by Linda O. Johnston
Hey, it’s only the third week of January 2025, and a lot has happened that we writers in Los Angeles could use as subjects or backgrounds in our writing for the rest of the year.
What’s happened?
Well, those terrible fires that apparently made the news everywhere. Rosemary did a wonderful job of describing them last week. And I certainly identified with a lot she was saying. But with all that happened, I just found myself focusing on it when I started to do my post for this week. So here we are again.
I was one of the fortunate people who had fires start not too far away but not come very close. The winds were strong, and the air quality became terrible. But I didn’t even see any of the fires anywhere nearby.
Writers often take things that happen around us and make them subjects of our writing. Will I do that?
Maybe, and maybe not. I’m currently working on a new mini-series for Harlequin Romantic Suspense, and although I do have the stories set in the Los Angeles area, I’m not sure about working the fires into them.
I hope that all of you reading this remain safe, from fires and every other disaster that might occur wherever you are.
And I hope you all have a wonderful 2025.
The Writers in Residence 
For all the years I lived in the Los Angeles area, and even with the fires we had near us up in the Foothills, I didn’t use them as a background. Not even the occasional earthquake. If it fit the story, I would have used them, but it never did. I did use the vast freeway system and an actor or two, but I preferred the cast of characters we writers find in most any city or town to make my stories come to life.
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I can identify with that, Gayle. Not sure I want to fit natural disasters into my stories. So far, I haven’t focused on any in my writing, and it’s easier in some ways to use our imaginations to go in other directions.
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I was reading a Lincoln Lawyer mystery by Michael Connolly and his character noticed a lot of people wearing masks on a plane. He didn’t say why, but readers knew it was the beginning of the COVID year. I liked that. I think if an author has a series set in Los Angeles he/she could very well use the fires or the devastating aftermath of ashes and rebuilding as part of their setting if not story. I’d enjoy that and connect with the story. It can’t be contrived, though.
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That makes sense to me, Jackie–maybe mentioning the fires as happening in the past but not necessarily focusing on them as part of the story.
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I agree with Jackie that fires (and other natural disasters) should not be contrived. But they wouldn’t need to be. The consequences of the fires—lost homes, businesses, historic landmarks, financial hardship—have left such a mark on the landscape and the people that they can hardly be ignored and can certainly contribute to describing setting and character.
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A lot of issues, good and bad, can be incorporated into stories, Maggie, in hopefully good ways that contribute to who the characters are and how they deal with things.
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Your post made me think of why writers frequently incorporate some significant events into their work and not others. We’ve seen countless stories about WWII and 9/11 as well as the AIDS epidemic. Perhaps enough time needs to pass for tragedies like Covid or the fires in LA, and Maui last year, to settle in our history.
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I’ll most likely watch for any, Miko, especially the LA fires. I’m sure any stories that incorporate any of them will be promoted for what they include.
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I agree, Linda, an interesting and eventful year already! And wonderful fodder for our writer minds…..
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