To create a fictional town for my WIP or use a real one… that is the question. Since I’m nearing the end of the first draft of my current WIP I’m already nit-picking the little things in my mind and making notes to myself for the first read through. One of these notes is fictional town or real.
In the book I’m currently reading (Sweep Volume III by Cate Tiernan) the town in called Widows Vale and is in New York. Well, I googled the place and it doesn’t exist except for in these books. This got me thinking, have all the places I’ve read in books lately been real or fake? I checked three that I could remember off the top of my head, out of the three only one was an actual town. Along my search I also learned that Stephen King often creates fictional towns set in Maine for his novels.
This got me thinking, what would be the reasoning behind creating a fake town? I came up with this list:
1) Some might find what your story involves to be offensive to their town.
2) The research can become time consuming when attempting to learn restaurants, hotels, street names, etc.
I pretty much stopped at number two because it seemed like a biggy.
As for using a real town, I can’t really think of a reason you’d want to besides…well, just wanting to.
I think I’ve decided to go with a fictional town… but now I have the problem of trying to name it. So, what do you guys prefer…Fictional or Real?
I don’t mind whether a town is fictional or not, but it is something I’ve been wondering about the novel I’m currently writing. I’m using a real town, but I’m not sure if I should just change names to make it fictional for reason number 1 or leave it as is. I still haven’t decided yet. I can see the benefits of both.
Sarah Dessen has said in the past that she created Lakeside and Colby, her fictional towns, because she once wrote a novel that took place in a real town. Then people tore her apart because “it takes longer than that to get from the airport to downtown” and “they would never be able to cross town so easily that time of day” and other nit-picky things like that. When your book is set in a real place, there are people out there who will ignore brilliant writing because they think you aren’t portraying things about the town perfectly. (Jaskcon Pearce has been YELLED at because she called the public transport in Atlanta the subway instead of whatever the crap it is they call it. She did it to make it easier for readers to know what she’s talking about, but some have been really nasty about it.)
They joy of creating your own town is that only you make the rules of where things are and what they are called.
Thanks Rachel for those two examples. Wow! This is why I thought reason number two was a such biggy, there is SO much work to put into everything to make it “right”.
Cherie- I don’t mind when I’m reading if a town is fictional or not either. But as a writer, it’s a big desicion on which way to go.
Thanks for checking out the post ladies! :]
Fictional sounds so much better from a writers perspective. I use real places in history, but my research is limited to archeological facts. So, I’m able to make up a lot of the information myself. I imagine a contemporary would require greater geographical research.
Many successful writers go for a real town. This has the benefit of attracting readers from that area and tourists with it. I’m thinking of Ian Rankin and Edinburgh, Chandler and LA – and me with Newport 🙂 No, I’d go for the real town. There’s no such thing as bad publicity. Heck, think of Sherlock Holmes and Baker Street!
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” This is true!