Choosing the Location for Promise Me Nothing
When I set out to write Promise Me Nothing, I worked long and hard on finding the right location for it. I knew I wanted to have the setting in the Pacific Northwest for a somewhat mild climate. However, I also needed to find a setting that would be far from any mass population centers, because when you have a bunch of supernatural teenagers with “behavioral” problems, keeping them away from normal people is a good idea. Even if the school itself has magic in place to suppress supernatural powers, being near a population center is going to draw some scrutiny. So the fewer people in the area, the better.
However, I didn’t want the area to be completely unpopulated. Even if the school can have necessities shipped in, the last thing they needed was a bunch of stir-crazy teenagers who were never allowed to leave the school. So having it near a small town, where the students could visit if they were on their best behavior, was ideal.
I wound up researching ghost towns in Idaho. There are a bunch of former mining towns and settlements that were abandoned after the mining stopped. And several of them seemed like good places where a strange private boarding school could sit in proximity to a small town that probably sees an influx of cash every time the students are allowed to visit. And what will keep locals from digging too deeply into the details? Money in their pockets. So it was a win-win all around.
I’ve only been through Idaho a few times, so I may not have gotten the details or the climate entirely right. I know that some of my mental images of what the school grounds and surrounding area look like are based more on memories of some of rural Illinois. But overall, I think the vague “Idaho” location was good enough for the purposes of the book!
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