How true must setting be to reality

Is this setting in the present day? If it is, someone might nitpick about a riot that never actually happened.

I suppose it all depends on how factual the world you're trying to create is. Some genres lend themselves better to revisionist history than others.

Just something to think about.

Why call it the by the name of the real city? If you change things like winning sports championships, people will assume you didn't do your research. If it's a bizzaro world, give the city a bizzaro name that's similar to the real one.

I didn't bother to name my city. It's a combination of many cities in which I lived (that's what comes from a nomadic life) so I can avoid pissing off people by getting a detail wrong about Philly or Boston or LA. If the locations and culture of the city are not central to the plot, it may not be necessary to specify which one it is. On the other hand, Spenser novels relied heavily on the city of Boston as a character, and that worked out well. But the author lived there so it was fairly easy to check things like which streets run one way or the cross street where a specific store is.

Every time you don't tell the truth, the reader has another opportunity to cease his willing suspension of disbelief.

Lie only when it's necessary.

You can change stuff if it's central to the plot. In American Gods, Neil Gaiman puts in an introduction that most of the towns and locations he talks about exist but in the interest of fiction and plot some have been moved, some have been amalgamated with others. I don't see anything wrong with it, as long as you make it clear in teh beginning that things are changed to suit the writer. Otherwise, yes, you will have people complaining that so and so street doesn't cross that avenue, it runs parallel, but if you make it clear from the beginning that things are changed a bit, i don't see a problem with it. But why not just call it something else but have it be new york anyway. like Gotham City.

Basing a city on places where you lived is ok but if you're going to name it in the book, it's probably better stick as closely to reality as possible. Unless you're planning to do an alternate reality.

If you're describing a real place, you should be authentic. It doesn't mean you can't make up a store or a restaurant, etc. But you shouldn't make things up such as "the Empire State Building is next to Central Park" or "The Rockefeller Building is 82-stories high and the home of ABC." So you do need to do some research to get the real places right, but in the fictional context, you can make up things, too. It's okay to set your story, say, at the Big Mama's Pizza in Little Italy.

I'm writing a story set in war-time Malaya and Singapore. True, I've been to that area but that was a long time ago, and it wasn't during the war (I'm not that old! ) So I needed to do research to get my settings right. If I mention real places such as the Fullerton Hotel, I owe it to the readers to get it right. Now I do make things up but I try to make it sound as authentic as possible based on what I know about the area. In the context of fiction, that's fine. I guess what I am saying is you can invent and add, but you can't alter and subtract. Does it make sense?

If I was reading a novel about Providence that got something gratuitously wrong, I'd be jolted out of the story. So when I write stories set in Providence, I'm meticulous.

I also write in the great tetrad of invented cities invented by Lovecraft: Arkham, Kingsport, Innsmouth and Dunwich. There I try to stick to the Lovecraft canon, but since details are sparse compared to reality, I feel much freer to invent things.

But whether the city is real or invented, the writer better give me enough detail, complexity and richness so that I believe in it.

Oh, and I like using a real city I know well -- I get lots of ideas from the true beauties and oddities of the place.

I'm writing a story set in Newburyport, MA. I have scads of aerial and street maps (I love the Net). I have names of stores and all those kinds of details. My MCs live on real streets--but not in houses with existing house numbers. I've created a couple businesses, but for the rest I'm doing everything possible to be true to the town and surrounding area.

However, for my mystery I invented a fictitious Pennsylvania town on I-79 about 20 minutes from Pittsburgh. There's nothing but empty land there IRL. I used my own town's street maps to create a downtown, because if I don't have a visual, I'll screw up the details. This way I can create all the stuff I want and still keep verisimilitude.

I agree that usually when you write in a big city, you ought to be as authentic as possible, because big cities have lots of residents and former residents to be annoyed when you get things wrong.

But

IF your intention is to create the world we all know with some alterations, go for it. You just have to tread the fine line of establishing early on that this isn't quite the same NYC SF whatever we're familiar with.

Danger Jane said:

IF your intention is to create the world we all know with some alterations, go for it. You just have to tread the fine line of establishing early on that this isn't quite the same NYC SF whatever we're familiar with.

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Like LA in 2025?

maestrowork said:

Like LA in 2025?

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Too hard...

Depends on what genre it is. If it's an urban fantasy, I think you're allowed a little leeway between your fiction and the reality (I believe it's accepted that most urban fantasies take place in a sort of alternative reality), but why not keep to as many facts as you can.

Mine is based in my hometown, although I never really name it, but all the street names are used, some businesses are used, but others are made up in order to avoid any lawsuits. I even destroy a local landmark.

I use Erie, PA a lot for my settings, and sometimes I've been known to mess with the local real estate. Like, taking over a lawyer's building and putting my hero's office in there, instead.

I based one heroine's story loosely on a store in the area, but I modified it, and moved its location, etc.

My friend Holly also writes a lot of books set in Erie, and she basically did a series where she replaced most of the business in Perry Square (center of town) with her own original businesses.

But still, I think we stay true to the basic "reality" of Erie, PA.

Susan G.

bartender said:

I guess I'm trying to co-opt the culture of a city without being entirely saddled by its history and reality. Maybe I'm just being lazy. I wonder if having two of my MC's standing at the address of a well-known landmark in that city, complaining that it wasn't there and saying stuff like "why the hell isn't it here? It supposed to be right here. Something strange is going on." would be a comical plot device extending an olive branch to the reader.

