North Vancouver Island – and I’m talking about the REAL North Vancouver Island – 200 kilometres north of Campbell River, is breathtakingly beautiful.

There are small isolated communities; island communities; and larger centres such as Port Hardy and Port McNeill.

So why did I fictionalize the communities of North Vancouver Island in my novel Anna Wells and the Mystery of the Dusty Duchess, and not the communities in the south?

I don’t really know – that’s the honest answer.

During the editing process I did ask my editor and project manager if fictionalizing some communities and using real ones in the same novel was acceptable – and they both said yes.

If I try and dig down into my subconscious and ask Why? I come up with a few things.

If I used Port McNeill, Port Hardy, Alert Bay, Sointula, Woss, and Port Alice

some people may think I was basing a character on them
I would have felt pressure to use real business names and would feel weird not using the real people
I think I wanted to create my own ‘world’
#3 hits the nail on the head for me. I wanted to create my own world but keep it in the real world.

I’m certainly not the first author to mix the real and imagined and I won’t be the last.

If you live on the North Island I’d love to hear your thought – were you surprised? Disappointed? Intrigued?