From TBM Guest Blogger, MG Harris…

Is it really necessary to actually experience the real-life locations in which we set our novels? Anthony Horowitz loves to travel to the places where he sets his Alex Rider and Power of Five novels – he’s been to Perth, China, Peru and doubtless many other exotic locations. Michelle Paver spends time living wild in the northern wilderness where her Chronicles of Ancient Darkness stories are set.

But then Costa Winner Stef Penney wrote The Tenderness of Wolves without setting foot in any place which resembles the wintry Canadian wilderness of her novel.

And fantasy novelists, brave people, have to invent everything! I guess at least no-one can argue that they’ve got the facts wrong.

I’m with the travellers. But only because it’s fun! I’ve tried it both ways. Reality can inhibit the imagination. On the other hand, it’s so much easier to describe a place you’ve actually experienced with all five senses.

The idea for The Joshua Files came to me during a long stint as a bit of a cripple after a skiing accident. I pretty much confined myself to my bedroom, intending to write a best-selling novel. (Ha!) It would be one way to make up to my husband the grueling 3 months during which he had to hold down a full-time job plus all the housework and childcare.

Okay, the first two novels I wrote whilst in crutches didn’t end up getting published but both of them were based in a fictional universe where a 2012 prophecy predicts the collapse of technological civilisation, and the struggle between secret societies and government agencies to control an ancient technological solution.

Like many authors I’d always hoped to write. But I’d never really known what kind of book I’d write. Then in summer 2004 I picked up The Da Vinci Code. I enjoyed the mixture of daftness and seriousness, the playful intellect of the novel (or for what I read as such!). It hadn’t occurred to me that people would so enjoy something which blended fact with fantasy in such a monstrous yet enjoyable way. “Surely I could write something similar,” I thought. “It’s got to be worth a try!”

Stuck in my bedroom, alone for up to ten hours at a time for the first time in my life, the rampantly escapist nature of a conspiracy thriller set in exotic locales seemed like the ideal writing project.

But…I wanted to experience new and exciting places – at least in my mind.

So here’s a little secret – the first Joshua novel was set entirely in places that I’d never actually been!

I’d been to similar parts of Mexico but not those actual locations. The writing was based on Web research and memories of road trips to other places in Mexico.

Since then however, the research trip is an essential part of the writing process.

In fact – the very week I received the advance for Invisible City, I booked a family trip to Cuba, my first official research trip. (Another as-yet-unpublished novel…)

We eventually did manage to visit the locations in The Joshua Files. Here’s a couple of videos, the first from a trip in autumn 2007, the second from 2008 includes scenes from Brazil, the setting for the latest Joshua story, Zero Moment.

So – where do you stand? Travel or stay home?

Check out more Joshua Files fun at www.mgharris.net