Describe a place in your novel - without being there

Maxinquaye · Nov 25, 2009

I love Google maps.

There is a function in it that allows you to view the street view of a place.

Example

It means you can be in a place, without actually visiting it.

It's a shame not every place is mapped like this. I'd love to be able to walk into Aylesbury estates around there. If I did in real life, I'd most likely be robbed.

Mara · Nov 25, 2009

Thanks! I don't know why, but I never thought of using Google maps for writing. In retrospect, it sounds pretty obvious and I'm embarrassed I didn't think of it before now.

That could really help with some urban scenes I need to write. Since I grew up in a rural area, it's not always easy for me to imagine big cities in a realistic fashion.

Jamesaritchie · Nov 25, 2009

But how does the place smell? What sounds so you hear when walking past it? How many police cars do you seen during an hur long stay there? Can you hear any neighbors yelling at each other? How many children can you see playing just before dark? What's it like there at two in the morning? How doe sit look as the sun comes up? Is it high crime or low crime? Is there a neighborhood watch group? Are the poeple gregarious, do they ever have block parties, or is it a street of shut-ins?

Google is nothing more than a photograph. It isn't being there.

If you can't go in person, better to pick up the phone or find some e-mail addresses for people who live there. You can ask them all the questions that a photo can't answer.

Mr Flibble · Nov 25, 2009

Jamesaritchie said:
Google is nothing more than a photograph. It isn't being there.

Plenty of writers have written about places they've never been

As an addition to the methods they used, this is great - you can SEE how the buildings attach to one another, just how difficult it would be to duck down that alley....

It's an addition, not a replacement

Matera the Mad · Nov 25, 2009

It helps me somewhat, but I'm not doing cities and I'm not anywhere near the present millennium. Hills, valleys, and a lot of extrapolation. That doesn't keep me from blowing away hours looking for the right spot.

Wayne K · Nov 25, 2009

Actually, I just took a walk through my old neighborhood. I know what it smelled like and sounded like. I can't believe how much it looks the same.

Thanks. I'm writing about that right now.

Libbie · Nov 25, 2009

I did end up using Google Earth to figure out how far my characters would have to ride in a chariot before they found some hills outside of Luxor.

Thank dog for technology!

Maxinquaye · Nov 26, 2009

Jamesaritchie said:
Google is nothing more than a photograph. It isn't being there.

I don't know what the inside of the debriefing room aboard the USS Nimitz smells or looks like either, but I've written about it in some short story.

I've never sat in a horse-carriage in my life, so I don't know what smells and sound waft backward as the carriage moves through London, but I've written about that too.

I've never been close to a zombie vampire in my life, so I couldn't tell if the greenish tinged skin would be paler and if an already dead zombie who turned into a vampire would be allergic to sunlight, but I've not written about that - yet.

Point is, where you don't have first hand information, you use your imagination. And if you get first hand information about something, you don't have to massage your brain as much.

Google maps is great.

Fredster · Nov 26, 2009

Google Maps is the bomb. Almost my entire book takes place in Las Vegas, where I've never been, and being able to look at things like where the smallest houses are, or the medical district have helped tremendously. Even more helpful was seeing the layout of the casinos and hotels on the Strip, because a critical scene happens there and I needed to know what you'd be passing in what order if you were going north, south, etc.

Jamesaritchie · Nov 26, 2009

IdiotsRUs said:
Plenty of writers have written about places they've never been

As an addition to the methods they used, this is great - you can SEE how the buildings attach to one another, just how difficult it would be to duck down that alley....

It's an addition, not a replacement

Sure, most of us write about places we've never been, but unless you go one heck of a lot futher in your research than Google, you'll write poorly about that place.

Seeing is good, knowing how buildings are attached is good, but it's still nothing more than a photo, and a bare bones start to your research. What's on the other side of that alley? Where does that door halfway down the alley lead?

Seeing alone is dangerous. Thousands of manuscripts arrive in slush piles each year where the writer HAS been to a location, walked trhough it once, probably snapped a bunch of photos, and then thought he could write about it convincingly. He can't from this alone.

