I think it's cool when people use real places in their stories, even if it's just, say, the state, and they use a fictional town. I once read a book where the MC was from the same state as me and I thought that was cool. So, what real place(s) did you choose for your story's setting? My story takes place in a fictional town in the state of New Hampshire.
My two novels happen in the same village, which is just a short drive from my place. I have changed the name slightly, but nobody from around here would be fooled.
Mine takes place in a few real-world locations, in a near-future sci-fi setting. One is Canary Wharf, another is Shoreditch, and another is a now derelict beach, house and lighthouse on Jersey. I know Jersey very well so can incorporate a lot of the local terrain and landmarks into the character's journey. I don't know the other locations particularly well, so I'll need to get the train down to London and go and explore!
I use real places for all my settings: Under the Knife takes place primarily in Los Angeles, but there are also parts set in Chicago and Marlborough, New Zealand. From Blood to Roses starts in Austin, TX, moves to Lancaster, PA and ends in Washington DC The town in Kneadful Things is never named, but it's modeled after Scranton, PA Gravity is set in Los Angeles as well, though it ends with a stop in Des Moines, IA
My current novel, an urban fantasy, takes place on an unspecified island in the Caribbean. However, my non-urban-fantasy novels all take place in fictional towns in very much nonfictional Delaware County, just outside Philadelphia. In fact, the next novel I have planned is really meant to be a picture of life in Delco, including all the standards: Wawa hoagies, Rita’s Water Ice, the opioid crisis, middle school lacrosse, a weird mix of blue collar middle-class angst butting right up against Main Line affluence, and a millennial protagonist who can’t seem to leave despite being bored shitless and wanting to find some kind of creative endeavor to distract from the monotony.
My home village, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, several coastal villages I spent a bit of time in while I was a Coastguard officer, a fictionalised version of a small village in Southern Iraq, London and Grimsby (those last three only briefly and in flashback sequences).
My story starts in the middle of the night on an interstate in west/central Georgia (US), then on to Panama City Beach, Florida. From there it goes first to rural Virginia, and the remainder of the story occurs in Richmond, Virginia (specifically the Carytown District). There are a couple other scenes in New York City as well. All my locations are real right down the the street names.
Possibly only semi-real... It takes place in a very post-climate-change Northern Australia and the islands between Australia and mainland Asia.
I, too, think it's pretty cool when I come across real places (especially ones I know) in fiction. A few years back I was reading a short story by one of my favorite authors and it was set in a hotel less than an hour from me. It was clear the author had spent time in this hotel because there are some pretty unique things about it. If I didn't know this hotel, I would have thought a lot of the details were made up. The author also named the town the hotel is in. The author made it as clear as possible that this was a real location with a fictional story. It was great! I use real locations all the time. I have a big thing for chain restaurants. I just think almost all of lives important moments can somehow involve a chain restaurant. I sort of think the more real my fiction becomes (and I don't mean the actual story), the more real the story feels. Things like setting can allow us to bring real things into our story while still keeping fiction fiction.
I once made a story where I used my own school in a small town in Alberta, Canada. I even got most of my classmates in on it, and they would always ask me if they died or not I'm currently using a giant mountain in my story, but have not decided which one I want it to be in the real world.
Current WIP: The West Village, NYU (New York University), and the Upper West Side of Manhattan, NYC. Next book: Los Angeles, Omaha, San Antonio, a Chicago suburb, and a couple of to-be-determined locations for some minor scenes.
One story takes place at a) Versailles, b) a fictional village near Saint Hubert in the Ardennes and c) the Brocken in Germany. It's an alternate history story. But otherwise I write fantasy and sci-fi, therefor nothing real is in it.
My UF takes place in a city based vaguely on Atlanta, and two beachside southeastern towns I'm familiar with. They all get fictional names, though. I'm not interested in replicating the exact settings -- I'm just stealing their flavors.
My completed work Deceitful Survival was in Haiti and France in 19th century and my WIP Sting of the Wasp is in Baltimore Md and DC I like using real places because it forces me to do the research to make it right.
My current work takes place in a few different places across Europe during the Renaissance period! Currently only London, but Paris and Constantinople are also planned as settings.
A writer after my own heart. Doing research does more than just make the story right, doesn't it? It also gives you ideas and perspectives you might not have thought of on your own. I love that aspect of research. The surprises. Most of them good ...although the potential for nasty surprises (omigod, that derails my plot!) can also arise.
Ceres, Pluto, Helene, Callisto, Mars, and Earth ( Terra) So quite a few real places, just events and stuff is fiction. Those outside of Sci-fi think in the small scale, in terms of real places. Though it would be funny to have a non-cannon offshoot short with them all meeting up at Applebees or something like that at the end.
I've set my book in the area I live in (Leeds and the surrounding towns, in West Yorkshire), and doing the research has been fascinating. One of the conceits is that it's partially set in the world of ghosts, letting me use historical characters. And because places destroyed or decayed in the living world can still endure in the ghost world, it's been an excuse to do all kinds of research on what the locales used to be like. There's a place in the city centre that's now home to a theater that used to house a giant housing complex designed to be almost a self-contained arcology. There's a village that was abandoned and is currently under the water of a reservoir. There's a "pauper lunatic asylum" that was knocked down about fifteen years ago, and is now a housing estate. It's great fun. My personal favourite was when I was reading the story of a haunting in the city library in the 19th century, just because of the casual mention of how a librarian heard a strange noise late at night, drew his revolver and went to investigate.
Bournemouth, a cosmopolitan town seaside down on the South-West coast of England, with a couple of scenes in London.
