The Pitfalls of Writing Stories Set in Your Local Area
Filed under Advice • 17-05-2009 •
It’s always fun to set stories in your hometown, because you can use locations you know intimately and that familiarity can add an extra authenticity to your writing. You don’t have to imagine a setting because you can visit it and walk around in it. You can see the stage on which your characters will play out their scenes.
However, doing so can also cause problems. You can fall into the trap of assuming too much knowledge on behalf of your readers. If you set a story against a local landmark and they’ve never visited it, they might not get the significance you assume it’s bringing to your story. They might miss the details you take for granted. In your mind’s eye, you might be constructing the most dramatic scene you’ve ever imagined – but if the reader doesn’t know enough about the locale to picture it in their own mind, if you’re not describing it properly, all your hard work will be wasted. You have to take a step back and ensure you’re being fair to them, that you’re avoiding in-jokes and describing the scene the same way you would if you were describing one on Mars or Jupiter, and not letting your familiarity with the scene blind you to the reader’s needs.
On the other hand, it can be just as difficult to set stories in exotic or imaginary locales. You still have the same duty to describe the scene vividly, whether it’s Buenos Aires, Tokyo or the dark side of Moon.
One thing I’ve always enjoyed about the SF genre is the way it can transport you to some other time or place and fire your imagination so you feel you’ve been there and experienced something above and beyond your everyday routine. What you have to do as a writer is make sure you treat your local environment the same way – because it may well be exotic and mysterious to some of your readers.
For instance, I recently co-wrote a short story with another writer, set in Paris, a city I’ve visited only twice in my life, but one in which the other writer has lived for many years. While she felt at home writing about the streets and boulevards, I had to use Google Earth to obtain detailed aerial photographs of the locations and routes we were using in the story, to give me the insight I needed to produce credible descriptions of the scenery the characters found themselves passing through.
Aerial photograghs from Google. I knew about them, of course and use them for directions, but never thought about using them for story background. I have a story shopping around right now that is set in my hometown. Of course, it won’t help with the businesses as this one is set in the 1940s to today. What I remember as Greens Drug store may have been Kelley’s back then and something else now. I decided that only I, and maybe one of the only 3 thousand people who live there really care what it’s called anyway, and went with drug store. I know, it’s probably a cop out.
We’ll have to do that interview soon. I’m poking around so that I have some good questions for you.
Hi Ann – ready when you are, just drop me a line.
Actually, I also used the internet… *ashamed*
I can describe certain parts of Paris with pretty good accuracy, but the ones we ended up choosing are places I’ve never set foot in, so I had to find pictures. I had one advantage over you, which was knowing exactly where I could look to find them.
Also, as you point out, living in a place means that, when you choose details to describe it, you might not pick the most striking–having pictures was a way to take some distance and work out my descriptions.
Hi there!