Hey, so, I'm creating a new problem for myself. How do you go about a story in a real world location that you've never visited and are currently unable to visit for research? It's starting to look like my story is moving to Boston. In-universally it makes sense, too. But even if I were to pick something else, I've never been anywhere in America unless a movie took me there. I mean, Google Maps helps a little. But if I need an address for whatever, I'm pretty lost. Somebody lives there. They're probably gonna have an opinion about me turning their home into a haunted house. If a scene were to take place at a specific public location, you just know a local is gonna call me out. "Yeah, that's actually the police station. They don't sell a lot of sandwiches there." (I just wish I made that up.) Any clever tips on how to fake your way through it?
Don't use actual street names. Or actual existing locations. Maybe drive past some or something, but don't go making stuff up about any that you can't research deeply enough.
Have you decided on a neighbourhood in Boston? My niece lived in Back Bay for a while, and I visited her there a couple of times. She lived right on Commonwealth Ave, the most sought-after address in Boston!
I would ask, why Boston? What about your story works there but wouldn't work in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, or Santa Barbara? Unless it's something particularly inherent to Back Bay or Beacon Hill or wherever, what about getting the location accurate makes or breaks the story? That's extremely unlikely unless you flub something terrible, like sticking Fenway Park in Southie or Newbury Street runs through the North End.
I can probably write around the majority of it, and then get the rest cleaned up in betareads (which are, fah fah off) but I know myself. I'm gonna believe that at some point I need to mention something real. No, the whole of Boston is open. Don't think Commonwealth Ave is gonna be it, though. Sounds like it would too upscale. Ah, it actually doesn't have to be Boston, but I would have to ask the same initial question for every other place in the US. The reason I am going with Boston is because it's a recurring joke. In the OG book, a character died and another character went to get her back, and when she returned to her father they didn't know how to explain it, so they told him she was in a witness protection program in Boston. Trust me, in context that sounds a whole lot better. Around the second book, it's become a sort of in-joke between the characters. Working on a third where they finally explain it to her father, because I need him to be a McGuffin. So there's that, and I seem to have grown fond of the Boston-Irish type, for some reason. Probably something to do with Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly. Also, somehow it feels like Boston is a good place for an old murder and subsequent haunting.
