Fictional Locales, Real World

[MisterBananas]

If you're here, thanks for taking a look. I'm trying to work out a home city for the main character of a story I hope to eventually get published. The story predominately takes place in urban environments, sprawling metropolises and such. Which is where my problem arises.

Having never lived in a city and thus having nothing to pull from for a specific location any city picked for the character's hometown probably just wouldn't be done justice. I want the story to feel like it could be in our real world, or at least an only slightly distorted mirror of our world. So the question is: Do I still try to use a real city and likely flub up or make up a city?

[LizW65]

My recommendation would be to find the city nearest you and spend some time walking around, soaking up the atmosphere and making note of the ways in which it differs from your rural home: more heavily populated, most things within walking distance, different ethnic makeup, etc. as well as the sounds, smells, quality of light, and so on. Also, Google Earth is your friend. After you've experienced the real thing for yourself, it will be easier to decide if you want to use a real city or create one by cherrypicking bits from existing locations as needed.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I'd add, the more cities and neighbourhoods in cities you know well, the more plausibly you're going to be able to make bits up and have them feel right.

[Quantus]

As a general rule Id caution against making a completely new city for an Urban Fiction, unless you are looking to put a relatively large emphasis on the "Alternate Earth" setting.  Having a city that is completely new tends to distance the reader from the setting familiarity that Urban Fantasy banks on, and really drives home the sense that this is NOT their world.  Now, for certain stories that may be a benefit.  Comic Books have long been able to get away with it (Gotham City=Chicago, Metropolis= New York, Coast City=L.A, etc) but they have that single unifying difference of "this is the modern world, only with Super Heroes."   Similarly, wouldnt be a big deal for one of the several Urban Fantasies were, for example, the Supernatural World is open and known to the general Populace.  But in both cases it works because a big theme of the story is going to be about all the ways the setting is NOT the Real World.  But if you want the feeling of the setting being this world, just with secrets that the average person doesnt know, Id say its worth the effort of researching a particular City, so that you can maintain the sense of familiarity with the wider world

That being said, there is also a danger of being TOO familiar with a city.  I see this most often with writers that are native New Yorkers.  New yorkers are notorious for viewing the City as its own world, and tend to forget that certain things that are common knowldge for a resident are not actually known to the rest of the world.  For example, they may use certain park statues as landmarks that dont mean anything to non-natives.  Or referencing neighborhoods by their street number;  its the difference between saying "the young College girl knew she shouldnt be in that part of Harlem in the middle of the night", vs saying ""the young College girl know she shouldnt be north of 110th street in the middle of the night."  Anyone who has never lived in New York City wouldnt have any clue what those street numbers represent. 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

As a general rule Id caution against making a completely new city for an Urban Fiction, unless you are looking to put a relatively large emphasis on the "Alternate Earth" setting.  Having a city that is completely new tends to distance the reader from the setting familiarity that Urban Fantasy banks on, and really drives home the sense that this is NOT their world.  Now, for certain stories that may be a benefit.  Comic Books have long been able to get away with it (Gotham City=Chicago, Metropolis= New York, Coast City=L.A, etc)

I've always read Gotham as mythically "big scary city where you get mugged all the time" and Metropolis as "bright shiny city of tomorrow" and both of those as aspects of how New York is seen.

(Last map of the DC universe I saw, Gotham replaced Delaware and Metropolis took up about the southern quarter of New Jersey; and New York itself is much smaller than in RL, and judging by the Manhattan Guardian miniseries, full of awesome buildings and things that were proposed but not actually built in the real world.)

[Quantus]

I've always read Gotham as mythically "big scary city where you get mugged all the time" and Metropolis as "bright shiny city of tomorrow" and both of those as aspects of how New York is seen.

(Last map of the DC universe I saw, Gotham replaced Delaware and Metropolis took up about the southern quarter of New Jersey; and New York itself is much smaller than in RL, and judging by the Manhattan Guardian miniseries, full of awesome buildings and things that were proposed but not actually built in the real world.)

I always saw Gotham as the dank and Corrupt and full of mafia, like Chicago in the old days.  And a lot of Batman renditions, especially the 90's cartoon I grew up on, they gave everything in gotham a retro, 40's style feel, with helped that accosaition.  But yes, not they are established as different cities along side teh real ones, instead of the fiction replacements they started as.  I think it was during the last Marvel crossover they mentioned that the DC earth is bigger than normal earth, and so it can support more densely populated urban areas.

[The Corvidian]

All novels are alternate history, or hidden history. Even the real world cities in these novels have hidden places that don't exist in the real world, or places that real, but have hidden facets.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

All novels are alternate history, or hidden history. Even the real world cities in these novels have hidden places that don't exist in the real world, or places that real, but have hidden facets.

