Settings - how do you? (OMG Writerly)

[sr71plt]

Not really off-topic, but a tangent.

If you've got first-hand experience of some quite snazzy locations, I dunno, say Venice or Africa or China or something, is it a negative to use those as settings to what (being brutally realistic to myself) are just short, simple erotic romances or comedies.

Perhaps readers can tell me. My stories posted here have settings all over the world (most, but not all using places I've been).

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I read a Vietnam War memoir a while back. The author began the memoir in my home town, and all his facts were wrong. It was a joke. He got excited when I made an Amazon Review and called attention to all the errors.

 

[driphoney]

Perhaps readers can tell me. My stories posted here have settings all over the world (most, but not all using places I've been).

I think your readers do tell you by giving you all those red H's.

Did you have a good weekend, SR?

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Thanks, Drip

No, she knew/knows Rome perfectly.

For me, she just took Kay Scarpetta out of her aggressive American-Italian setting and wanted to use an exotic scenario. I think it failed.

 

[sr71plt]

I think your readers do tell you by giving you all those red H's.

Did you have a good weekend, SR?

Thanks.

Not particularly a good weekend. The second fast trip up the coast in two weeks for a wedding among the in-laws.

 

[driphoney]

Thanks, Drip

No, she knew/knows Rome perfectly.

For me, she just took Kay Scarpetta out of her aggressive American-Italian setting and wanted to use an exotic scenario. I think it failed.

I haven't read that one, but that's what I would guess. Now, if ol' Kay were a spy . . .

Another person who used (maybe still does) the Richmond/DC area was David Baldacci. I loved driving past and seeing places I'd read about, then after I moved there, reading the book and trying to place the scenes. I have friend who gets out an atlas, and now uses Google Earth to track his heroes/heroines.

I want to someday do a standard western romance set here in Texas, but I can't get my brain to situate the characters. Guess I need to hit up some rodeos, get to the state fair, eat more barbecue.

 

[driphoney]

Thanks.

Not particularly a good weekend. The second fast trip up the coast in two weeks for a wedding among the in-laws.

Shame on them. They really should have doubled up and saved the family time and expense.

 

[sr71plt]

I haven't read that one, but that's what I would guess. Now, if ol' Kay were a spy . . .

Another person who used (maybe still does) the Richmond/DC area was David Baldacci. I loved driving past and seeing places I'd read about, then after I moved there, reading the book and trying to place the scenes. I have friend who gets out an atlas, and now uses Google Earth to track his heroes/heroines.

I want to someday do a standard western romance set here in Texas, but I can't get my brain to situate the characters. Guess I need to hit up some rodeos, get to the state fair, eat more barbecue.

Both Cornwall and Baldacci butcher the Richmond/Central Virginia locales from time to time. I can only guess that either they are doing it on purpose or New York editors are getting to the text and the authors aren't checking. Just read a screamer in a Rita Mae Brown book. She has characters drive up to the Afton pass over the Blue Ridge west of Charlottesville and turn south on the Skyline Drive. The mistake is that you go on the Blue Ridge Parkway when you turn south at that point (for the Skyline Drive you turn north). That's mainly a screamer because Rita Mae Brown lives in Afton right below that point, so it's not like she wouldn't know. John Grisham and Jan Karon are also local authors, but thus far neither has used Central Virginia as a setting.

 

[driphoney]

Both Cornwall and Baldacci butcher the Richmond/Central Virginia locales from time to time. I can only guess that either they are doing it on purpose or New York editors are getting to the text and the authors aren't checking. Just read a screamer in a Rita Mae Brown book. She has characters drive up to the Afton pass over the Blue Ridge west of Charlottesville and turn south on the Skyline Drive. The mistake is that you go on the Blue Ridge Parkway when you turn south at that point (for the Skyline Drive you turn north). That's mainly a screamer because Rita Mae Brown lives in Afton right below that point, so it's not like she wouldn't know. John Grisham and Jan Karon are also local authors, but thus far neither has used Central Virginia as a setting.

I guess I just thought they did it on purpose because you don't want readers showing up in someone's driveway. And maybe Rita didn't want her readers showing up at her house! Also, I figured I just didn't know specifically where they meant.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I've lived around here for 60 years, and many places that once existed are long gone. Current residents wouldnt have a clue if I wrote about Four Corners, Five Points, The Quarters, Supertest Amusement Park; a whole city is built over a western theme park.

Heeheehee The principal of a local school shit when I offered her a photo of faculty & parents performing a minstrel show at her school. She wanted artifacts to celebrate the school's 75th anniversary.

 

[ExoMani]

For me, creating the setting is the easiest part of a story to write. That’s not to say that I don’t sometimes have to put a lot of effort into creating a story setting. I put a tremendous amount of effort into developing the setting of my Sci-Fi & Fantasy stories. In the end, however, the setting of a story is just ‘furniture’ for the story’s characters.

I’ve traveled enough to have a pretty good mental library of settings to use in my stories. When personal experiences run short, I have no qualms about doing some research and creating a story setting in a place I’ve never visited.

I do try to be accurate and consistent in creating my story settings, as I find it very annoying when other authors are careless in that regard. For instance, I remember reading what was supposed to be a true story set in the Canary Islands. Having actually been there, I know that the Canary Islands are not located in the Mediterranean Sea, something the ‘true story’s’ author didn’t know. That missed fact immediately told me that the whole ‘true story’ was as fabricated as it’s setting.

 

[sadangel]

*writing thread bump*