K is for Knossos
Knossos is a city veiled in myth, mystery and archeological digs. It symbolizes the capital of Crete from long ago and is the site of King Minos’ realm(Mr. Goldfinger himself), and the infamous Labyrinth – designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus (father to Icarus) – and the Minotaur that prowled its corridors – eventually slain by the Athenian hero Theseus. The site of the dig is called Heraklion – which sounds bone-cracking to me – and sits at a port city on the north coast of Crete.
Everywhere you look in ancient Greece you have the hero’s journey repeated again and again and each story seems more colorful than the last. But for Knossos it’s all about the place.
Island, palace, throne room, Labyrinth of stone walls, the smell of decaying flesh pushed away by a breeze from the nearby Mediterranean Sea. The sun hot, making you sweat, the dust thick in the mid-day, the smell of your perspiration a cloak you can not get rid of so you get used to it.
Sights, smells, sounds, textures. They all come together to make place an element in a story. In my novel Open Wounds, some reviewers have said that New York City of the 1930’s and 1940’s is a character in the book, just as alive and breathing as the protagonist, Cid Wymann. One breathes life into the other.
How important is place in your writing?
Do writer’s perspire in your electronic dreams?
Lunievicz 
It depends on the story. I tried to make the setting as alive as a character in WM, but it’s not nearly as important in what I’m writing now.
April 12, 2012 at 12:41 pm
I agree. It’s funny how each story needs the right balance of detail in place and character. In your sudden fiction fantasy story (whose title I can’t remember!) the setting interacts and fuels your protagonist. WM has setting up front then the interplay of character takes over. It’s all about balance.
April 12, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Well it remains to be seen whether or not it actually works, but thanks, Joe!
April 12, 2012 at 12:59 pm
New York became this real, breathing place for me in Open Wounds. Loved it.
April 12, 2012 at 9:55 pm