Techniques to avoid having to mention place names?

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Once place that got stuck in my mind, though I can never remember the name of it and have to look it up every time.


Wieambilla

.

 

[Writer61]

Once place that got stuck in my mind, though I can never remember the name of it and have to look it up every time.


Wieambilla

.

I remember the shootings, but not the place name.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I remember thinking within minutes of reading the first articles the day they appeared here that it shouldn't have happened. Not there.

It happens in the US quite often. But we're led to believe the AU services are more organized and prepared.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

I doubt that many people outside Australia have ever heard of Vegemite, let alone know what it is or where it comes from. You might as well mention Tim-Tams.

Strangely, I've never been anywhere near the southern hemisphere. Still keep a steady supply of vegemite in the house, and I have a family member obsessed with tim-tams.

 

[000zing]

Yes and: How deep does that go? Does it stop at the level of Pittsburgh? Like, making up a fake Pittsburgh is too much, but making up a fake neighborhood in Pittsburgh is okay? Or is the expectation that Daniel and Katherine have dinner at Texas de Brazil, 240 W Station Square Dr ste d-1, Pittsburgh, PA, which is down the street from the Sheraton on the Three Rivers Heritage Trail?

The places in my stories so far have been based on real places. The cabin in What's Left of Me, I can draw a map of that place and where it sits on the grounds. But that company, the school, the bars and gyms -- those are all fake, because it'd be weird as hell I think to have those two characters patronizing real non-generic places.

Where's this 'Pittsburgh' place, then? Never heard of it. Is it somewhere in the North of England? Scotland, perhaps?

Oh yes.. and sign me up for the verisimilitude thing. That, after all is a writer's attempt to couch a tale in a world familiar to the reader... and the writer would do it, very obviously, to convey the feeling that 'this' (whatever it is) is really happening. Enhanced excitement. Enhanced 'hook'.

Not rocket science.

 

[Writer61]

I remember thinking within minutes of reading the first articles the day they appeared here that it shouldn't have happened. Not there.

It happens in the US quite often. But we're led to believe the AU services are more organized and prepared.

That it does not happen so often is probably part of why it happened.

After Port Arthur, there was a huge turn-in of guns. Astonishingly, some of the planned reforms have not yet been implemented. The attack at Bondi will bring more changes.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Think of Boston being referred to as "Bean Town", or New York as "The Big Apple".

Now come up with a phony nickname for your town that could be explained, such as "Cabbage Town", because of all the Brussels Sprouts grown in the vicinity. A nickname relevant to the denizens of the locale but maybe not for someone not from there.

DC's Metropolis is known as The Big Apricot.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Even after all of the versions of the story, I can't find a Stepford anywhere. There may be one, but I haven't found it.


That's what I did.

Sounds like it would be a place in Maine.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

"Oh, you went to Mueller Industrial High School? So did I! We must have been what, five years apart? Did you have Mrs. Munchkin for Economics?"

--Annie

Nah, my minor was Hydrostatic Dynamics.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Sounds like it would be a place in Maine.

No, that's Cabot Cove. The place with the highest murder rate per capita in the world.

 

[Britva415]

No, that's Cabot Cove. The place with the highest murder rate per capita in the world.

Wasn't that in Connecticut?

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Nor do I. The reluctance to name a place, real or fictitious, feels like painting oneself into an unnecessary corner.

It can, story depending. Sunday comics can go decades without mentioning a real location. We don't know where Calvin & Hobbes lived, or The Peanuts, though folks assume they live in Minnesotta.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away or long ago, shit hit the fan. Our story takes place in a town just like yours, in a house not so different from the one you're in, on a day not at all unlike today,

 

[MillieDynamite]

That's actually an opening line I'm planning on using someday. With that said, I've been planning on using it for about ten years now.

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away or long ago, shit hit the fan. Our story takes place in a town just like yours, in a house not so different from the one you're in, on a day not at all unlike today,

 

[TheExperimentalist]

That's actually an opening line I'm planning on using someday. With that said, I've been planning on using it for about ten years now.

I feel like I've read it, or something very similar, before.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Nope, as far as I know, and I have checked the line, it has never been used in that way before. But the world is a big place, it is possible I'm wrong.

I feel like I've read it, or something very similar, before.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

Nope, as far as I know, and I have checked the line, it has never been used in that way before. But the world is a big place, it is possible I'm wrong.

Perhaps it just has that familiar well-written opening line feel.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Here's the first few paragraphs of what I have mostly outlined. It's obviously a horror story.

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away or long ago, shit hit the fan. Our story takes place in a town just like yours, in a house not so different from the one you're in, on a day not at all unlike today. It stands a few miles to the southwest of a small town.

They say the fracking caused the earthquakes. The state cracked down on it. But the quakes continued. A treemor hit deep in the ground. So deep, so short, no one really felt it. But a crack appeared in the cellar of the oh, so normal house. And something, old and evil, escaped it. The old farmhouse stood there for well over 100 years.

Built not in the last century, but the one before it. The evil had been contained for all those years. Since the Nations first sold land to the white men. Built after a land run, constructed of wood and brick with a basement. In that cellarage, built as a frady-hole, a small area was bricked off to hold the evil. And it did for over 130 years.

Until that day.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

Here's the first few paragraphs of what I have mostly outlined. It's obviously a horror story.

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away or long ago, shit hit the fan. Our story takes place in a town just like yours, in a house not so different from the one you're in, on a day not at all unlike today. It stands a few miles to the southwest of a small town.

They say the fracking caused the earthquakes. The state cracked down on it. But the quakes continued. A treemor hit deep in the ground. So deep, so short, no one really felt it. But a crack appeared in the cellar of the oh, so normal house. And something, old and evil, escaped it. The old farmhouse stood there for well over 100 years.

Built not in the last century, but the one before it. The evil had been contained for all those years. Since the Nations first sold land to the white men. Built after a land run, constructed of wood and brick with a basement. In that cellarage, built as a frady-hole, a small area was bricked off to hold the evil. And it did for over 130 years.

Until that day.

I'll be honest, given the opening line, I'd expected something more along the lines of a cozy tongue-in-cheek comedy-drama.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I don't do much comedy!

I'll be honest, given the opening line, I'd expected something more along the lines of a cozy tongue-in-cheek comedy-drama.