The topic of settings, specifically the benefits of creating a fake town versus using a real one, was brought up on the Go Teen Writers Community Facebook Group by Michaella. She’s writing a story set in the 1970s and has a real small town in mind for her setting, but she’s concerned about being disrespectful to residents or getting facts wrong.

I’ve used real settings in all my published books, both contemporary and historical, so I understand these concerns. I’ve set my books in big cities like San Francisco and Chicago, my medium-size hometown Kansas City, a somewhat obscure smaller town, Visalia, California, and a community that was basically a small town but was actually a concentration camp, Manzanar War Relocation Center.

Here are some thoughts for how to make a real location work for you:

Research, research, research

I always get a thrill when I see a book is set in or near my hometown. I have bought books before just because they were set in Kansas City. But we all want the places we live or care about to be represented accurately and fairly in stories.

I don’t know about you, but I can laugh off one or two factual errors, especially if they’re quirky. Like in Kansas, we only have license plates on the back of our vehicles, not the front. I always get a chuckle when I’m watching TV and a vehicle from Kansas drives up with a license plate on the front, but I don’t think poorly of the set designer (or whoever handles those details) because it’s so random. Who would think to research if Kansas cars have license plates in the front? That’s an error I can shrug away.

If you make small errors like that, the majority of your readers won’t know. And those who do will probably just shrug. (Except for those who are really excited to email you and tell you what you got wrong, but most of them are nice about it.)

Something that was really helpful for me to remember when I started writing historical fiction and felt panicky about getting details wrong is that I’m writing fiction. Nobody expects me to have a PhD in Chicago history or Japanese culture. As fiction writers, we should do our absolute best to get all our facts right, but we have to make peace with our limitations.

There are so many things, however, that we can research pretty easily, thanks to the internet. Here are a few thoughts to get you going:

Google Street View: Street view is my BFF when I’m writing any book, especially one in a town I’ve never been to or haven’t been to in a long time. It’s not perfect for historical fiction, but it can still be very helpful depending on how well those historical neighborhoods have been preserved.

Images of America books by Arcadia Publishing: These are my historical research BFFs. These books are super specific in topic (Lincoln Park Chicago, Japanese in San Francisco, etc.) and are full of vintage photographs. There’s often a really nice “history of the neighborhood” write-up in the very beginning. They can get pricey so I often use my Interlibrary Loan system for these. (I would say ILL is my BFF too, but I’ve already said that about two other research tools!)

The town’s historical society website: Many communities have historical societies, and most of those societies have websites. (You could also check for state or county history websites because sometimes they have great ones.) Try Googling your desired city along with the word history. If you do it all in quotes (“Overland Park history”) that will keep your search very specific.

Niche history websites: When working on The Lost Girl of Astor Street, I learned the Chicago L had a website that included their history. I found maps of the L routes and pictures of the old cars. A lot of private schools have a “History” page where you can look at their old yearbooks or uniforms. I’ve found websites about the history of school lunches, the history of laundry, and so forth. People put some weird stuff on the internet, and I’m grateful.

Don’t be afraid to use real restaurants/schools/etc, but also consider the advantages of making one up

In The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series, Skylar’s group of friends hangs out at Sheridan’s Frozen Custard quite a bit. This is an actual favorite spot of mine in the metro area, and since I had nothing but nice things to say about it, I put it in the book. Because of this, Sheridan’s once donated $5 gift cards to a book club event I did with 20 or so teenage girls, so there can be some perks of loving on local businesses! (I really hoped the book would be so successful, Sheridan’s would create a “The Skylar” sundae and I would get free ice cream whenever I arrived, but alas.)

But you also might want to make up a place within your real setting, especially if you don’t have glowing things to say. When I started writing The Lost Girl of Astor Street, I originally had Piper attending a real school in Chicago. But since she hates school, doesn’t get along with the headmistress, and is punished physically several times, I decided to make up a school. Piper lives on a real street in Chicago and goes to many real places in the book, but anywhere that I cast in a less-than-positive light, I invented. To me, that feels more respectful.

I’ve done the same thing in contemporary novels too. Towns are always changing, so even if you do use a place that’s real now, there’s no guarantee that it’ll still be there in 5 years.

Get someone local to read it.

If you can find a local to read your manuscript, this is the best. When I was working on the Ellie Sweet books, set in Visalia, I knew some stuff because I used to live there. But I’d never been a high school student there. I got in touch with a childhood best friend who graduated from Redwood High School, and she was amazing about reading the manuscripts for me and helping me with details.

For Within These Lines, I had a generous park ranger at Manzanar National Historic Site agree to read an early version of the manuscript and help correct all my inaccuracies. (I also had two lovely Go Teen Writers community members who are Japanese American do sensitivity reads for me!)

You could also ask someone who is “situation local.” Meaning if your main character goes to public high school and you’re homeschooled, ask a public school friend to read it. Or if the book is set in a small town in Kansas, and you’re from Detroit, Michigan, see if you can find someone who lives in a small town, even if it’s small town Michigan.

When to make up a town

Even if you’re writing realistic fiction, there could be some very good reasons to make up your setting:

If the view of the town is negative: You might want to go with a made-up place in this situation, like the creators of Veronica Mars did. The fictitious town of Neptune has a strong “haves vs. have-nots” dynamic, so picking a real place would’ve been problematic.

If you want a specific vibe for your town: A great example of this is Stars Hollow, Connecticut in Gilmore Girls. Making up a charming, quirky, festival-obsessed town is a good call because then there’s no outcry that you’re glamorizing a place and paying no attention to the homeless/the drug crisis/etc. because that doesn’t exist there.

Even if you’re making up a place, you can save yourself a lot of time by drawing inspiration from locations that you think would be similar.

What about you? Do you tend to make up towns/cities or use real places?