While working on my novel (I’m 65,000 words in), I’ve been feeling as though some of the locations were chosen in too random a way. Plus there were a lot of them.

I’ve just finished reading Tana French’s “The Likeness”, a great read in the same genre I’ve chosen to work in. French boils her locations down to three or four spots in and around Dublin, Ireland: a formerly grand country mansion with its spooky back lanes, the nearby college library where the murder victim and the main suspects spent their days, the Dublin murder squad office, and Detective Cassie Maddox’s flat. These four locations quickly become familiar places in your mind.

I wanted to whittle down the locations in my book and give them more meaning.

My story is set in San Francisco. I was due to drive from L.A. to San Jose to watch my kids play water polo and toyed with the idea of heading further north to stay a few extra days. It felt like a confronting thing to do and tricky, logistically.

When I brought up the idea with my weekly writer’s group they encouraged me to make it happen. Everything seemed to fall into place. I booked my family onto a flight so they’d be home in time for their next round of activities and I arranged to stay with dear friends in South San Francisco.

Driving through South City, I couldn’t picture my protagonist living there. It’s a great place but the stakes weren’t being raised by the location. I needed more to work with.

The following morning I drove to Pacifica. It was interesting but still didn’t feel quite right. I parked by the black sand beach and watched a few hardy surfers battling the churning waves. The fog made it feel closed in and cold.

I checked, using my phone, on coastal home prices further north. I wanted more drama, more romance, more atmosphere, but needed a neighborhood my main character could afford.

My next stop was Daly City. Leaving the freeway, the fog became increasingly dense and I found myself on Skyline Drive which runs along the edge of a crumbling cliff, high above crashing waves 60 feet below. I found the house I was looking for, precariously positioned in a spot that would have had 180 degree views of the ocean if it wasn’t for the fog. It was romantic, in a haunted, desolate way.

Narrow homes built in the 50’s and 60’s lined the streets. There was definitely atmosphere, I thought as tendrils of fog twirled and curled around buildings, through trees, and along the deserted streets.

I could picture various scenes from my story unfolding here. Driving around the neighborhood, I found another house with a large tree in the side yard, a perfect setting for the action taking place in my first couple of pages. The street wound upwards, the faded boxy houses all embraced by the ever-present whiteness. It was bleak and silent.

The longer I spent in Daly City the more scenes I mentally moved to this location. Apart from simply creating a moody backdrop, my foggy cliff-top spot would give the story more meaning, tying disparate characters from different times together.

How had I forgotten the fog? I marveled as I drove away, emerging into blinding midday sunshine.

Downtown San Francisco also rewarded me for visiting. I noticed that there were no wooden telegraph poles in the city. One of my characters would need to come armed with zip ties instead of a staple gun when tacking up his wanted posters.

There was the cloying smell of urine and the sound of someone screaming behind me as I walked through the Tenderloin passing the homeless, the working girls, the drug dealers, and local mothers hurrying their children past things they never wanted them to see.

I marched alongside hundreds of janitors protesting their poor working conditions down Market Street and listened in on the conversations around me when I stopped for something to eat.

I realized that my future readers don’t want the tourist version of San Francisco. My novel needs to show a different side to this fascinating place. A side you can only find by driving and walking through individual neighborhoods and experiencing the sounds, the flavors, the smells, and the feelings.

The drive back to L.A. through parched desert-scape in 105 degree heat gave me time to remember what I’d seen and to imagine those elements now integrated into the story I’ve been working on for so long. I’m incredibly grateful I had the chance to immerse myself in my story’s locations, and now — I have a lot of rewriting to do!