Jade M

Well my latest novel is set in modern day, in a city. The problem is i don't actually live in a city and so i don't know about the way of life but i was imagining somewhere like London.

My question is should i just say its set in London and try to muddle my way along it or should I make up a new city in modern day England.

Or alternatively I could just set it in a parallell universe, but i want it to be identicle to modern day England so my reader can imagine it more vividly.

WriterJohnB

There's no need to be familiar with a city to use it as a setting for a novel. You can google to find a map of the city, hotels, restaurants, museums, etc. to lend authenticity to your descriptions.

But this takes a bit of effort, so you may want to make up a city.

JohnB

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WriterDude

Do you even need to name the city? You'd be surprised how often you don't.

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JHB

You could hop on the next plane there.....

Wallmaker

Sounds like it's time to make a buddy in London... and ask them bunches of questions.

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MSWordUp

My #1 rule for writing is: Write what you know. If you don't know about it that doesn't mean you can't write about it. You just can't until you know about it. I don't know anything abour cancer. If I was going to write a book about it I wouldn't skirt around the issue. I would have to spend hours researching the topic.

Don't just BS about London, or anything else. Your reader will know you haven't done your research.

lin

There is a difference in writing about a place and setting a story in a place. Settting is as dominant as you wish...or not.

Nobody DOESN'T know a lot about what city life is like because most movies are set there and we have seen a jillion such things.

I'd strongly suggest a made up city rather than London, where you might screw up easily. This is not exactly shameful. Lots of stories are set in Smallville or Gotham City or Metropolis or some such.

Just don't rush in where tour guides fear to tread.

Most of it doesn't make a difference. Things that DO make a difference, you'd better find out about.

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JHB

Or she can skydive from a jetplane to catch a birds-eye view of the city.

Jade M

I could Google a map if i merely wanted a view of the layout :p

But thanks, i think i might just make up a new city.

Malone

Write what you know is a good general practice, but it really stifles creativity. MS is right about people sniffing out ignorance, though, so making a place up is probably your best bet if you can't get there yourself or meet someone from there to harass with questions.

WriterDude

I only knew the basics of norse mythology, yet decided to write a novel that takes place there the last 3/4 of the book. This meant google, lexicons, encyclopedias, friends, schoolbooks, comic books even. I learned a lot about it, and the book is coming along nicely. It even starts with a woman forced to guard a basket of apples, sent to Midgard (as in here) by Idun, the goddess who grew the apples in the first place. These apples are what gives the gods their strength. Point is if you don't know, you can learn. If you do know, you can learn even more.

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Amara-J

Elizabeth George, writer of detective fiction, has set her entire Thomas Lynley series in the United Kingdom. She's American, yet her settings are very believable. She actually takes pains to travel to UK, lias with persons there, survey areas, and even take snapshots of specific buildings (barns, schools, clock towers, etc) to incorporate into her stories. In short, she does research - a staggering lot of it. One of my favorite quotes from her:

"One piece of advice, that neophyte writers are always given is ‘write about your own backyard’. Loosely translated, this means to write about an environment with which you are familiar. Broadly translated, it means to write what you know. To this I say balderdash. If I had believed that, I’d have spent years attempting to write about Huntington Beach, California, a place that could not interest me less as a setting."

Jade M, you may not have such resources at your disposal yet - moreso the funds and travel and time for in-depth research! - but there's always alternatives. WriterDude's advice is pretty sound.

P.S. If you can, I'd recommend getting Elizabeth George's writing manual, "Write Away". The sections on research are really useful. Good luck!

~Amara-J

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Malone

Here's something I read recently that sort of applies to this discussion. This is from Writer's Digest.


There are many examples of ways we short-cut gifts offered by the creative process. Take the adage, "Write what you know." If you write only about what you know, you're limited to your conscious mind. You'll remain stuck in the straightjacket of your conscious perception of reality. This is totally contradictory to creativity, which by definition brings into existence that which hasn't been before. Your experiences can be a jumping-off point for your writing, but the key is to not be a slave to the known. Rather, have your writer's antenna on the lookout for the unknown and the unseen. Gertrude Stein put it this way: "You cannot go into the womb to form the child...What will be best in it [your writing] is what you really do not know now. If you knew it all it would not be creation but dictation."
Paradoxically, when you write from the imagination you're writing what you know but from such a deep level of knowing that you don't know that you know it until it's revealed in your writing. When you're true to the process, you discover worlds that you didn't know existed. I call this "Falling down the Rabbit Hole into Wonderland," which is a perfect metaphor for the creative journey that can never take place in the real or conscious world. Creative writing finds its origins in the dark, fertile chaos of the unconscious—your personal Wonderland. If you don't meet Cheshire cats and Mad Hatters, Tweedledees and Tweedledums, mad queens, dragons, flying monkeys and monsters, or your own version of the above, then you haven't fallen down the rabbit hole. You don't have to be writing fantasy or horror to open yourself up to your unconscious, but the journey must metaphorically hold a sprinkling of both.