Jusso

I am writing a novel which which needs a "Northern" setting, something like a old, dreary New England setting but isolation would be great. Are there many isolated New Englandish towns? What about a "fishing" port or town up in Canada? What would be a realistic setting?

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Katastrof

Hell yes. Stephen King wrote about isolated towns in Maine, aka New England. It worked for him, I guess...

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Faustling

How large do you need the setting to be? I'm not familiar with New England but there has to be plenty of small-to-medium villages around that would be totally isolated if you disable phones and similar.
Of course, there's always the possibility of setting it on an island and make sure they can't leave. Bridge broken/no boats/stormy water.

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hobbish

Set it in Scotland. Scotland's scary, even where there are lots of people.

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ClancyBoy

I hate to be repetitive, but:

1) New England as a setting for horror, from Sleepy Hollow to the Blair Witch is pretty much a cliche.
2) Why not set your horror story where you are now?

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Jusso

I am nowhere close to the coast and all we have is lakes. I need a location on the coast. I guess I can just make a fictional town up in northern Canada that is a whaler / fishing outpost.

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"Horus was weak. Horus was a fool. He had the whole galaxy within his grasp and he let it slip away." -Abbadon The Despoiler

seigfried007

Lakes can be creepy. Lakes can be super-creepy. Hell, one's called Erie, for heaven's sakes, Jusso (yes, everyone pronounces it 'eerie').

Whaling was a big Canadian thing. You might try Nova Scotia or one of the islands (all of which are isolated in at least one sense).

However, as Clancy mentioned, the setting is fairly cliche so you'd have to hammer the details or just find a different spot. But lakes can most certainly be creepy, and there are thousands of lakes in very isolated places (Minnesota, anyone?)

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deviger

Hate to nit pick, but Sleepy Hollow was set in the Hudson Valley of New York and the Blair Witch was in Maryland.

Try Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, or New Brunswick. Beautiful scenery and a big lack of people, but some sizable cities if you need them. I'd just look at some pictures and see what inspires you most.

Any setting can be cliche if you let it. It's the writer that makes it their own.

seigfried007

Even if you make up a town in the area, to make it believable, you'll have to research the towns in that area--their architecture, economy, weather, patterns of speech, educational background, prominent religions, etc. It's a lot of work to make up a town (some would say more than using an existing town, others would say less) and make it seem real.

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