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The use of a device like that depends on the tone of your narrative. I can see that happening in a Terry Pratchett novel, but not in The Stand. But if landmarks start disappearing in major cities, you've got a major plot staring you in the face, and if your characters nonchalantly note that the Statue of Liberty has disappeared, readers will be disappointed and annoyed.

Like others have pointed out, you could always just not name the city, or else give it a fictional name. The Grand Theft Auto series of video games take place in fictional cities based on real ones (Liberty City = New York City) but because of artistic choices by the designers, the settings still feel authentic, not like Canned City, USA.

bartender said:

But think about a Tom Wolfe novel. In A Man in Full, he creates a festival called Freaknic, I think in Atlanta then all these controversies which would occur in public

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Freaknic was a festival in Atlanta from 1982-99. Tom Wolfe didn't create it. And it had enough controversy over the years without him adding more.

A lot of movies at least (most recently, the National Treasure sequel) have made-up presidents (from a nonspecified party). I think a made-up mayor or an unreal sports championship wouldn't be too problematic provided you don't specify a year.

I think it depends on what you're changing from the real thing.

If you choose a real setting and name it, then I agree with the others you should be authentic as possible. If someone knows this major building is here, and it isn't, or if you mention two large streets intersecting that actually run parallel to each other, the reader will likely be thrown out of the story and decide you didn't do your research.

On the other hand, some things readers are familiar with authors changing and will expect. Many, many books use made-up political leaders in place of real ones. A different mayor isn't going to throw many readers as an important difference. Or say there's a small shop in one corner of your city that you replace with a shop of your own creation. Likely, most readers will accept your change, because they'll trust you know there's something else there, but will just "go with it" because it's not important enough to throw them from the reality of the story.

Try this. Think of your own city/town/village. Imagine someone wrote a book about it. Now imagine certain things about where you live being changed in the fictional account. Consider which would throw you out of the story--make you say "that's so wrong! this author didn't do his research!"--and which you would accept as just part of the fictional reality.

"In the course of writing the novel, plot developments required you to change or twist commonly known facts about your city. Maybe the mayor in your city is different than the real one. Maybe your city's sports team won a championship when the real one didn't. Maybe some municipal realities in your city are just different than those in the real one. Maybe there was even a riot a year ago in your city which influenced the mood of its people when in reality, there was never any riot. Its basically a bizarro version of the real city."

That's why it's fiction.

Longer answer (without having read anyone else's, mind)...I do this frequently. One reason is because, not having been to many places I write about, I have to. Artistic license. Another reason is creative license...if you're writing fiction, OF COURSE most of the things that happen within this city (or other location) haven't happened, and it's expected, so it's perfectly fine to tweak such things to suit the story. For example, in my stories of a real city which I've never seen in my life, all sorts of major events happen and have happened--disasters, murders, sensational incidents--which never took place in reality. They're part of the plot and history of the fictional version of this city that I write about...not the real city.

Closer to home are the places I write about that I DO know quite well. Even those are tweaked--I add buildings where I know they don't exist, the police chief is fictional, and even some geographical locations aren't real--because it suits the plot. This is what fiction writers do. Take a look simply at TV shows, many of the locations even in real cities aren't real. "Law & Order" regularly makes use of nonexistent businesses, addresses, celebrities, etc. for its plots, right alongside real ones. The governor of NY on that show isn't the real governor of NY. The serial killers on "CSI" aren't really in Las Vegas.

People really shouldn't look to fictional books, no matter how realistically written or researched, to learn about real locations. It's kind of silly to do something like that. But if you worry about readers getting the wrong impression, you can include a disclaimer. When I wrote about a real city I hadn't visited, I hated the thought of any people who actually live there seeing my story and thinking, "What the heck...?" so I made it clear in an author's note that this was simply MY version of the city, and not the real thing.

(After taking a brief peek at some replies above) This is no excuse not to do research, though. As others advised, if there's any way to really know about the location you're writing about, make it as real/authentic as possible, but don't be afraid to change what must be changed for the plot. There's a difference between artistic license and just plain ignorance.

*in childhood used to write about Egyptians living in pyramids along a Nile that flowed the wrong way*

I think the fact that it's fiction gives you a lot of leeway, especially for anything that relates to your plot. But if it's a well-known city it's good to get your basics right.

This coming from someone who cracked up when people whipped out cellphones on the T in The Departed.

callalily61 said:

I'm writing a story set in Newburyport, MA. I have scads of aerial and street maps (I love the Net). I have names of stores and all those kinds of details. My MCs live on real streets--but not in houses with existing house numbers. I've created a couple businesses, but for the rest I'm doing everything possible to be true to the town and surrounding area.

However, for my mystery I invented a fictitious Pennsylvania town on I-79 about 20 minutes from Pittsburgh. There's nothing but empty land there IRL. I used my own town's street maps to create a downtown, because if I don't have a visual, I'll screw up the details. This way I can create all the stuff I want and still keep verisimilitude.

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ZOMG, Innsmouth is just down the road a piece from Newburyport, directly across from Plum Island. Take care!

Actually, Lovecraft did just as you did -- he picked the only significant stretch of Massachusetts coastline without towns for his fictional cities. Still aren't any towns there -- that must be some unstable land.