Help Please! A question of setting

[Andrew Marsh]

Hi all, I have often been puzzled with the setting for a novel.
If, for example, I want to set a book in a certain town I would use the street names and places. Would that include the actual school (for teen novel) or would I need to invent a school in that area?
This one confuses me, how much of "reality" can and should you use in a novel?
I would appreciate your help.
Thanks,
Andrew

 

[Carol Rose]

You can use the real names of schools, etc. I've done that.

 

[Robert M Derry]

You can set fiction in real places and you could probably do that all the way down to street level, but if you do ground it that deep into reality, I would watch out for libel. If you have a character who lives in this real street and you make them do something horrible or they have a dark past, you might risk someone real on your real street thinking you are writing about them, if your description is close to their actual appearance. This could expose you to a libel claim. It's a long shot, but I'd probably invent a fictional street in a real town, to keep it both familiar but at an appropriate distance that you can do what you want with who you want.

I wouldn't set your story in a real school unless you get their permission. Even if you do it'll limit what certain characters can do if the school is real. E.g. You may make a disparaging comment about the headmaster and get yourself into deep water, even if you change the names of staff you risk people drawing negative conclusions if the school your characters exist in is real.

 

[Andrew Marsh]

Thanks Robert, that was my kind of thinking too.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I mix real places in Cornwall with fictionalised locations that I rename, which is a bit power-mad of me, but there's a long tradition of authors acting like gods! For instance, my Cornish Detective stories are based in Liskeard, where I lived fifteen years, but I call it by the ancient name of Liskerrett. I've also changed the town's layout, by replacing Liskeard's main thoroughfare with the high street in Andover, Hampshire (where I lived for three years), as it better suited my plots.

I've done similar name-changing for villages and towns within a five mile radius of Liskerrett, though anyone living here or holidaymakers could easily identify them. Wary of offending anyone, I also alter pub and business names, but I base them on buildings I've known.

Should I ever achieve any commercial success with my crime novel series, perhaps the locations will appear on a tourist trail...driving loyal fans nuts at the changes I made.

 

[Barbara]

You could always say something like: Sam and Sybil (or whoever) went to that new school which was built next to that new housing development everyone opposed to; the one near the nature reserve at the edge of the village.

 

[Paul V]

Hi Andrew. I think it depends on the content and storyline. Irrespective of the legal issues regarding naming individual schools, or in my case a hotel or individuals that I attended through my career, I fundamentally wouldn't want to run the risk of causing distress to anyone. If in doubt I'd change the names/locations.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I've used real places but changed a few details, street names etc.
And look at Rebus etc.

 

[Eva Ulian]

Hi all, I have often been puzzled with the setting for a novel.
If, for example, I want to set a book in a certain town I would use the street names and places. Would that include the actual school (for teen novel) or would I need to invent a school in that area?
This one confuses me, how much of "reality" can and should you use in a novel?
I would appreciate your help.
Thanks,
Andrew

If a school has a specific characteristic that no other school has then you have to use the name of that school- to my mind it wouldn't be credible if you invented a new name, since everyone will know it's that school anyway. And it would be quite awkward to set it in a "fictitious" town especially if you then state in the blurb the novel is based on true facts. However, if you live long enough to write about it next to half a century later, I don't think anyone will resurrect from the grave to serve a summons on you, especially if there is nothing they can summons you about, as is in my case. On the other hand if you write about an institution or as I have done a convent where some pretty nasty things happen, mostly invented or exaggerated, even if based on reality I have not included one single real name of anyone or anything- even if half a century has elapsed- everyone has heirs.

 

[Eva Ulian]

You could always say something like: Sam and Sybil (or whoever) went to that new school which was built next to that new housing development everyone opposed to; the one near the nature reserve at the edge of the village.

Yes... love it, @Barbara

 

[DRFerron]

This short article Doughnut Shops, Dive Bars and Diners in the New York Times addresses this somewhat. It is about a few authors and the real places they put into their books.

My novel is set on the Chesapeake Bay in the US. After attending a Bay writers conference and hearing a keynote speech given by a local author/professor whose family name goes back many generations and has a lot of buildings and towns named after them, I removed any mention of his name from my manuscript. I originally renamed the local college after the family but changed it after seeing him in person. I felt odd leaving it.