Where on Earth...

[khiemtran]

... could you set a story?

Suppose you wanted to write a story with a strong sense of place, set somewhere in the real world, in our time. It doesn't have to be flawless, but it should at least be accurate enough to make visitors to that place nod their heads and feel like they've been there before. Assume you had to write one now, using only the resources you can access around you (i.e. so you could google on the internet, but you couldn't take a month off and go and live there). Where could you set it? And where could you set a story that would make even the locals nod their heads?

Comments

[deepfishy.livejournal.com]

As I discovered when researching for a story, there's a surprising amount of stuff online about Wiltshire, England - not even about Stonehenge, just the websites of little villages and towns in the area, info about forest walks and inns and camping. Groups like Circlemakers (crop-circle makers) can also be useful to get a feel for interesting sites.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your reply.

There are probably a few places I could write about just from reading the LP thorntree. But, at the same time, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it. It's a bit strange actually. There's a long tradtion of authors writing about places based only on stories they've heard. Maybe it's just a personal hangup.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Places I've lived. Bits of Wales. Bits of England. Montreal. Bits of Greece. I could probably fake other bits of England and Wales and Greece well enough for the requirements other than the last.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your reply. I started out thinking of all the places I've visited and found I would only be confident with a few of them - and then only in the context of a visitor's interactions with them. It's interesting that this only started when I started travelling. Before then, I would happily write about anywhere, with the confidence that no-one else would know any better so I could make up whatever I wanted. Then it turned out that the real world had its own ideas on how to behave.

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

I stick with my hometown, New York City, in such cases.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Ah, well that's such a good setting...

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I would set it in Minneapolis, or at least in the Twin Cities area -- where I live now.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

It's funny actually - we've lived in our current area for about six years now and we still don't know much about it.