I've never been able to understand people who balk at worlds where, say, WWII fgoes really differently, but are perfectly happy with stories in settings where everything is exactly the same as our world in every respect except for a dozen or so fictional people having mundane non-fantastical stories happen to them.  The necessary tweak to create the latter situation is immensely more subtle and difficult than the former.

[Quantus]

I've never been able to understand people who balk at worlds where, say, WWII fgoes really differently, but are perfectly happy with stories in settings where everything is exactly the same as our world in every respect except for a dozen or so fictional people having mundane non-fantastical stories happen to them.  The necessary tweak to create the latter situation is immensely more subtle and difficult than the former.

I dont know whether one is more difficult than the other, but the What If scenario's are certainly far more interesting, to me at least.  You think a different outcome to WWII would be interesting?  Imagine how the world wars and modern life would look if the American Civil War went the other way, so that by the time the World Wars rolled around the US was a bickering confederation of loosely associated but independent nation states, rather than the industrial behemoth it was becoming. 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

  Imagine how the world wars and modern life would look if the American Civil War went the other way,

I don't find that a particularly interesting subset of alternate history because there is really an enormous volume of it already out there, people have already explored options there in great depth and detail. (I've been on panels where everyone concerned just referred to it as the Civil War, and if people push me for my opinion on the Civil War, it's "Get over it, Cromwell won.")  There's quite a lot of alternate WWII stuff out there; insofar as i am interested in working in AH, I am really more interested in other divergence points that have not been used anything like as much (Qeng Ho colonising California, or the timing of the French envoys to the Mongol court working out differently such that the Mongols end up joining the later Crusades.)

[Quantus]

I don't find that a particularly interesting subset of alternate history because there is really an enormous volume of it already out there, people have already explored options there in great depth and detail. (I've been on panels where everyone concerned just referred to it as the Civil War, and if people push me for my opinion on the Civil War, it's "Get over it, Cromwell won.")  There's quite a lot of alternate WWII stuff out there; insofar as i am interested in working in AH, I am really more interested in other divergence points that have not been used anything like as much (Qeng Ho colonising California, or the timing of the French envoys to the Mongol court working out differently such that the Mongols end up joining the later Crusades.)

Cool, I had no idea.

[LizW65]

One of my favorite alt-history novels is John Ford's The Dragon Waiting, in which the Battle of Bosworth Field goes the other way. It also has wizards and vampires.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

One of my favorite alt-history novels is John Ford's The Dragon Waiting, in which the Battle of Bosworth Field goes the other way. It also has wizards and vampires.

Oh, I love that book possibly more than any other novel in the English language; it does some of the most impressive things I have ever read, and I have to ration how often I read it so I can still enjoy it rather than just having it committed to memory entirely.  I had the privilege of meeting John M. Ford a couple of times, and he was an amazing person; everything he wrote is worth reading, even to the extent of seeking out things like GURPS Time Travel when I have no intention of playing GURPS any time soon.

[Sully]

I don't find that a particularly interesting subset of alternate history because there is really an enormous volume of it already out there, people have already explored options there in great depth and detail. (I've been on panels where everyone concerned just referred to it as the Civil War, and if people push me for my opinion on the Civil War, it's "Get over it, Cromwell won.")

Assuming the conferences were in the US, I don't think it's that unusual to have a USA-centric view of history.

And you're right, there's already so much out there for the Union vs Confederacy.  Not much to say.

I do enjoy some of S.M. Stirling's stuff.  I'd like to read more people dropped into societies of another time, that I enjoy.  Along with the Destroyermen series, whoever writes that.

I'm not sure how I would write it though.  I don't feel I'm educated enough to do a credible job.

(And I don't think very many people would be interested in a music pedagogy/history theme, either)

[/quote]
  There's quite a lot of alternate WWII stuff out there; insofar as i am interested in working in AH, I am really more interested in other divergence points that have not been used anything like as much (Qeng Ho colonising California, or the timing of the French envoys to the Mongol court working out differently such that the Mongols end up joining the later Crusades.)
[/quote]

Finding a Chinese Colony in California could be a fun western.  I'd read the Mongol idea, definitely.  The Mongols successfully conquering and holding territory for more than a couple generations could be good too.

Oh!  Oh!  The Chinese don't complete The Great Wall, the Mongols take over, and keep rolling East.  Three sided war on the Great Plains from the American East vs the Mongols with the First Nations tribes being caught between a rock and a hard place.  Or maybe earlier, Mongols vs Conquistadores, Incan/Mayan conscripts led North by Conquistadores fighting an Eastern(Japanese, Chinese, Mongol, whatever) aligned empire in the Southwest.

Or perhaps Russia has expanded south from Alaska and is now working East, post American Civil War.

...yeah, even USA centric AH has plenty of room besides The Confederacy winning 'The War of Northern Aggression'.

[KevinEvans]

Something that could help for city information, use Google Earth, with the street view option. This lets you see the location like you are standing there, doesn’t help with the feel and emotion of the place, but you can see what it looks like.

Kevin