First Team, fiction & reality . . .

More on reality and fiction, and where you draw the line:

Most of Soul of the Assassin is set in Bologna, Italy. It takes place in the city center – and it really is the city center, though we had to fictionalize a few things, including some of the buildings where the action takes place. One interior in particular had to be changed around . . . well, it’s actually more or less the same, just re-purposed. And repainted.

It’s kind of cool to look at real buildings and imagine your characters moving through them. That’s one of the things that makes books different for writers than readers. There’s a scene in one of the Deep Black books where Charlie and Lia are in an elevator talking. Or not talking, which is a problem for them. It’s an emotional scene, and I’m sure readers focus on what’s going on between them.

But for me, the scene is all about that elevator, which I rode up and down in for a week while researching the book.

Damn thing made me so claustrophobic, I started taking the stairs.