Feedback Wanted
Real place names are useful until they aren’t. They carry texture straight away, but they also bring baggage, assumptions and a ready-made picture in the reader’s head.
That can help a scene. It can also work against it. The name may be doing more work than the writing, and not always the right work.
I’ve seen the same place feel vivid in one book and oddly flattened in another, just because the name came with too much expectation. Sometimes inventing the place gives the story more room to breathe. Sometimes the real name does the heavy lifting.
Curious how other writers decide where that line is.
That can help a scene. It can also work against it. The name may be doing more work than the writing, and not always the right work.
I’ve seen the same place feel vivid in one book and oddly flattened in another, just because the name came with too much expectation. Sometimes inventing the place gives the story more room to breathe. Sometimes the real name does the heavy lifting.
Curious how other writers decide where that line is.
Real places can also do something unhelpful by making a book feel over-researched before it’s even started. Sometimes the reader needs Oxford, sometimes they need a city that behaves like Oxford without all the historical furniture attached.
In historical fiction especially, I’m wary of using a famous name just because it saves a paragraph of explanation. If the setting matters, the writing should do the work anyway.
In historical fiction especially, I’m wary of using a famous name just because it saves a paragraph of explanation. If the setting matters, the writing should do the work anyway.