For his 2001 novel, American Gods, author Neil Gaiman reportedly took a weeks-long, cross-country road trip through the United States with the sole purpose of extracting the quintessence of American life. Circumventing the well-trodden routes and obvious tourist destinations, Gaiman meandered through small towns, back roads, and hidden quarters for his boots-on-the-ground reconnaissance.

What he came away with was a treasure trove of substance to draw from when rendering the amazing journey of his protagonist, Shadow. Gaiman’s America turned out to be both familiar and uncanny, mundane and otherworldly. Obscure diners and hidden attractions, like Rock City, Ga, even inspired pivotal scenes in the book, and provided a depth of realism to an otherwise fantastical illustration.

As a Yank writing an ambitious and captivating series set in England during an era long relegated to history books, I had to extract the requisite substance for this novel from my time spent across the pond a few years ago. All the impressions made upon me in the Old World, both explicit and subliminal, would prove to bring a certain life and spirit to my manuscript, from the Gothic mystique of Oxford to the consecrated grounds of Medieval churches.

I hope you enjoy this look into a fascinating aspect of my creative process, and if you’re a fellow writer, perhaps you can adapt this kind of inspiration for your own works.

Inspiration from the Old World

In 2019, I had an amazing two-week long excursion in England, staying in a little town called Banbury in Oxfordshire. Hosted by a dear friend of mine who’s a native Briton, we struck out to places like Bath, Warwick, Bicester, Bletchley, Sulgrave, and the small village of Nunney, exploring and stopping (frequently) to down pints well off the beaten path. You can read the entire travel entry here, if so inclined.

A couple of years later, I began ideating my Horror / Occult Mystery series, Greycross, and thanks to my sojourn in Britain, I had a deep well of inspiration to draw from for the first novel, Twilight at Primrose (read the first few chapters now!).

I had always wanted to write a dark, mysterious, and Gothic Horror-tinged series set in the Victorian Era, and since time machines are unfortunately not a thing, the closest one can get is walking in the places where these bygone eras played out.

From quaint little pubs made of fieldstone to imposing, Medieval cathedrals, every building in every town or city bore witness to the comings and goings of countless lives. Putting my feet on these hallowed grounds and my hands on these haunted stones seemed to impart a spirt to me which I was able to summon up for my writing.

I have always believed that setting can be thought of as an important character in your book. The places I visited abroad imprinted upon me just as much as the new acquaintances I made, and they were destined to materialize as major aspects in my writing.

Falgrave Manor

Warwick Castle Keep

The home of my titular protagonist, John Greycross, is a centuries-old mansion situated at the rural fringes of Oxfordshire. Built in the late 14th century, Falgrave Manor has been home to the Greycross family for generations.

If I had to describe a few choice amenities on a Redfin or Zillow listing, I’d highlight Falgrave’s sprawling footprint, dozen or more bedchambers, a spacious library full of ancient and rare grimoires, a solarium, and even a ballroom-turned-art gallery housing captivating works from across place and time. Not to mention, the property has its own cemetery, complete with family mausoleum, and is protected by Sentinel Stones—large monoliths circumscribing the grounds which are blessed with arcane magic. Oh, and the nearest neighbor is removed by several country miles.

When I visited Warwick Castle, my imagination ran amok, and although every aspect was fascinating, I found myself in love with the castle’s keep.

Entering via the Great Hall, which looks like something straight out of House Stark’s Winterfell, a walk through the adjoining chambers of the keep immerses you in rooms furnished with period furniture and wax figures dressed in appropriate costume, including those of the Elizabethan, Tudor, Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian eras.

Although I find waxworks figures mildly unsettling (probably thanks to the 80’s horror movie Waxworx I watched a million times as a kid), the scenes depicted in the keep’s various rooms offered a fascinating glimpse back in time.

Like my fictional Falgrave Manor, the keep at Warwick indeed saw many generations of inhabitants come and go, along with the accoutrement of their respective ages.

Sulgrave Manor

Aside from obviously inspiring the name of Falgrave Manor, Sulgrave Manor in the village of Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, gave me an up-close look at a real manor with a deep history. Abutting a vast countryside, the humble 16th century limestone Tudor house played host to several generations of the Washington family, whose progeny includes the famous George Washington—overall badass and Founding Father of the good ol’ US of A.

