If there’s any degree of detail and it matters in what location the story takes place, I use the same fictional town, which is just my childhood hometown with a different name, all the street names changed, and extra buildings as needed. I don’t see the need to use a real place name to begin with. If I need to say where it is, I use highways in the general area that don’t intersect. I borrowed this technique from Back to the Future (the fictional California town is named Hill Valley, and there are signs indicating U.S. Highway 8 and Interstate 395, only the latter of which is even in California). This way, there are no possible inaccuracies.
At the risk of chiming in too late: The Simpsons' creator called their town Springfield. That is the town name most frequently used in the continental United States of America. You hide in the herd. Just as unlocatable as a unique and unlikely name, such as Jenkindles' Diamond Valley South or Placebo Junction. My girlfriend, who knows the area where I live in now, told me about McNaughton's Hardware Store in Newberry, Ontario. It is still standing to this day. You can't get any more authentically Norman Rockwellesque than that in the real world. Now, that's a small town's small store, if I ever heard of one. I am both laughing and crying every time I hear that, (actually right now too, I'm not lying) of sentimentality over the quaintness of an old-fashioned mid-west phenomenon, that probably died out in the nineteen-fifties.
Yes, I have. She raised all the eyebrows in town when she moved in. She had a sister, Debbie, but Debbie moved to Texas.
I use real town and city names a lot in my writing. I mention streets and businesses such as hotels, bars, universities, or the post office. But these are usually places I am familiar with. In my novel I'm naming places because I feel like it helps ground the story. In other writings I've used real places but have not bothered to actually name the town to make the story more universal. Still, I know where my story takes place and I stick to being pretty accurate. Of course, sometimes I've just been completely creative with my locations. I have one story that takes place in rural Texas, not a place I have spent much time. I didn't bother naming the town there because it just didn't seem to matter in the story. I have another story that takes place in a specific town where something really bad happened. I wrote about but the true events, but somewhat fictionalized what happened. I changed the name of the town in that one to give it a name that seemed to better suit the events that took place there. There really aren't any rules you hav to follow here. I would think about what best suits the story and go with whatever that is.
It would all depend on how detail oriented and factual you want to be. Food for thought, if I may. Let me tell you about how I'm handling it. In my Lit Fic novel, God Bless Small Town, USA, I base it on the real town of Russell, Kansas. The population is 4,000+. About 4 times the real town I grew up in, but close in size to the nearby city a few miles to the east. Both where I grew up and Russell, Kansas are in the US midwest, so the mindset, vibe, mannerisms are quite similar. Some obvious things I kept, like the local high school mascot is the bronco and their school colors are purple and white, conversations about local-boy-done-good Sen. Bob Dole (my book is set in 1990), and the local radio station, KRSL, and the local Catholic Church is called St. Mary's. After that, business and some of the rural roads were names that I came up with. Unless the entire population of Russell convoyed up here to Michigan with pitchforks upset about the accuracy, I'm not too worried about it. Over in Dcomland (dot com sister site), I discovered that there's a writer from Texas writing a supernatural sci-fi novel whose that has the Gates To Hell not only here in my hometown, but literally at a location ten blocks from my house!!! He's never been to Michigan, and just chose this town because of the large prison complex here fit his criteria just perfect. He wanted accuracy, so I've been giving him a lot of hometown info and flavor. In return, I get to be a minor character that gets killed by a demon. I know of quite a few coworkers (and probably some in-laws) that would buy that book just to read that part. Happy writing. Aaron
I’ve got a book partially set in the UP but I didn’t use a real town ( mostly because my characterisation of the police chief would be libellous if it was said to represent a real person)
Lovely part of the state. Depending on where in the UP you had it, you could make them sound like Canadians or the characters from the movie or TV series Fargo.
Just watched "The Birds" by Alfred Hitchcock on Netflix. Of course, the setting was Bodega Bay, California, which is an actual small town. I could drum up fifty examples of stories set in real towns, but the funny thing is I could name just as many that aren't. I'm starting to guess it isn't that big a deal.
