Really Dumb Questions.....

[Alex]

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[Ves'Ka Gan]

If you know the area really well, I think either would work. If you don't know the area really well I think a "fictional" town may be for the best, or if the stroy allows for it, making it an "anywhere" with no real location.

I only say this because I have based stories in certain places for certain reasons,and in the end, my writing flow gets interrupted because I don't know enough about Chicago or I haven't ever been to Seattle.

I do, however think it's okay to say something like 'a ravine south of San Diego" it's not specific enough to take a reader away and have them say "there aren't any RAVINES there!". Of course if you say he got mugged in an industrial park on the corner of 5th St and New Hampshire ave. in DC people may say "isn't that a residential area?"

[Jean]

Is it okay to make up geographical things?
why not, if it is ok to make up people who never existed? Depends on how it suits your piurposes, of course - if you describing an existing area in all details and then come up with an imaginary hotel only because you've never been to the existing one, it might jar with the rest; I mean, it's the inner necessity of the story that should be the source of this choice rather than sufficient or unsufficient amoung of information the author possesses.

[Bev Vincent]

It's certainly okay to make up geography or to alter existing geography. It depends on your intent. You make a strong connection with a part of your audience if you use real places with real features and accurate descriptions. If you don't have the ability to do on-the-ground research to get it right, though, you run the risk of alienating people familiar with the terrain if you make mistakes.

Stephen King's "Derry" is Bangor, except when it isn't. Ed McBain chose to set his precinct novels in "Isola," a fictionalized version of NYC. If you wanted to put a river running through the middle of Manhattan, you're going to have some credibility problems with most of your readership. If Ed McBain wanted a river in Isola, no problem!

I spent a weekend in West Texas a few years ago getting the lay of the land for a novel I was writing because I wanted to get it right, and no amount of online research can stand in for actually being there. I mounted a video camera on my dashboard for future reference, because the memory is a great and terrible thing!

Unless the hotel were a crucial element of the story -- the Waldorf Astoria, for example -- there's no reason to be really specific. You could say that it was just a chain hotel. NYC is a little unusual when it comes to hotels, though. There is a Best Western, for example, but everything is so expensive there that to put an inexpensive Holiday Inn on Madison Avenue would stretch credibility, too.

My bottom line: if you aren't sure about something and it isn't absolutely critical to the story, be vague. If it is critical, do some research, at least online.

[razz]

when i started my writings i tried to find an out of the way place in the U.P. of Michigan. I took a map and made sure there was no town within 100 miles of Silverwood, but along with the town i added geographical features leik a large lake and island, a cliff, and placed it in a realistic nature preserve. Just to make it seem more modern and realistic, i decided the town needed at least one Mcdonalds.
i don't think i'd be able to get to the Upper Peninsula for a few years, but i can ask people i know from there, and i will make it there eventually

[Odetta]

If you know the area really well, I think either would work. If you don't know the area really well I think a "fictional" town may be for the best, or if the stroy allows for it, making it an "anywhere" with no real location.

I only say this because I have based stories in certain places for certain reasons,and in the end, my writing flow gets interrupted because I don't know enough about Chicago or I haven't ever been to Seattle.

I do, however think it's okay to say something like 'a ravine south of San Diego" it's not specific enough to take a reader away and have them say "there aren't any RAVINES there!". Of course if you say he got mugged in an industrial park on the corner of 5th St and New Hampshire ave. in DC people may say "isn't that a residential area?"

I agree with Ves'Ka :)

[PedroPáramo]

On my point of view, depends of what you want to get.
If you wanna make something dark and raw maybe to use the name of a real town and a real hotel could help: that will, maybe, distract the reader.
If you wanna create a town try to draw a little map of it, for help.
Don't try to put things you see everywhere, just cause you see them. It's not necesary to say "he drank the Coca Cola" at least that the Coca Cola takes a deeper role on the tale. Sometimes that things aren't more than filling.
Anyway, good luck!

[cozener]

First of all, the only dumb questions are questions you already know the answer to.

Of course, if you know an area very well thats great. I've found that with writing, mine and others, its best when the author knows what he's writing about. It makes things easier in a way because there's a lot of backround and descriptive material thats already created for you. You just have to find a good way to describe it. But I wouldn't make up geographical features.

If you're going to make up things about a place you might as well just make up the whole place...even a major city. Look at Gotham and Metropolis. The good thing about making up a city is that you cannot make mistakes with its geography, landmarks, names of hotels, etc. This can be a huge advantage in that it frees you to be creative with the way a place looks. You can even make up your own history to the town to make it as interesting or as boring as your story demands. Of course, if you're going to write about a big city it helps a lot if you've lived in a big city...same with a rural/small town setting. Again, writing is usually better when the author knows what he's talking about.

You might also try leaving the city unnamed. Describe it, create your characters in it, but don't name it. This will allow the reader to place the story himself or, at least, have some fun guessing what city you're talking about. Like making up a city, this frees you to do whatever you want with it while still dropping hints here and there as to what city it actually is.

[Bev Vincent]

Unless the details of where the street is and how he gets there are germane to the story, you can skip 'em. Put him in whatever hotel on the strip and leave it at that. There's a certain thing as too much information! That's the problem with research--having done it, you want to cram it all in, but a lot of it is immaterial to the story. Especially in short fiction.