Okay.....Here I am writing a reality-based romance novel, which I fully pictured the character-tree, but I am rather lost on where all the actions would be taken place. So, should it be a fantasy dream-land, or a city which never exists (but have a sense of reality), or a real city (like London or .....) Where the setting is in a city I created, I would have to go through the trouble of precisely describing it's atmosphere, it's soil, it's landmarks, to a point where readers could wholly picture where Romeo and Juliet are. (This might even confuse or bore the readers, if I don't do it well.) To chose a real city, it would request me a lot of experience (which I don't possess), I haven't travel much (I'm an Asian, my characters are European), so all I could know about that city would be a wiki-search (I will try Google Earth later), so it would be conspicuous to the readers that I'm bluffing about all. For the city/town which I plan, I need an isolation, a river, obsolete style, Victorian houses, and a lake too. Please suggest what I could do.
Yes, I tend to use places I have been because who wants to do all of that yucky research. You do have some options available: - A city in a different time. If the citi is based in the future or even in the past, you can fudge a little on the details because the land marks might have not been created yet or have fallen to rubble. - A city in an alternate universe. Because it is in another parallel word you have carte blance. - A new city based on the old one. You can have a discovery of a new land like an island where the settlers made a new city based off the old one. I hope this helps.
I normally let the setting of my story to come natural. In other words, the situation the character is in already tells me what the setting should be about. If you are having a hard time coming up with a setting, and since you said that your story is about romance, you can go outside and come across some people holding hands, kissing, asking to go to a dinner, etc. You can also watch movies that has a well thought out setting in the romance genre. When I sit down and watch a movie, sometimes I find myself seeing two couples at a dinning or resturant. Some settings are just in the living room or in the back porch. You don't really have to make the setting fantasy, unless you really want to. Just watch movies or go outside where you see romance involved.
You, and only you, should decide this. You are choosing which story you want to write. The setting you choose is a big part of determining what story you write.
I always base my settings on an environment that I am familiar with. My current project takes place in a high school, and you can bet that this fictional high school is only a slight variation of the one I attended only a few years ago.
I've never really left Brisbane (capital of the coolest Australian State (h)), so my choices for settings are kinda... lacking. So I avoid naming any of the locations that I've used as settings. Most of the actual settings I have are rooms or houses, or even just in a building, so it's not that important to mention its placing. I might talk about a view, but I do it simply enough to satisfy a reader. The trick is to generalise a bit. Don't make it too discernible a place. Think about things that could be in any city and use it. Mention a fountain in a park. That could be anywhere, you know.
Thank you everyone for the kind posts. My novel requires me a realistic viewpoint on the city itself, the scenario, the climate, the places and all, so it is a essential for me (at least I would feel safer and more comfortable) to choose a real city. By that, I have chosen a nice place for my novel: Bury, Greater Manchester, England (found it on a soccer fixture). JimFlag suggestion of "A city in a different time" is what I have planned (1964) so that I could write everything I want.
