Using real places in your writing

by benmweilertNo Comments
The setting is a key foundation of any story. Without it, your characters are engaging with a plot in an amorphous location. Sometimes, ignoring the setting can lead to dialogue-heavy writing (or “talking head” syndrome). A simple way to ground your story in reality is to use actual places in your writing. I’ve talked about how traveling to these locations helps add the needed realism to stories based on the real world. However, I also understand that not everyone has the time and money to go to a specific spot in a big city that they don’t live in. It’s certainly easy to use locations close to where you live, but not every story you write will likely be set in an easily accessible spot. Thoroughly researching these places you haven’t been to with Google Maps and travel guides is a simple way to overcome this limitation. Convey the sensation of “being there” Ideally, though, visiting the location you want to use in...
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Logic and the Suspension of Disbelief

by benmweilertNo Comments
Fiction writers have the most freedom to write whatever they want. After all, fiction is—by definition—not true. Thus, without the constraints of truth holding them down, fiction writers can write about things that don’t make any sense. This is how the more fantastical genres of science fiction and fantasy can get away with having aliens, dragons, and any other number of crazy things the author can think up. While fiction doesn’t have to hold to the tenets of truth, there is one fundamental foundation needed for this—or any other—writing. That foundation is logic. Even if readers can accept a world that has faster-than-light travel or a ring that can make its wearer invisible, if there isn’t a logic supporting these claims, the reader will begin to doubt the world the writer has created. The second that doubt creeps in, disbelief isn’t far behind. A hole in logic is a hole in the plot. Because there’s no need to write factual things in fiction,...
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