Is it okay to add fictional business names with real ones in a story?

I'm writing a story that's entirely based in Vancouver, Canada and all the names of streets, cafes, hospitals and such are real names of streets, cafes and hospitals that are in Vancouver. However, the things that I added as fictional are:

• An unemployment center where people who are unemployed can use computers to search for jobs, and make calls.
  
  
• The fictional name of a shelter in Vancouver
  
  
• The fictional name of a childcare center in Vancouver
  
  
• The fictional name of a church in Vancouver
  

Is anyone wrong with this? Mixing real names of businesses with fictional name of businesses in a real country/city? I thought Stephen King and other authors do the same things sometimes.

 

I don't see the issue, but you may want to be careful when using real business names as there is potential for litigation.

Using made up names happens all the time and is sometimes used to decrease the chance of a lawsuit, but even doing that may not shield the author completely.

 

Okay, cool, but another question is, what do you mean when you say, even that may not shield an author? So even if use fictional names of businesses in a real city and country, I could still be sued?

 

I don't want to comment much as it may seem like I'm trying to give legal advice which I'm not qualified to do, and this forum doesn't allow it anyway.

It probably doesn't apply to you, but there have been isolated cases where an author changed the name of a person or business but included so many details that it was obvious who they were referring to and they got sued. Not sure if they lost or not.

If the business is entirely fictional it wouldn't matter.

 

I would ask any real business I write about. I have in past things I have written and I have yet to be rejected, although it's probably bound to happen sooner or later. If what you write becomes famous...who knows maybe it draws real-life customers to the cafe that your MC always goes to for a chi latte and a cinnamon roll. That's how I always pitch it. Now if someone is going to be gruesomely murdered there or poisoned by the cook...it would be a fictional cafe, even if I put it on a real-life street.

 

It's always better to err on the side of caution, and many businesses wouldn't appreciate their name being published for monetary gain without prior permission. Also consider that many cafes won't make it past their first few years in business, so do you want only some of the business names to be relevant over time? Personally I would make them all up.

 

It's OK to use real business names, but include a disclaimer that all use of business names are used in a fictional way.

 

Unless the history or town specifics are important to your story, I feel it is appropriate to take artistic liberties with the specifics. You just can’t mess with the major stuff. The specific stores and shops in Manhattan that Kramer frequently mention in Seinfeld are rarely real places, but things like port authority or yankee stadium are too well known to change in any major way.

So all of the things you mention seem fine. The way I would judge it is pull Vancouver up on Google Earth and zoom in until only the most important locations pop up. Those are realism anchors you can’t screw with, but any further granularity is yours to shape.

Just make sure it’s consistent within your own story. You don’t quite have the flexibility of say a cartoon where entire sections of towns can be moved as the plot requires. The Simpsons house doesn’t even have a consistent layout, let alone the town of Springfield.

 

I

I agree with what you said about taking artistic liberties in a story, but if someone is being published by a traditional house, they have a legal department that will vet the manuscript for any possible problems.

Authors use the names of songs, movies, and even famous people in their fictional works. The late Olivia Goldsmith wrote a novel called “The Bestseller”, where she not only named real living authors and publishing industry people, she had her characters refer to salacious real-life scandals that these people had gone through (like Tom Clancy cheating on his wife).‘I don’t know how she got away with it! Having a character spot a celebrity across a room at a party in a novel won’t spark a lawsuit, but making Tom Cruise the main character in a novel might get someone in hot water.

As for Seinfeld, as a Native New Yorker, I can vouch that, while a lot of places were fictional, a great deal of the shops and businesses they featured were real at the time- Champagne Video store, Caridad restaurant, The “Soup Nazi”‘establishment, Kenny Rogers chicken, etc and they used the names of real retail products like Junior Mints. Pez and The Today Sponge.

 

@MissNovember

Have a look at the Blog called the Creative Law Centre. It will give you a general overview using items within your story. This is light at best but is a start. No offence to the forum here, but don’t take legal advice given as correct. If your book becomes serious then you will need to ask a qualified lawyer within the field.

Having said that, the actually advice given here is very good. I had a question regarding maps and songs used in a book. This quickly led to me to finding a few land mines. The Publisher will definitely ere on the side of caution. This was my thread below...

Copyright use of songs and maps in my novel... | Creative Writing Forums - Writing Help, Writing Workshops, & Writing Community

In your case, the idea of using real land marks and real local hotspots is a must for the readers worldbuilding experience. A reader that’s been to the city as his world explode with easter eggs mentioned. Kings-Cross station platform 9 for instance.

This can also backfire. The new NETFLIX show STAY CLOSE received a viewer backlash on how characters travelled from one landmark to another in minutes. In real life, it would have taken hours. For me, not knowing the area wasn’t a problem, but I’ve empathy for those that did. This you know happens countless times in movies, crossing London or New York really does switch me off. In a book if this happened, I know I wouldn’t finish it no matter how good the story was...

In my non-qualified opinion, the real-life entity should have no baring on the story. A passive meeting between two characters over a coffee in Starbucks seems innocent enough. However, as Head of Marketing for Starbucks I read the two characters were child molesters I’d might not be too happy at using our place. A character dying in a real-life hospital also might be tricky for whatever reason.

The example of Ready Player One novel in my thread, shows multiple pop culture characters places and references, but they don’t have anything to do with the story.

Let me know how you get on

MartinM

 

Just never breath a word about Disney or there will be a SWAT team and a band of lawyers in your house befocqdnp vjkl ;FHJFhjdspuいｐ７ｆ

 

Whatever the OP ultimately decides to do, it might be a good idea to risk-assess it - I mean that to some extent we can put ourselves in the business' shoes and think would it bother them - could it damage them? Just mentioning that someone buys their groceries from a certain shop is free advertising if anything. From the OP it seems the riskier businesses are fictional already so hopefully this will be in a good place with not much to worry about.