Fictional towns?

SpeckyBrunette · Dec 16, 2007

Hi all - me again, asking another silly question.

As I mentioned on a previous thread, I'm working on a chick-lit book. Right now I've set it in a fictional town here in the UK. The town is small, and hardly anything of real interest happens in it, which is actually an important factor in the plot.

Originally I figured it would be best to make the town up, but almost everyone I mention it to whilst talking about books and locations says it's not really that good to set a book in a fictional town and that publishers and readers won't like it, unless of course it's a childrens'/YA novel. I always seem to be advised against it.

I notice that with chick-lit the towns and cities used are real (mainly London/New York although there are some set in smaller areas) and if the character is a journalist (like mine) then the newspapers are, obviously, made up.

What are your opinions on this? Should I keep my fictional town and risk being turned down in the later stages, or should I find a small town where nothing ever happens (heck, I'm in Wales, that shouldn't be hard...) and set it there?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using real/fictional towns?

DVGuru · Dec 16, 2007

There are plenty of authors who use fictional towns. Stephen King comes to mind right away. Personally, I prefer to use fictional locations, this way I have full creative control. However, if you feel your story needs to be set in a real town or city, then that's where it should take place. Just make sure to research and get your facts straight.

thethinker42 · Dec 16, 2007

As the person above me said, Stephen King is a very good example. A lot of authors use fictional towns. I'd say my contemporary fiction is pretty evenly split between using real towns (in my case, Seattle and surrounding areas) and fictional towns. I read mostly fantasy and sci-fi, so naturally those are made-up places, but in what contemporary fiction I do read, quite a few have made-up places.

Write it the way you want, and if a publisher really likes everything about it except for the fact that the town isn't real, I would guess they'll just ask you to change the location and call it a day. I wouldn't worry about it though.

scarletpeaches · Dec 16, 2007

I wondered about this too. The first few pieces I wrote weren't specifically rooted anywhere because I thought, if I set a book in Dundee, who the hell's going to buy it? (Although of course it worked for Alexander McGregor, I won't be emulating his writing style any time soon).

So now I've started mentioning street names and housing estates, all made up, but I think it helps to give the story a sense of place. I don't mention the town or city in which my writing is set, but of course we all know in my mind, it's Dundee by another name.

I wasn't sure whether to think up new pubs, clubs, street names, areas, weekend haunts, watering holes and so on for each book, so I've taken to mentioning the same pubs, the same shops in each book. I will never, ever write a sequel, but all of my books are set in the same town so they're related in that way, even though I write cross-genre. Chick-lit, YA and Urban Fantasy.

If anyone wants to know which places in my books are which places in Dundee, just ask.

Straka · Dec 16, 2007

I have a spec fiction piece where the MC travels across parts of America. I name real towns and places in those real towns were people do great and terrible things. If it ever gets published I'm sure I'll get some hate mail over it.

Neil Gaiman in "American Gods" names real towns and he puts a disclosure about it at the beginning on the book. For my Spec Fic book I'll have to do something like this myself. I'll reproduce Mr. Gaiman's piece here for your reference:

"Caveat, and Warning for Travelers

This is a work of fiction, not a guidebook. While the geography of the United States of America in this tale is not entirely imaginary - many of the landmarks in this book can be visited, paths can be followed, ways can be mapped - O have take liberties. Fewer liberties than you might imagine, but liberties nonetheless.

Permission has neither been asked nor given for the use of real places in this story when they appear: I expect that the owners of Rock City or the House on the Rock, and the hunters who own the motel in the center of America, are as perplexed as anyone would be to find their properties in here.

I have obscured the location of several of the places in this book: the town of Lakeside, for example, and the farm with the ash tree an hour south of Blacksburg. You may look for them if you wish. You might even find them.

Furthermore, it goes without saying that all of the people, living, dead, and otherwise in this story are fictional or used in a fictional context. Only the Gods are real."

maestrowork · Dec 16, 2007

I use a mix of both. The real places (towns, countries, etc.) give the story a context. I write realistic drama, so that kind of verisimilitude is important. However, I also make up locations for plot: this is fiction, after all. If I want to have a motel somewhere, or a cliff, or a water tower, I sure can insert them in my locations whether they exist in reality or not. The idea is to set your readers in a place in which they can get lost. It's not a travel log, but at the same time, you don't want it to be a generic Anytown either.

