Real Places with Fictional Names

 QUESTION: I've tried to turn small towns with which I'm familiar into fictional towns or settings--usually for a paranormal world. Each time, I've ended up with a big, confusing, frustrated mess. You have mentioned that you have done this. Do you have any tips or tricks for developing your hometown into a fictional town? 

In my novel, TIME AFER TIME, my heroine’s hometown of Moravia is my hometown with the location of streets, etc.  

The heroine's engagement party is in a country club that's about five miles away from where I live.  I fiddled a bit with the look of the huge room and the patio where she meets the hero, though, to fit the plot.

The hero picks her up in a horse and carriage and takes her to the golf course to the east of the country club.  

I know where the McDonalds is that they stop at for a late snack and the apartment complex where she lives.

In a series set in Moravia, the hero's house is about a block away from where I live. The house is across the street from the Methodist church I went to as a child. 

The hero and his best friend ride on trails I rode as a girl, and the heroine goes to a fictional version of my alma mater. When she drives there, I know what she passes, and the campus is described accurately. 

If I change some element of the real town for my fictional town, I make a note to myself to that effect although I rarely reuse settings like the country club.

I give the streets different names because I don't want people to make too close a connection between High Point and Moravia, and for the new series, I'm using the High Point of forty years ago because it fits better.  Those riding trails are now housing developments, for example.

Rather than a map, I have an equals list. 

 

Willow Street = Chestnut Drive

Nathanton = Greensboro

Most of my names have a word play involved.  Willow and Chestnut are both trees, and Greensboro is named after Revolutionary War hero, Nathaniel Green.

I never use exact distances, but I know how long it would take to get from the magic equipment warehouse to Daniel's house in the middle of the night if you were driving well over the speed limit.  

This information doesn't really change what happens or anything, and I could change the time for my own convenience, but just knowing helps keep the place real for me, and, hopefully, that makes the place more real to the reader.  

Write Where You Know

 My mom found three glaring errors in the first page of a novel she was reading. The first scene in the book was at a beach we've visited a number of times, and the author obviously hadn't because most of her physical details were completely wrong.

I've spotted innumerable place mistakes in books, as well. Civil War slaves hid in kudzu that wouldn't be introduced to America until the Twentieth Century, locals in the North Carolina mountains were called crackers, trees bloomed in the wrong month, and so forth.

Errors like this make me paranoid about setting my books in places I've never been, and I research like crazy to make certain I get it right. I also try to get someone familiar with the territory to read through my descriptions.

Even worse than errors, however, is the danger of being patronizing. I've read novels where the author's contempt for an area was obvious in the stereotypes and misinformation. In other words, don't write about rural Georgia if all you know about the area is a few episodes of THE DUKES OF HAZARD you held your nose through.

If you're not willing to get it right, set your novel where you know.

Sensual Detail as a Hook

"Keeping the Reader Reading,"  (Part 2 of 13).

The plot hook isn't the only thing that keeps the reader reading. 

Here's two versions of THE GAME WE PLAY’s opening.  

Faith Cody lay in bed. She tossed and turned then moaned at a horrible nightmare. She heard the sound of her moan and woke up. This wasn't her room. Where was she? Why was she here? Why was the room so fuzzy?

A man leaned over her. He was blurred, too. Somehow, she knew he was going to rape her. As his hand reached her face, she screamed.

In comparison:

Light and shadow undulated around her in a drugged blur, but she could distinguish enough corners and shapes to know she lay in a strange bedroom. Rainy afternoon gray light billowed through thin, white curtains, and she could smell the sea and the freshly laundered sheets of her bed. The ceiling above her was spattered with large shadows of raindrops she couldn't see on the windows.

A man, a blur of flesh tones and angles, leaned over her. His hand became solid shape as it reached her face. Her nameless dread became terror, and she cringed away, expecting rape.

The second gives visual details -- corners, shapes, white curtains, the shadows of raindrops. It also gives details from the other senses -- the smell of the ocean and the sheets, and the feel of the wind from the open window. The reader should be in that room at this point because she can visualize it.

Getting the reader’s head into your book as fast as possible is as much a hook as the plot questions you’ve asked.  

Link to Part 1: 

http://mbyerly.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-first-hook.html

The Camera Viewpoint as Pacing

In my blog entry on participant viewpoint, I talked about the dangers of using camera viewpoint in writing scenes, but the idea of a camera shooting the action can be useful when you are writing description.

As you describe a room from a character's viewpoint, imagine that the character is that camera as he scans the room as he enters. 

In a scene which doesn't start with high action such as a fight, he would scan right to left or left to right, and the important objects would be described in relationship to those near it. The character would see the piano, then the bar, then the poker tables on the far side. 

If some object or person is important--the character is looking for it or meeting him, etc., then that object or person is described first with the general impressions of the room then the details of the room can be filled in as needed. For example, if someone is coming at the viewpoint character with a sword, he won't notice the piano or the bar except as possible objects to hide behind.

When writing that description, the idea of the camera shot can also keep you from making a mistake in visual pacing.

For example, you are describing the room, then you put in a character's brief mental comment about something, then you go back to describing the room. That's the equivalent of beginning to pan the room with a camera then jerking the camera toward the main character's face, then the camera returns to panning. 

By thinking of the visual description as camera work, you are less likely to make mistakes in visual and action pacing.

****

NEW PUBLISHING SCAM:  In the last few weeks, I’ve been receiving phone calls about offering promotion, reviews, and printing of GUARDIAN ANGEL.  The same people have given me three different names of their service including tying it to Powell’s Books.  The caller has an accent that’s probably Middle Eastern yet gives a different American/English name each time.  So, it’s obviously a scam to sell services to ignorant authors.  Beware! 

THIS YEAR IN REVIEW:  Nathan Bransford, a long-time expert on traditional publishing, gives his opinions of where publishing has gone over the last year and provides links to some interesting articles.

 

https://nathanbransford.com/blog/2021/12/this-year-in-books-2021

Write Where You Know. CRAFT

Recently, my mom found three glaring errors in the first page of a novel she was reading. The first scene in the book was at a beach we've visited a number of times, and the author obviously hadn't because most of her physical details were completely wrong.

I've spotted innumerable place mistakes in books, as well. Civil War slaves hid in kudzu that wouldn't be introduced to America until the Twentieth Century, locals in the North Carolina mountains were called crackers, trees bloomed in the wrong month, and so forth.

Errors like this make me paranoid about setting my books in places I've never been, and I research like crazy to make certain I get it right. I also try to get someone familiar with the territory to read through my descriptions.

Even worse than errors, however, is the danger of being patronizing. I've read novels where the author's contempt for an area was obvious in the stereotypes and misinformation. In other words, don't write about rural Georgia if all you know about the area is a few episodes of THE DUKES OF HAZARD you held your nose through.

If you're not willing to get it right, set your novel where you know.

REMINDER: August 1st is the final day to register for my “The Big Question: How to Create a Powerful Novel from a Few Ideas and One Big Question" workshop. To learn more go to

http://marilynnbyerly.com/marilynnbyerly/thebigquestionwr.html