Using Names of Places Appropriately

I'm new to this forum (less than a week) any constructive help on this question would be most appreciated. I posted it to an earlier thread which did not get much feedback.

My fantasy fiction story is set in London, England. I am using a major tourist attraction (Buckingham Palace), and a couple real buildings nearby however, am calling them by different names. Example: The Palace, Sanctum Hall etc. However the characteristics of both The Palace and Sanctum Hall are similar (not same) to the real buildings. I also use some real street names (and some made up ones) within the same geographic area. So all in all, its a square mile of fantasy land with BP in the middle of it, a few real places, a few real streets and several made up ones. It's all mixed in. PS: For clarity,street names are the only names I've plucked from reality, the buildings are a likeness of the existing buildings with made up names.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on my particular setup.

 

As long as you make it clear in your author's note what's real and what's not, you've absolved yourself from any confusion the reader might encounter.

I thought this thread was going to be about the old dilemma that writers face with historical fiction: whether to call a town by its modern name or its ancient name (London/Londinium, York/Eboracum, etc.), or whether to extrapolate from modern maps what your town might have looked like eight hundred years ago, as Ellis Peters did with the Brother Cadfael mystery series.

In either case, and in your case as well, you have to make allowances by how much real accuracy is going to influence your ability to tell your story. In her Merlin trilogy, Mary Steward was unapologetic about using modern names for places, figuring that it would be less of a strain on the reader's geographic knowledge. Similarly, if you warn the reader up front that you're tampering with accuracy for plot reasons, he or she will thank you.

 

How on earth does one do that lol ? Serious question though, I've never come across a reader disclaimer warning. What would that look like?

 

You've probably seen a dozen of them, actually. Disclaimer warnings like "Any resemblance to actual people is entirely coincidental" are fairly commonplace. But my favorite disclaimer was at the beginning of "Huckleberry Finn," where Mark Twain wrote:

 

I generally use completely fictional places (fantasy) or real places I have spent time in and am familiar with (upmarket fiction). I added a non-existent branch of the county library to a real place in the last book I finished. Why spoil the fun of folks who want to point out the "mistake" by adding a disclaimer?

I read a book years ago that took place in part in the town where I now live. The guy used the name of a real street, but obviously had no idea that the street was in a very peculiar part of town completely unsuitable for the hotel he established on it. It made me laugh at the time, and he'd have been better off inventing a street or choosing one lined with other hotels, but hey- poetic license. Only about 40,000 people knew the difference and most of them didn't read the book. Incidentally, the neighborhood that included that street is now buried under the foundation of the local Walmart.