As mentioned in my last
post, my recent lighthouse research trip provided insight into the isolation
and loneliness my protagonist would feel at a remote location. But it also
helped me map my fictional setting and put the buildings in likely spots. After
all, I don’t want the buildings to move to different locations in the middle of
the book.
Besides the tower and the
keepers’ house, each lighthouse station had several outbuildings. In the days
before automated lighthouses, all stations had a fuel building that was located
away from the other structures because of the volatile nature of its contents.
Most stations had either a fog bell or a foghorn, also separate from the light
and the keepers’ dwelling, possibly in the futile hope that it wouldn’t disturb
the keepers’ families during the night.
Then there was the outhouse,
which was a necessity well into the twentieth century for some of the more
isolated lighthouse stations. The outhouse was often built of brick, and a
typical one had two holes for adults and a smaller one for children.
It was also common for a
lighthouse station to have a barn and a boathouse. Some also had a tramway,
which wasn’t a building as much as an elevator designed to haul supplies up a
cliff from the dock below.
Before we went on our
trip, I tried to draw a preliminary map of my fictional Lonely Rock Lighthouse station,
but I knew it was incomplete. After returning, I drew the one at the head of
this post. As I write the story, I may discover the need to add additional
topographical features, but at least I know where the buildings are.
A map keeps buildings
from moving around unexpectedly or characters from walking in the wrong
direction to reach them, and location research can help develop that map even
for a fictional setting.
And that’s especially
important when the setting is a character in the story.
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