HourglassMemory · Dec 16, 2007

If you use really specific places, people will go by those places and think to themselves "This is the place where the character did this or that."
I'll implement that element into my next story, just to make it more real.
I guess you could use real places, it could make it more real, imagine if some girl from that area read it...

seun · Dec 16, 2007

This has come up in my writing, too. I name real places if they have a bearing on the plot (for example, a character went to Edinburgh in my last book for a specific reason), but I don't name the fictional places. Most of my characters start in a town which is a thinly disguised version of my hometown; I just adapt it for each story.

scarletpeaches · Dec 16, 2007

I think I met your character last time I was in the capital.

Tall chap, bald, hands always down his pants? Smells of sour milk?

DonnaDuck · Dec 16, 2007

My WIP I'm writing now is based in Coney Island and surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods and you bet your butt I'm researching the hell out of the area to make sure it's right. Here's what I go with, if you use a real place and it's widely known, research it to no end because, chances are, someone that knows the area will pick up your book and go 'this isn't right' if you've fudged something. That's not to say you can't make up restaurants or stores or anything but especially if you're noting specific landmarks, make sure you know where they are. If you story is set in New York and your character passes Central Park on her way from The Chelsea Hotel to Wall Street then someone got a little confused on the drive. if the town is small enough where it's pretty obscure and the chances of people getting pissy because you didn't get a street name right are low, I'd say take your liberties with it but maybe Google it to get an idea of where it's located, what's in it to it's not entirely made up. Or, best of all, just create your own town but even that requires research, especially by the way of accepts. Creating a town and placing it in Iowa would have a vastly different accent than placing it in Alabama. In the end, regardless of whether you use a real city/town or not, it's going to require at least nominal research on your part.

seun · Dec 16, 2007

scarletpeaches said:
I think I met your character last time I was in the capital.

Tall chap, bald, hands always down his pants? Smells of sour milk?

That's him. Good looking guy, isn't he?

justme · Dec 16, 2007

I'm working on a chick-lit book as well and the town in it is fictional. However, I do mention a real town also.

Calla Lily · Dec 16, 2007

My mystery WIP is set in a fictional town just southeast of Pittsburgh, PA. This way I can use geography and weather I know, plus have people refer to Interstates and traveling to Pittsburgh. BUT I don't have to Google every street and worry about a road getting renamed or putting a house where a parking lot actually exists.

Claudia Gray · Dec 16, 2007

It's your call. If you aren't using someplace famous for reader recognition, and you aren't, I think you can make up the setting if you like. The point is to make it up so well that people will assume it's real.

I write YA, but plenty of adult authors do this for the reasons callalily explains: No worries about getting small details wrong, the ability to talk about certain problems or events without offending people who assume a real life connection, etc.

a_sharp · Dec 16, 2007

You can use real town names as long as you're careful.

My first YA book was set specifically the area in which I lived for a reason. I wanted to give it an authenticity the local kids and teachers and librarians would really appreciate. Several events took place at a fair that's a major attraction to the locale. I did change the fair's name to avoid legal problems.

One of my goals in being specific was to reflect experiences of my family members, neighbors, and friends from outlying areas. It worked, I got lots of positive feedback that ran for several years. I think that approach alone sold several hundred books.

FennelGiraffe · Dec 16, 2007

There are good examples of every possibility, but a choice that's fairly common is: For a large city, use a real one; for a small town, make it fictional.

However, it can be a good strategy to make your fictional town a composite of several real towns in the same general area. That helps prevent "generic small town" syndrome.

goatpiper · Dec 16, 2007

I had to make up a big city to set my WIP in. I needed certain things that just don't exist in an American city. The only information as to its location that I have given (and plan to give) is that it's on the east coast (right up against the ocean, in fact) and that it's far enough north to get snow. I figure if I do a good enough job writing an interesting novel, no one will care if it's in a made up city.

Zelenka · Dec 16, 2007

In one of my WIPs I have the majority of the action taking place in a fictional town, but other scenes take place in existing places. I have a few mentions of real towns that are near the fictitious one (Glastonbury, for example), to give it a real place. My reasoning on that was that my WIP is historical, and so having the town be made-up gives me more leeway as to what I can do with the prominent figures there (as my era attracts a lot of experts who wouldn't take kindly to the details being altered to suit the story, I should think).

