recommendations reflect an interest in authors who make landscape part of the moral world.
Facts worth verifying
- Travel times between key locations
- Seasonal weather and daylight
- Emergency services and communications
- Local terms for roads, buildings, and work
Human details worth observing
- How strangers are greeted
- What people discuss in public
- Which places feel safe after dark
- What residents refuse to explain
Making the Unknown Feel Lived In
There is an ethical dimension to writing about unfamiliar places. Research cannot give me ownership of a community’s experience. It gives me responsibility: to avoid easy stereotypes, to distinguish documented fact from invention, and to let characters possess knowledge that I do not.
I revise heavily for false certainty. If I have only seen a harbour in summer photographs, I do not describe its winter smell as though I personally stood there. Instead, I build the scene from verified conditions, sensory accounts, and the character’s response. A nervous witness may notice a gull, a locked gate, or the sound of tyres on wet asphalt more clearly than the view.
The final test is whether the place remains present when the plot pauses. Readers should sense its weather, habits, silences, and practical limits without being lectured about them. Information about rights, editions, and international publication can be found through rights guidance, while wider background on my books and work is available on my author site. The practical rule is simple: research the map, listen to the people, and make every detail change what the characters can do.