Be careful of chosing place names

[Joe McCoubrey]

One thing most authors agree about is the need for accuracy when describing their locations – but just how far can they go in pinpointing exact street names and addresses? It’s all very well describing a car chase through Lower Manhattan or London’s East End but beware having your drug baron or child kidnapper pull up outside a precisely numbered house in a precisely identifiable street! Think of the poor sod who just happens to live there! It won’t do either to try to get around the issue by saying something like “midway along the terrace” or “at the far end of the street” because, you’ve guessed it, there’s another poor sod living there too!
SEE MORE: http://joemccoubrey1.com/2011/12/09/wha ... g-authors/

[riyanj]

Good advice, Joe. I think that's why so many authors use places that are 'similar' to the city they want to write about but change the name.

[SusanParkerRosen]

Very good advice! But if you recreate an address (for a popular street) you still run the risk of that address being real.

[Fran]

I love when a precise actual address is used in a book - I love going to Google maps and having a look at the area - it makes a story so much more real. Recently reading HHhH by Laurent Binet (a fantastic read BTW) I could cruise around Prague & I could not only find the actual street, locate the church where the action took place but I could see the bullet marks on the outside wall & the commemorative plaque. Awesome

[TrishaAnn92]

I think it definitely makes the story seem even more real when they get specific with where the story or scenes are taking place.

[ALRyder]

I actually recall a book about an incestuous family in a town called Egypt, Mane I think. Apparently, a bunch of families tried to sue the author because, although there was not an actual town by that name in the state, some cities had sections called that. The families who lived there apparently had the same surname as the family in the book. Guilty conscience much?

[honeybunny]

Specifics make the reading experience a bit better though, since it makes you want to visit the place yourself. Although I agree with you on being careful about the actual address. The best example I know is of Spiderman. The address of Peter Parker was actually the resident address for a family called Parker! Crazy..

[Dream Catcher]

Show not tell? You don't necessarily have to pinpoint a characters location all the time, it's a story not a GPS

[Carla Hurst-Chandler]

As someone who has traveled a lot...it is always very telling/disapponting when an author describes a specific place and by reading it I realize they are winging it. Kind of ruins the story for me.

[ALRyder]

As someone who has traveled a lot...it is always very telling/disappponting when an author describes a specific place and by reading it I realize they are winging it. Kind of ruins the story for me.

E.E Knight has an interesting way of going about different places. In his series Vampire Earth his protagonist goes all over the country, and occasionally out of the country, but most everything has been retaken by the earth. Each chapter he starts with an almost textbook explanation of the area he is in. This style was distracting to me at first, but the further I've gotten into the series the better he's gotten at it, and it's really interesting to see places you've been in such a different way.

Speaking on this subject as well, I remember something Kelley Armstrong talked about when it came to writing her Women of the Otherworld series. I guess she really tried to do her research on places, and for the most part she did a good job when her characters were traveling the states. Unfortunately, while remembering not to add any basements in Florida, she spaced this in New Orleans if I recall properly. It's something she couldn't really change in another addition as they would typos and such. Apparently no one wrote her about it though.

[Carla Hurst-Chandler]

As someone who has traveled a lot...it is always very telling/disappponting when an author describes a specific place and by reading it I realize they are winging it. Kind of ruins the story for me.

E.E Knight has an interesting way of going about different places. In his series Vampire Earth his protagonist goes all over the country, and occasionally out of the country, but most everything has been retaken by the earth. Each chapter he starts with an almost textbook explanation of the area he is in. This style was distracting to me at first, but the further I've gotten into the series the better he's gotten at it, and it's really interesting to see places you've been in such a different way.

Speaking on this subject as well, I remember something Kelley Armstrong talked about when it came to writing her Women of the Otherworld series. I guess she really tried to do her research on places, and for the most part she did a good job when her characters were traveling the states. Unfortunately, while remembering not to add any basements in Florida, she spaced this in New Orleans if I recall properly. It's something she couldn't really change in another addition as they would typos and such. Apparently no one wrote her about it though.

Exactly what I am talking about. I wouldn't write the author...but it does tend to ruin an otherwise good book. Reently read Kidd's Invention of Wings and the only glaring anachronism in an otherwise (IMO) flawless book was the use of a single word "Malarkey" coming from the mouth of the main character (a black slave in the deep south) especially sine the rest of the character's dialouge was...well...in character.

[deanfromaustralia]

In both my novels, I came up with ficitional locations that were actually based on real places that either no longer exist (ie. they were towns in the distant past) or I have based them on a piece of historical fact around, say a street name or a location that appears on a map - eg. a mountain or a hill that has a name.

[KLyons1]

My preferred approach is to either describe the area without specifying street names (i.e., "a quiet lane in an older neighborhood with mature shade trees on the X side of town"), or if for some reason the street name matters then to just say "the building was in the middle of the block" - or else use online maps to determine the address numbers of the existing buildings and then create one that isn't in use on that street.

[Shellby85]

Great advice! Never thought of that little fact, thanks heaps.

[Carla Hurst-Chandler]

My preferred approach is to either describe the area without specifying street names (i.e., "a quiet lane in an older neighborhood with mature shade trees on the X side of town"), or if for some reason the street name matters then to just say "the building was in the middle of the block" - or else use online maps to determine the address numbers of the existing buildings and then create one that isn't in use on that street.

Great approach!