One of the things that is the most fun about writing is when an idea just pops into your head, and the further into the novel you get, the more you realize how well it works.

With my Marion Flarey books, an impulsive idea I came to love was to make her parents’ home a geodesic dome.

I started reflecting on that again when I came across this article: Meet the San Antonio family living inside a rare geodesic dome.

Click the link to see the photos. It’s a gorgeous home. (A far cry from Marion’s parents’ rather messy dome with the leaky roof!)

The article also mentions some of the things I’d picked up over the years about the advantages of geodesic domes. They are energy efficient and relatively inexpensive to build.

So, to my point about choosing a dome for my Marion Flarey books:

Marion’s stepfather, Winchell Weekes, is tight with money (a character trait that becomes particular important in the second book, Fo Fum Flarey), so of course he would pick something cheap to build and cheap to heat.

Geodesic domes peaked in popularity in the late 70s or so. Winchell started building his dome around 1987, after the peak, but he’s eccentric enough that the timing makes sense. He’s the kind of guy who would still think domes were cool ten years after the trend had petered out :)

But from my perspective as a writer, the best thing is how I was able to incorporate the dome as an aspect of the novels’ setting. I can “shorthand” the Weekes-Flarey home by calling it “the dome,” and readers know exactly what I’m talking about. Because the interior has an open floor plan, it’s easy to “force” characters into conflict. They can’t easily escape from each other.

And because the dome is fairly unique as a dwelling place, I can create quick visuals to help draw readers into the story. I can talk about the challenges of placing furniture on a wall that isn’t flat — something Marion notes when she tours her tower apartment in Once Upon a Flarey Tale — or the way the shingles have darkened with age, and (hopefully!) readers start to form a picture in their minds of what the Weekes-Flarey home is like. Even the word “dome” is visual. You can’t read the word without picturing the general shape of the Weekes-Flarey house.

This experience has taught me something as a writer that I’ll carry into my future novels: make the buildings unique, in some way that is easy to visualize and easy to shorthand.

How about you? Have you ever set a story in a building that you could use in this way?

And have you ever seen a geodesic dome house — or been inside one? I was, many years ago when I was in my early twenties back in Chenango County… someday I’ll have to see if I can figure out where it is :)