Also posted in NC Elsewhere region.
Hello folks! And greetings from my neck of the woods up in Canada. Anyways I have a few things I'd like to ask you guys about your state, if you don't mind.
In a nutshell, North Carolina is the setting for one of my previous NaNo novels, which I'm kind of making notes on at the moment while it's on my mind so that I can go back and finish it next weekend. And who better to ask about a certain place than the people who live there, right? The female MC in the book is part Cherokee, and she along with one of the male MCs are very much into the pagan/occult. So I'm basically looking for a real place in North Carolina that's kind of that artsy, bohemian kind of place where it wouldn't be strange to have pagan shops and such (mostly because the male MC owns one). Also a place that has kind of gothic architecture like a church or something would be great. Any old architecture, really, but gothic style would really do it. So if any of you lovely folks have traveled to or know of such a place, I'd be eternally grateful if you could help me out.
Another question I have is what precisely is the weather like? Very wet spring? Cold winters with little snow? Rainy winters? Big storms?
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53,867 / 50,000
Nov 25, 2007 - 15 01
Asheville is probably going to be your best bet for setting. The Cherokee are in western NC, west of Asheville (which is already the western-most large town/small city) but Asheville has a sufficiently diverse culture that it can manage a pagan shop or two. It also has some of the most interesting architecture in the state. An odd side-note: Asheville was the first city in NC to pay off its Depression Era debts and it put a lot of the revenue it had used for that into sprucing up and preserving its downtown. There aren't a lot of gothic cathedrals in Asheville, don't get me wrong, but it does have some great old buildings. A website you might consider: www.exploreasheville.com. It has a few photos of downtown today. The WNC Heritage has some historic photos of homes and well-known locales at http://152.18.128.193/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/Photographs
Another idea might be Boone. It's got a little bit more of the crunchy college town feel but it does have a university and a diverse set of cultures.
55,153 / 50,000
Nov 25, 2007 - 18 07
Agreeing with Robust regarding the montañas. My dad was born on the reservation, but he got a principal appointment to Annapolis, then went to NCSU after that, then Vanderbilt.....point being that folks get around, and you can have her go wherever there is the archetecture you want. Duke Univ. has great buildings, and no matter how far out in the sticks you go, there'll be some old farmhouse with gothic-revival elements. Occult, yeah, apparently, back in the day, there were many Romi (gypsies) floating about, and dad says they intermarried with folks on the reservation. When he used to drink, he'd claim his mother was a gypsy, but he never said it in front of her, and now she's dead anyway.
You should come down here and look around. The mountains are especially beautiful!
Good luck on your story!
112,245 / 50,000
Nov 26, 2007 - 16 03
Wow, this is a lot of great info. And those pictures are a great help! Thanks for the help guys, I'm very appreciative.