Real location or make one up?

I primarily write secondary world fantasy, so obviously my locales are made up. However, for the few "real world" shorts I've written, I've found I lean toward still making up my locations. I'll weave in a few details that slightly place the location, but nothing strong enough to pin it down as a single place in that area.

But that's just me and what I feel serves my particular stories and writing style best. What you do is going to depend on your own style and story needs.




-Michelle

Either/or. It depends on the story.

I like using real locations, mostly because I like reading stories with real locations. I like identifying with real places. I couldn't imagine liking a story about a big city resembling Chicago, but it's not Chicago, it's Cigacho.

Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle takes place in an unspecified island. If you write fantasy, made-up locations probably work better.

It's really your call. You can get away with both as long as the READER is convinced the location is real.

I think one thing you want to watch out for, as well, is the time investment. With a real location, you have to sink time into getting the details just right. And for a small town, why bother? Just make one up and get to writing the meat of the tale.

I'm a spec fiction author, so I make up locations all the time, and the chief advantage of using a manufactured location is no one will ever call you out on having your details wrong.

It depends.

Some of my stories have a real location. I like to write about Sydney because that's where I'm from.

For many of my stories I like to set them somewhere that could almost be anywhere. Marked not so much by specificity but by blandness - shopping malls, apartment towers, supermarkets, that kind of thing. It can have a slightly creepy effect particularly if the actual material is confronting or stirring.

gettingby said:

Do your stories take place in real cities and towns or do you completely make up a location? I know both have been done, but is there a benefit to going one way or another? I am writing about a really small town and can't seem to decide if I should base it on a real one or completely make it up. In the past I have done both of these. I think I like it better when real locations are used, but I'm curious to see how some of you weigh in on this.

Click to expand...

I've a story set in a small southern town (much of what happens actually happened in Columbus Mississippi) I made up a town, Benton Alabama, so as not to have real people get made at me. The other half of the story happened in NYC, and couldn't be elsewhere. Every New Yorker that reads it tells me what doesn't ring true to them about the city.

LillyPu said:

I like using real locations, mostly because I like reading stories with real locations. I like identifying with real places. I couldn't imagine liking a story about a big city resembling Chicago, but it's not Chicago, it's Cigacho.

Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle takes place in an unspecified island. If you write fantasy, made-up locations probably work better.

It's really your call. You can get away with both as long as the READER is convinced the location is real.

Click to expand...

How about a big city named Metropolis, or Gotham City?

I tend to write about fictional locations. I just enjoy building a whole town or city from scratch. That's not to say some of them aren't based on an actual place, but for the most part they're fictional.

There's been thread about this on other parts of AW, but...

I made up a town and sandwiched it between two real towns (on Cape Cod, part of MA.) I can jump around from my fictional town to any real place on the Cape any time I want. But I also have the freedom to make my town the way I want it - within the geographical restrictions of the area, of course. When I use a real place, I'm careful to not create anything that isn't there (for the sake of Cape Cod readers who might go omg there isn't a monument to Charles Dickens in Harwichport for crying out loud!)

gettingby said:

Do your stories take place in real cities and towns or do you completely make up a location? I know both have been done, but is there a benefit to going one way or another? I am writing about a really small town and can't seem to decide if I should base it on a real one or completely make it up. In the past I have done both of these. I think I like it better when real locations are used, but I'm curious to see how some of you weigh in on this.

Click to expand...

Real locations when writing historical fiction. Real locations with made up sublocations when writing contemporary fiction. (i.e., a fictional town in Virginia).