I'm not saying the Google method is in any way bad, but it's still just photos, and highly deceptive. It's nothing at all like being there, and being there is nothing at all like actually spending some time there at different times of the day, different days of the week, etc.

If you can't be there, use photos AND various kinds of maps, yes, but you really need to talk extensively with pople who do live there. You have to know the place you're writing about, or anyone who has lived there, or even spent much time there, is going know quickly that you never have been there.

The internet leads many to think you can actually visit a place online, and you just can't do it.

colealpaugh · Nov 26, 2009

As a devil's advocate...

If you've spent time in a big city, but have never been to Manhattan, how could you screw it up in a novel unless you were reckless? Some Wednesday afternoons the traffic and sirens long East 17th St are crazy, some Wednesdays they are not. Sometimes it smells like pretzels, sometimes it smells like pizza and garbage. Is a reader going to call you out for describing the apartments next to Blackstar as being too small? It's fiction...

And if you were writing about the Poconos, which are 1000ft hills in NE Pennsylvania, and visit weather.com and Google, what's to blow in a novel? Example? Seriously, I'd need an example of a screw up that is something other than an obvious careless mistake to believe you have to visit a city to use it in a story.

My first MS is set in Panama and Haiti, places where I spent months working, but used the internet for 90%+ of my descriptions, maybe more.

And dialects? When I'm on an airplane leaving a place, I've already forgotten speech patterns. Youtube is terrific for replacing ever speaking to a person with a Haitian Creole accent.

I say a great writer never needs to leave his kitchen...

Maxinquaye · Nov 26, 2009

Yeah. I spend a lot of time in London, but there are places I don't go, for security reason or for the simple reason I have no business that will take me there.

London's a huge city. I'll never see more than a fraction of it.

With Google Maps I don't have to.

And I can walk up to Brandenburger Tor in Berlin, and not visit the place, and imagine the smells and fill it up with imaginary people that will do as I say.

Sophia · Nov 26, 2009

One source I've found useful in addition to Google Maps is expat blogs. You can select a destination in the country you're interested in and it takes you to blogs by expats in the region, as well as to local information and discussions. It's helpful for giving you some idea of the local flavour by people living there.

colealpaugh · Nov 26, 2009

As further devil's advocacy, I'm a huge fan of Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey, who are famous for using Florida as the background for each of their novels. Is there a single example of something either wonderful novelist wrote which couldn't be garnered from the internet?

motormind · Nov 26, 2009

Maxinquaye said:
I love Google maps.

There is a function in it that allows you to view the street view of a place.

Example

It means you can be in a place, without actually visiting it.

I wouldn't used Google Maps, since i am much more interested in the feeling certain setting invokes, instead of what it actually comprises of.

LuckyH · Nov 26, 2009

Maybe it’s a personal thing, but I can’t write in depth about a place I haven’t been to and stayed in for a while. I’ve tried it and failed, failed miserably, because my agent picked it up immediately. The place was Los Angeles, and at that time I had never been there, and there was no shortage of literature and information about the place.

I changed the venue to Las Vegas, a place I had been to, and it passed the critical eye of both agent and editor.

Someone mentioned the smell of a place, and I concur. London is the place I know best of all, and it does have its own smell, not only that, the smells vary according to the time of day or night. It has its own sounds too, and I don’t think you can learn about those from YouTube.

I haven’t spent much time in the country, so I avoid writing of hedgerows. But I can write about being startled by a trilling lark, because I’ve seen one.

Maxinquaye · Nov 26, 2009

You (general you here) don't describe in detail anyway, much. I don't write things where you'll have two pages of description of the brick pattern of a house in Bermondsey during guy fawkes night after the bonfires.

You always pick one detail, make it correct so that when locals read it they think 'By golly, he knows the place". After that detail you use impressions, smell, cold/hot and so on, and since that's subjective you're forgiven a lot.

Google map can give you that authentic visual detail, the clothes line hanging between number 9 and 11 when you chase someone down a street. It's great.

