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  1. Baeraad

    Baeraad Senior Member

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    Creating a small town

    Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by Baeraad, Feb 19, 2020.

    I'm trying to create a fictional small town, and I'm feeling very much like all my estimates are off. I'm basing a lot of the tropes I want to use on television shows, but I increasingly suspect that those mix features of towns of wildly differing sizes. :p

    Can someone point me in the right direction for doing some research on this? I would like to get some idea of of, e.g., how many hospitals per how many citizens, how many churches, how much law enforcement, how many industries... Just something to give me an idea how it all works, because right now I feel like I'm fumbling blindly and ending up describing a situation that is probably completely unbelievable.
     
  2. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    Personally, I'd find an existing town of around the same size you are thinking, and research that town. I based one of my fictional towns off of 2 towns. For 4 years, I would drive through this little town in Pennsylvania on my way to and from college during breaks. In addition, I had to drive through this small town in the middle of nowhere in Manitoba, Canada. I liked the look and feel of those towns, so I used those two towns as the start of my research. How big were they, how old were they, population size, what shops were on Main Street, etc.

    Same thing with counties. In one of my WIPs I fictionalized a county in North Carolina. to do this, I looked at the counties in the part of North Carolina I envisioned my setting. I looked at the populations, what crops were typically grown there (sometimes they indicate industry), the main highways/roads in the area, the areas history... then tucked my little, fictional county right there where I wanted it.
     
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  3. newjerseyrunner

    newjerseyrunner Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    I agree using a real town as inspiration will make it feel way more fleshed out. I grew up in a town of about 5000 people in Pennsylvania. One hospital with about a hundred people working in it. Complex cases were transported to other, larger hospitals, and for really complex stuff, they'd be sent to Hershey. Religion is very prevalent in small towns and there is often a "church street" that's nothing but churches. I'd say Honesdale had about 30 churches. There were maybe about a dozen cops, but the state police also had a station nearby and could be called on. There were only a few industries and most had to do with resources that were available in the town itself. Lumber was a major one, but agriculture was the biggest, as the town was surrounded on all sides by miles of farmland. It's actually quite jarring to people who live in suburbia that rural towns can often be separated by miles of nothingness, where here in NJ, there is no real boundary between say Garfield and Bloomfield. Main Street was mostly family owned shops with a few banks scattered in. Chains and big stores were concentrated in a strip mall that was slightly outside of the town.
     
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  4. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    The details might not be as important to the story as you think. And clever ways of dropping in small indicators can go a long way. Does the population matter? Maybe if there is a town wide meeting where you say 200 of the town's population of 204 showed up for the meeting. Or your character was pulled over for speeding, but id on a first name basis with the cop, not for being a trouble maker but because there are tree officer and everyone knows who they are. With setting I always think about what parts of those setting really belong I the story and why. Creating a town and then trying to drop in a story is much harder than the other way around, I believe. So, what does this town mean to your story? Are you just trying to set the borders of your story or is it part of the story? I think it's clear the latter is probably more important. That's my opinion.
     
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  5. Rzero

    Rzero Reluctant voice of his generation Contributor

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    This is probably exactly how it should be done. Stephen King did the same in Bangor, Maine for IT. Love him or hate him, he knows how to keep a book selling for decades.

    This is very true too though. I would say you want a genuine feel for the real place, and stats might come in handy just to add to your own understanding of the place you're writing, but you don't necessarily need to insert them into the exposition. You know, unless it comes up organically, as in these examples.

    I might add that most of what you're going to want to know about small towns is going to be regional. I don't know where you are in the world, so I'll use American examples. Don't research a town in New England for stats and general demeanor in a West Texas town. They won't match. Everything from political attitudes to the kinds of restaurants and number of churches they have will vary wildly from region to region. I could tell you everything you want to know about a small town forty-five minutes from here, but 80% of it would probably be useless.
     
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  6. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    I always base my small towns on other people's small towns. Silent Hill, Salem's Lot... my characters are NOT in for a good time.
     
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  7. KiraAnn

    KiraAnn Senior Member

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    In addition to the above advice, I would also add what ought to be obvious. Don’t write descriptions of the countryside that are inaccurate. For example, in One of Zane Gray’s books he describes a hilly pass between Fort Union and Las Vegas, NM. I’ve been there many times - it’s flatter than a flitter in those 10 or 15 miles.

    That’s just jarring to those who know.
     
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