Sometimes there are significant locations that inspire stories. The following is an excerpt from Chapter Twenty-One of The Ember Stone, which is book one in The Ember Files:

“ . . . he pushes the ABS pipe cap. It doesn’t move. Our whole plan is shot if that cap has been screwed on.
Griffin brushes past me and they give the cap a good shove. It groans and there’s a crunchy sound as the dried debris around the lip of the cap crumbles and the cap gives way. I cringe, expecting to hear an echoing bang when the cap hits the floor, but the sound is a muffled thud. Carpeted basement floor in a house this old seems unlikely . . .
‘Why is this floor dirt?’
‘The house is old, built in the early 1900s,’ Astrid says wistfully.
I put a foot on the narrow wooden stairs and test my weight, unsure if this staircase will hold. They don’t look like they’ve had any maintenance since they were built. The door at the top is aged wood with a substantial gap under it. I can see under the door that it’s dark on the other side and with my hearing magically amplified, I can tell it’s silent, too.
The stairs creak and quake under my weight. I push the door open faster than I would have liked, but the stairs are protesting loudly and trembling. I’m sure if I don’t get off them, we’ll go down together. Astrid pushes us into a galley kitchen. The dim light coming in the solo window gives an impression of a sleek, bachelor kitchen with black marble, brick, and wood. I smell notes of cardamon and cedar and wonder if Belamey is okay.
‘Did the stairs fall?’ I whisper to Astrid.”
— Shari Marshall, 2023, Writing Sparkle Books

Why am I sharing this? Today’s post is about location so I’m highlighting this because it is an actual house from my life. My dad’s house was the inspiration for the above scene.

Growing up, I rarely went into the basement because it was a dirt floor with a rickety set of stairs. When my dad died in 2021, he still lived in that house. At some point, he had cement poured over the dirt in the basement, but otherwise, the basement had a low ceiling and dungeon feel. The stairs were ancient and gnarled wood that I was terrified was going to give out whenever anybody went up or down them. Running along the same cement wall as the stairs was an old sewer pipe with an ABS cap that fell off when the pipe got banged. It wasn’t a functioning pipe anymore; I don’t know why it wasn’t removed.

As described in the book, there was an old wood door in the galley kitchen that led to the basement stairs. In real life, the door swung out over the stairs so was suspended in the air on the hinges. Growing up, it was usually open, and I cringed every time I went into the kitchen. I would do whatever I needed to do, but I would monitor the stairs in case something from a horror movie dragged itself up. With my childhood imagination, story vibes thrived in this space. With my writing of The Ember Stone, I finally gave life to one narrative about that space.

The basement and the pipe are part of the narrative in Vizard as well. A bit more of the house’s fictional history is developed there.

Do you have a location that inspires you or features in your writing?

I wrote this post for letter L of the 2025 A-to-Z blog challenge.