Picking a setting.

[wflores82]

I have recently undertaken a project of writing my very first book.
I'm having trouble picking a location to set my book in.
 My problems are as follows: Picking a well known city i.e. Ny, LA, Boston, seattle.
would require extensive knowledge of the chosen city to avoid looking like an idiot
when I describe something that isn't there. Also, requires extensive knowledge of
recent buildings and streets you don't want to mention a shop that you read about
in a book about whatever place you choose put it in your book and find out through
fans that it's been gone for 20 years.
 Making my own fictional town up would be very difficult in writing because I'd have
to remember every single street I made up, were they lead, connecting cross streets, shops,
and even the citizen's habbits.
 what have some of you done to help with these problems?

[comprex]

Making my own fictional town up would be very difficult in writing because I'd have
to remember every single street I made up, were they lead, connecting cross streets, shops,
and even the citizen's habbits.

Make a map for yourself then.

[BobForPresident]

I have recently undertaken a project of writing my very first book.
I'm having trouble picking a location to set my book in.
 My problems are as follows: Picking a well known city i.e. Ny, LA, Boston, seattle.
would require extensive knowledge of the chosen city to avoid looking like an idiot
when I describe something that isn't there. Also, requires extensive knowledge of
recent buildings and streets you don't want to mention a shop that you read about
in a book about whatever place you choose put it in your book and find out through
fans that it's been gone for 20 years.
 Making my own fictional town up would be very difficult in writing because I'd have
to remember every single street I made up, were they lead, connecting cross streets, shops,
and even the citizen's habbits.
 what have some of you done to help with these problems?

What's wrong with using a city you live in?

If you have issues with the above, just make up the town on your own. Not every street has to have a specific name as long as you create a believable flavor for the city. For example, the world Harry Dresden inhabits "feels" like Chicago. Butcher seems to have picked just a few key ingredients of Chicago life: bars, extremely cold winters, towering buildings downtown, and has expanded on those aspects of Dresden's Chicago (that's the key, btw. It's Dresden's Chicago, not Chicago, Illinois).

I have no idea what the name of the street Dresden lives on is called or what neighborhood his favorite pizza joint or his Burger King is in. But Butcher makes a point of telling us that the Carpenters live in an area of Chicago VERY different from where Dresden's flat is. Specific names of streets and places are only important if you make them.

IOW, you can't have New York and omit the Statue of Liberty, but if in your New York Elm Street runs parallel to Main Street instead of 1st Street, no one, not even people who LIVE there, will ever know.

[Starbeam]

Google earth/maps.  Wikipedia, travel websites.  With the internet, it's pretty easy to find any sorta information about places.  And like BFP said, it's going to end up having some differences from the actual place, simply for the fact that you're putting fictional characters in the setting.  With the instance of creating a fictional town, that's pretty simple.  Pick a town and change its name.  Least, that's what Stephen King did.  Derry is basically Bangor, though at the same time it coexists in the same place.  And in the DC comics, Metropolis is pretty much NYC.  As long as you can find out information like size/population, landmarks, anything like that, there's not really a problem.  And that goes back to having the internet available. 

Oh, and if you're going to describe something that's no longer there, who's to say that it's not still there in your incarnation of the place?  Like an alternate timeline where things happened differently, like the Kim Harrison or Ilona Andrews series.  The cities are the same, but different.  I think most people will put up with little differences and such simply for the fact that it's fiction.

[LizW65]

Oh, and if you're going to describe something that's no longer there, who's to say that it's not still there in your incarnation of the place?  Like an alternate timeline where things happened differently, like the Kim Harrison or Ilona Andrews series.  The cities are the same, but different.  I think most people will put up with little differences and such simply for the fact that it's fiction.

Vintage maps can also be found on eBay for a few $$.  Another thought:  visit the place you want to use as a setting.  Take a whole lot of pictures, find interesting buildings you think you'd like to use in your story (you can move them if you want, it's okay!)  Spend an afternoon or two soaking up the atmosphere of the place.  If possible, talk to people who actually live there; find out where they like to go on their nights out, to shop, and so on.  You might not even end up using half of what you collect, but getting the feel of your chosen location is very helpful.

[wflores82]

thanks for all the info guys.

[Kali]

Not every street has to have a specific name as long as you create a believable flavor for the city. For example, the world Harry Dresden inhabits "feels" like Chicago. Butcher seems to have picked just a few key ingredients of Chicago life: bars, extremely cold winters, towering buildings downtown, and has expanded on those aspects of Dresden's Chicago (that's the key, btw. It's Dresden's Chicago, not Chicago, Illinois).

This is, I think, essential and needs repeating and emphasizing.

Pick a city you think is interesting, any city.  Do some research, yes, but what your initial research should be aimed toward is the creation of a list.  List a few specific landmarks, write bullet-point words about the feel of the city.  If it's a large city, add a few neighborhoods and specific one- or two-word descriptions of each.

Say you wanted to use Washington DC as an example.  Your list might look like this:

LANDMARKS
- Washington Monument & "The Mall"
- Capitol building
- Smithsonian Museums
- Metro railway
- cherry trees, springtime Cherry Blossom festival
MISCELLANY
- Politics
- Business suits + extreme poverty
- Tourists
- Cocentric circular design
- Big football town
NEIGHBORHOODS
- Northwest = affluence, gentility, Jewish bakeries
- Northeast = gentrifying, arty, Union Station
- Southeast = crime, poverty, vandals, new ballpark
- Capitol Hill = Bluetooth & briefcase crowd

And that would be enough to get you started.  As you wrote, you might want to look up a specific restaurant or have a map handy to pick up a street name here and there, but you wouldn't need to have a specific reference every single page or even every single chapter.