At the moment, in addition to writing scenes for my own future works (alas, each time the impulse takes me, it's a different story concept. I'm not sure this is the way to make progress on a story.)
So I'm feeding the printer-friendly versions of stories into a text to speech engine on my iPhone. (I can recommend Voice Dream, on the app store. It's seems to take the most file formats.)
This approach has terrible problems of cadence, intonation, and basic pronunciation (some of which could be solved by building a phonetic dictionary file.)
But I'm suddenly taken by geography, as a distraction. "Elmhurst, outside Chicago", "the Indiana Dunes", and such. England is the setting of a lot of stories, but seemingly so is Chicagoland. I am sensitized to that, of course. My own stories are set in an imaaginary Evanston/Rogers Park area in many cases.
So a survey: how many of us have spent some time living in area code 312 (historical or the current geographically more limited boundaries)?
Comments
773, 312, 630 (formerly part of 708) for me.
Area code 630 was split out of 708.
The split happened after my divorce, but we were on reasonably good terms. Naturally, we were living apart, She had moved some miles away the home, which I kept.
So I called her up after the split, and said:
"Hey! I want to renegotiate! And a better lawyer! Just how the heck did your lawyer get you Custody of the 708 Area Code??"
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The Area Code thing once paid off at work. A Customer called me, frustrated that an important-to-them phone number had stopped working. ... think ... think... think. "Wait - did you just have an Area Code split? Try the new Area Code." Must have worked, as I never heard back.
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Text to speech. The 'NOAA' Emergency Alert radio once thought I lived in "Du Pahzh" County. My GPS voice system tells me to turn at the "Skah-kee Animal Hospital (Skokie). Some of my favorite restaurants are on "Dehvin", not DeeVon (Devon). Try https://aryabhavan.com. Go for the buffet, and/or with a friend to share and trade.
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It's said we should be familiar with a place, or at least have been there, that we are writing about. Or announce "set in a fictionalized version of town X, or resembling town X. Otherwise the 'local' readers readers will keep 'tripping over' the wrong bits, distracting them from the story.
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Jim Butcher sets his Dresden stories in a pretty much 'straight up' Chicago. ("Harry Dresden, Chicago's only practicing Wizard"). