Afternoon. I'm currently editing my novel and one point a friend of mine has pointed out that I don't say where it is set.
For example in the first chapter I write.
To be honest there was a distinct lack of alternatives for sixteen and seventeen year olds to do where we lived, which meant that driving around in Alex's car was the best thing we could do, and there was nowhere I would rather have been.
Should I give a name to the place or not? Would knowing specifically where it is set influence peoples opinions of the main character? Should I say an area such as a town or narrow it down to a close by village?
Thanks.
Sometimes you can get a bit bogged down in geography once you give a story a specific setting. Just remember that you can take a few liberties with it as suits your story, your readers won't mind
I'm even going to disagree with Jonathan this time!
I suspect that you mean that the location should remain unidentified (by name) for all of the action...
However - surely part of the fun of quite a lot of books, whether the place is given no name or a fictional name, is for readers to work out where they think the real location is. This has certainky applied to "Watership Down" - and even to "Winnie the Pooh".
Then again, accepting that placing a story in somewhere like London can be an issue for some readers, there have been so many authors that have been described as "catching the essence" of one city or another... And I cannot think of a single example off the top of my head!
I can, however, think of a place name that was redolent with meaning for millions - "East Cheam"... Yes it was on the radio - but those two words came to mean a whole mixture of things to people. As a completely fictional place the nature of East Cheam was entirely built up on the characters and action.
A place name provides a whole host of references in a very short form. Perhaps the shortest example would be "Home".
I want to mention another option. (Just in case anyone has missed it). We can have a place, with or without a name, in or close to an identified place. This can be applied to being adjacent to a village right through town, city, county and even a country... It is quite reasonable to identify somewhere as "close to the border with..." Then a whole lot of things can result from such a location - directly or indirectly.
But then there is a question - is topography more important than place name?
;-)
David
I'm going to have to disagree with Adrian again - totally this time.
I just feel that the statements are far too absolute and far too prescriptive.
I completely accept that they may be fine for Adrian and also fine for many other writers - but I do not accept that they are definitive conditions/requirements for all writing.
As far as I recall HG Wells did not provide an identified location for "The Time Machine" - even if he did - it isn't essential to the enjoyment or understanding of the book. For all I recall (and I imagine anyone else would recall) it could be set in Karachi or Mombassa.
Turning to the original question - a location is provided - Alex's car...
Which makes me think of road movies and the books they spring from... The "place" is the road. In fact, in some examples, the road is a character.
So... With characters - characters usually - almost always move from place to place. They may be rooted in one place - but their roots are not always immediately apparent - certainly not in a first chapter.
As an example I would suggest the "self made man" - someone in one place who turns out to have roots in a distinctly different place - which are both likely to have great influence on the character and the plot - but we may not discover the background place for some time.
It is a very different issue to make large relocations in perspective and/or character. These can be done - but they need far more care - and very clear efforts to signpost the break between one and another for the reader - unless, of course, the intention is to confuse or mislead the reader...
David