RJK · Nov 26, 2009

I think Google Maps is one of the best resources a writer can have. I can look at a street in Washington, DC, describe the row houses, mention the eight stone steps up to the door with the leaded glass window. I know that summers in Washington are hot and humid, I can describe the oppressive heat.
I've been to several cities, I know they all have people sitting on stoops, kids playing in the streets, cars double-parked, box fans in the windows, I don't need to be on that street in DC to know those things are there too, this is fiction.
This street (for my story) is an Arabian neighborhood. I could add the smell of falafel, or lamb cooking, if I wanted to slow the story down even more. I don't need to have lived there to write these things.
If there is a door at the end of an alley, so what. Unless I'm planning to have my character go through it, the door won't even be mentioned.

LuckyH · Nov 26, 2009

I suppose if you take the technology available to the writer nowadays, along with Google maps, You Tube etc, and add the automated writing programmes, the logical conclusion would be that you don’t have to write a single word.

Just press a few buttons in your kitchen and you’ve written a novel.

I fear the day will come, soon.

Snowstorm · Nov 26, 2009

I'm writing an historical mystery. The locale for the story was real in 1846: Winter Quarters, Missouri Territory. Now it is Florence, Nebraska.

I have an Internet link to a map of WQ, but only found a few general references to the cemetery's location in a few of the journals/diaries from that time. I used Google Earth to verify where I believed the cemetery was located. (Yippee, I was right.)

It can be a great tool.

ishtar'sgate · Nov 26, 2009

motormind said:
I wouldn't used Google Maps, since i am much more interested in the feeling certain setting invokes, instead of what it actually comprises of.

I CAN'T use Google Maps. My novel is set in ancient Babylon and there's not much to look at in the 21st century.

blacbird · Nov 26, 2009

Jamesaritchie said:
But how does the place smell? What sounds so you hear when walking past it? How many police cars do you seen during an hur long stay there? Can you hear any neighbors yelling at each other? How many children can you see playing just before dark? What's it like there at two in the morning? How doe sit look as the sun comes up? Is it high crime or low crime? Is there a neighborhood watch group? Are the poeple gregarious, do they ever have block parties, or is it a street of shut-ins?

Google is nothing more than a photograph. It isn't being there.

Exactly. Beat me to it. GoogleMaps is one tool, and can have the uses of that one tool, but it ain't gonna getcha the real feel of a place that will set it alive in your story. If you can't actually get your feet on the ground for a while in the place you need to write about, you'll need to do a lot more research than just looking up GoogleMaps.

caw

caw

unicornjam · Nov 26, 2009

I think there're valid opinions on both sides, but keep in mind that no one said they were solely using Google Maps to write a story set in places they've never been. It's simply another tool to consider. Personally, I can only set my stories in the South, where I've lived.

colealpaugh · Nov 26, 2009

LuckyH said:
I suppose if you take the technology available to the writer nowadays, along with Google maps, You Tube etc, and add the automated writing programmes, the logical conclusion would be that you don’t have to write a single word.

Just press a few buttons in your kitchen and you’ve written a novel.

I fear the day will come, soon.

Again, the devil's advocate...

Or you can see it as the absolute opposite. The technology frees a person up to rely on their imagination and creativity, rather than slogging into Manhattan or the Poconos. Worry about the story instead of parking at the Port Authority.

Or is using Word somehow too Orwellian as opposed to using an IBM Selectric?

If you're writing about the feel of a Manchester United game and the intense atmosphere, there's no substitute for attending a game. But in order mention which side of the road Old Trafford is on when you're heading to such and such place is a wasted plane ticket.

The Lonely One · Nov 26, 2009

It's silly to totally discredit Google maps. Of course it's a minimal, one-sense research method. but it's still infinitely useful. Sight is a large part of engaging a reader, as important as any other sense.

A writer who uses only Google maps and never regards the feeling of being in a place has a poor imagination.

The writer who never uses Google maps merely because it isn't scratch-and-sniff is ignoring a tool because of personal bias, for better or worse.

Describe a place in your novel - without being there

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