RickN · Dec 16, 2007

SpeckyBrunette said:
almost everyone I mention it to whilst talking about books and locations says it's not really that good to set a book in a fictional town and that publishers and readers won't like it

Ah, more 'advice' that makes no sense. Thousands upon thousands of books have been published using fictional towns and settings. Millions and millions of copies of those books have been sold. Neither publishers nor readers seem to have any problems with fictional sites. Pay no attention to those people of which you speak -- they obviously don't read much.

Stephen King, Ed McBain, Stuart Woods, John Grisham, Ken Follett -- the list goes on and on.

I use a fictional small-town setting typically because I want to control everything. I want to kill off the mayor in a fiery ball of destruction without a real-life mayor getting upset that I'm planning on torching City Hall. I want huge corruption in the police department without real-life cops getting ticked off. The descriptions of my town are totally accurate because I made them up in the first place.

Other times, I use real places because I want the familiarity of the city to play a part. Having an event on the Mall in Washinton, DC or in Times Square is much different than the town green in North Ingleburk, PA. A known location brings a lot of background information with it -- and that information may be crucial to your story. Imagine Tom Clancy's characters in a fictional capital city instead of Washington D.C., for example.

blacbird · Dec 16, 2007

SpeckyBrunette said:
Originally I figured it would be best to make the town up, but almost everyone I mention it to whilst talking about books and locations says it's not really that good to set a book in a fictional town and that publishers and readers won't like it,

Yeah. Tell William Faulkner, Sinclair Lewis, Ray Bradbury . . . they're never gonna make it.

caw

JustGo · Dec 16, 2007

Alas, someone beat me to mentioning Faulkner! It's perfectly fine to make up your own town. Yet another name that comes to mind - Howard Frank Mosher. He wrote several books set in the fictional Kingdom County of Vermont. Just as long as you know the general area well, you're set, and since you live in the UK and you're writing a story that takes place in the UK, you'll be fine. King writes about Maine because that's where he lives, Mosher about Vermont for the same reason, etc. Just make sure it's detailed and believable.

ishtar'sgate · Dec 16, 2007

Fictional towns are a whole lot more fun and I've never heard of an author being frowned upon for inventing the locale for their story. I sure wouldn't worry about it.
Linnea

benbradley · Dec 16, 2007

There's the famous fictional town of Stepford, and in the novel "Space" James Michener created a whole new state somewhere in the midwest of the USA.

ShellyB · Dec 17, 2007

I don't think it should be a problem using a fictional town. I think it allows you more flexibility with the locale. And if you're like me and haven't traveled a lot, it's a lot easier to make up a town. I personally like to use a mixture. My main character starts off in Detroit, Michigan in a fictional urban neighborhood called Brentwood, living in a made up housing project called Brick City (there was actually a housing project nicknamed Brick City in Indianapolis, IN where I live, but they were torn down over 15 years ago). Later she moves to a small fictional town in Georgia called Millersville. I think if you make the town sound as believable as possible, most people will buy it. Some may not even know it's fictional if they've never been there.

DonnaDuck · Dec 17, 2007

ShellyB said:
I don't think it should be a problem using a fictional town. I think it allows you more flexibility with the locale. And if you're like me and haven't traveled a lot, it's a lot easier to make up a town. I personally like to use a mixture. My main character starts off in Detroit, Michigan in a fictional urban neighborhood called Brentwood, living in a made up housing project called Brick City (there was actually a housing project nicknamed Brick City in Indianapolis, IN where I live, but they were torn down over 15 years ago). Later she moves to a small fictional town in Georgia called Millersville. I think if you make the town sound as believable as possible, most people will buy it. Some may not even know it's fictional if they've never been there.

But see, I think making of a neighborhood in such a large city as Detroit might get a little sticky, especially for people that live in the area, and that's a big area. It's like making up a neighborhood in New York City. For me, no matter how well it's written, I'm going to know it's not real because I'm so familiar with New York. However, take the name Detroit out of the equation and you wouldn't have any problems. For me, with Brooklyn, too well known to make up a neighborhood so a simple Google map search enlightened me to the neighborhoods in the area, not to mention my mom's from Brooklyn. I think you have to be really careful when it comes to fictionalizing a section of a real, large city because the amount of people that will be able to point out that you're making it up has grown exponentially as opposed to making up a town in a state that's unattached to anything.

Fictional towns?

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