Journey of a Story...Part Four: The Place

In case you've missed it I've been blogging about where a writer's story ideas come from and how a novel comes about.  Click on these links if you wish to check out the earlier parts.

Part One: The Idea

Part Two: The Characters

Part Three: Character Development

From the jump I knew I wanted the main characters to be coming out of a restaurant.  One of my favorite books is Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdaine.  My life working in restaurants hasn't been as crazy as his, but the restaurant world is something that is interesting.  Not everyone knows about what goes on and it is a place that one can interact with a lot of different people.  In Steven King's On Writing he says you can write about whatever job you do and people will find it interesting if the situation is interesting.

To take the restaurant back a few years I had written about one in the story Living Off Chris Isaak Dreams and Ethan Hawke Fantasy.  It was an "artisans cafe."  Local artists could put their works on the walls, a writer's group met once a week, singer/songwriter's came on Saturdays.  Then a year after that I had to plan out a restaurant in culinary school so I used he same basic place.  That was The Alcrest.  (For those who don't know my Aunt's place in England has the name Alcrest instead of a house number)  ALCREST stands for After Labor Comes REST.  Of course I've had to be artistic with it and also use After Love Comes REST and After Life Comes REST.

The restaurant in this new story is going to be more like a cross between the fictional Alcrest, the first restaurant I ever worked in that was called Giorg, and Chuck Hughes' restaurant Garde Manger in Montreal.  Of course I'm just going off of pictures for that one.  Basically the kitchen is going to be in the dining room and it will be homey and rugged all at the same time.

As for the name?  What's in a name?  A rose by any other blah blah blah.  For the restaurant I needed a name that would be the name for a potential mystery thriller series.  Did I really want The Alcrest again?  I'm not really sure.

Comment below if you like the name The Alcrest for a rugged gastropubby restaurant with home cooked food plated in a nice way.  Or if you have a better idea for a name please leave that.  Remember the restuarants name will probably not only be the title of the series but could also be Spencer's last name (if appropriate)