Throughout Sulgrave Manor, fascinating details could be spotted, like the stained-glass windows featuring various iterations of the Washington family crest. This sort of motif points to the generational legacy woven into Sulgrave, one that is much like the Solomonic talismans and arcane sigils found throughout my fictional Falgrave Manor. What such symbols represent is an unbroken thread through time, of the great works of a person’s forebearers, except I imagine the wool trading of the Washingtons was probably a damn sight tamer than the perennial battle against the demonic undertaken by the Greycrosses.

Holy Innocents Church

All Saints Nunney

John Greycross is supported by a highly exclusive circle of trusted friends, each privy to his and his forefathers’ arcane powers and fight against the legions of Abyss. These men, called the Brothers of the Key, play pivotal roles throughout the series.

One of the Brothers of the Key, Father Joseph Tyndall, lives and works in a humble Anglo-Catholic church called Holy Innocents, which was largely inspired by a church called All Saints in the small, idyllic village of Nunney where I spent an afternoon. Nunney lies in the county of Somerset, just outside of Frome and not far from Bath. It’s a quaint Medieval village with an impressive castle ruin, Nunney Castle, which some of my ancestors lived in during the time of the English Civil War (thus why I absolutely had to see it during my stay.)

After exploring the castle ruins, I checked out the neighboring church of All Saints, whose doors were open to any who wished to come inside. The grand cathedrals and abbeys of England I visited all had a certain air of authority that I found somewhat off-putting, although this was compensated for by the sheer beauty of these holy places. All Saints of Nunney, however, felt like the hug you used to get from grandma after a long time apart.

There was a very real sense of peace pervading All Saints Nunney, and when it came time for me to ideate a sanctuary for my priest character to work from, All Saints Nunney came immediately back to mind.

Oxford

Oxford, of course!

Although the events of the series find John Greycross tracking ancient cults, cursed creatures, and sadistic sorcerers across the world, the homebase for our protagonist lies in the county of Oxfordshire, with many scenes playing out in the deeply historied cathedral city of Oxford.

The moment I stepped out of the train station onto the old streets of Oxford, I was instantly captivated by the architecture and austerity of both the campus proper and the surrounding city.

If you’re a student or longtime resident of Oxford, maybe it all seems as mundane to you as my local shopping center does to me. But with a naive pair of eyes—and frankly having never seen anything so old and as saturated with history as Oxford—I was amazed by the city.

There are endless photo-ops in a place like Oxford, and the different styles of architecture on display could easily tickle the fancy of anyone into the settings and atmospheres prevalent in Gothic Horror. Yet, Oxford’s mystique goes much deeper than its skin.

Seekers of knowledge have converged upon Oxford as early as 1096, and it’s precisely this fact that inspired me to select the city as a primary locus for the events of my story, which itself deals with esoteric knowledge and the mysteries of the arcane.

The university counts among its alumni luminary scholars, authors, royalty, saints, clergy, mathematicians, physicists, etc., which had me pondering the breadth of knowledge which may be curated in the deepest vaults of Oxford’s academic buildings. Because of this, I thought it would be a perfect setting for John Greycross to conduct his ordinary “day job”, which involves “the acquisition and trade of various artifacts” as well as “guest lectures on ancient civilizations and comparative mythology.” In an eclectic place like Oxford, none would suspect that the somewhat eccentric professor and scholar John Greycross regularly wades into uncanny horrors that defy all reason.

Other Inspiration

I took in so many sites, drank pints in so many pubs, and walked the footpaths of so many villages and stretches of farmland that I still go back to my Nikon camera’s image export folder and find pictures of things I forgot all about.

I also took time to absorb the many details in the places I visited, right down to the textures of common building materials. Although someone native to the UK may not think twice about ubiquitous things like the limestone used to construct nearly every old pub or church, I found this texture altogether novel. With weathered surfaces and layers of oxidation built up, the stone itself can also be a supporting character with its own history, although it may not be readily apparent.

So, when I travel or even just move about the face of the Earth in a day-to-day sense, I observe these kinds of details and enter them into the ever-expanding writing repository of my mind. What you might be tempted to initially disregard as trivial bits of minutiae can really add up and lend gravity to your fiction over the course of the book, with just a mention here or a nod there.

One of the very many reasons I love writing is that is draws upon every life experience, from the mundane to the profound, and every degree between.