The new Gotham? Urban Fantasy setting question

[Dutch]

How much should real life experience of a setting affect where you place your story? A lot of people say write what you know but if I have never been to somewhere like New York or Tokyo etc, this could be difficult to sell to a reader.

I believe I have a rough idea for a plot and cast of characters for my new Urban fantasy/cyberpunk/neo-noir story but the issue of setting is holding me back.

Do I place in the real world and chance describing places I have never been? Do I go for a fictional world that just happens to have the same make up as ours? Or is there a half way house where I can have a fictional city ala Gotham and place it in our world?

I know the decision is mine but what are peoples thoughts/preferences on this dilemma?

 

[Ban]

You're Dutch? No I'm Dutch!

Ok with that silliness out of the way, most of us have never been to the settings we write about as fictional settings have a tendency to not exist. The "write what you know" advice like a lot of other half-baked advice is often repeated online, which it shouldn't because it doesn't make much sense when you look at all the writers before you. Frank Herbert never visited a desert planet, the closest he got were some dunes in Oregon. Tolkien never found his way into Mordor or Gondor, and I can promise you that CS Lewis never talked with a lion in a wardrobe, there's a good chance he never even saw a lion except for at a far distance in the zoo.

Now does that mean that the "write what you know" advice should be thrown out the window ? Not necessarily, but here's a better and more useful version of it you can use: "write what you know or can imagine, and if you can't do either, do your research twice as hard"

 

[Night Gardener]

I have one contemporary WIP. If you need inspiration and real-life references, try using Google Earth street views...and just wander around the city or area you're wanting to write about. They've been updating certain cultural landmarks by sending in people to 360-record on foot. It's maybe not as good as physically being there, but it IS useful.

Also, city-review apps built-in to sites like Trulia MLS and Zillow can be insightful. Yelp is mostly angry people ranting about specific proprietors, which can oddly be useful for authenticity. But if you want to pick up on local phrases, landmarks, etc there's lots of forums to haunt to get a feel for an area. (Ahem, Craigslist anyone?)

And, don't forget hilarious online State or Country Memes. Painfully stereotypical, but kind of honest if you don't mind the occassional irreverence to vast swaths of people. Google Analytics can also be interesting. (What are the top searches in a given zipcode, etc.) Delightfully quirky things lurk there.

 

[Heliotrope]

A lot of writers create fictional cities that are supposed to exist in 'real life'. Like Gotham, or Metropolis. Avonlea (Anne of Green Gables) never actually existed on Prince Edward Island. Bayport (The Hardy Boys) didn't exist either. Clanton, Mississippi (John Grisham, A Time To Kill) was made up. He also set a few other books in this fictional town.

If you wanted to, you could do that... sort of based on a town you know but not a town you know... sort of an "any city" or "any small town"...

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

^Don't forget Sunnydale!

I suppose it might come down to whether the fictional city you have in mind could conceivably exist on Earth. I don't have any experience with setting the story on Earth, but I can try to imagine it, at least.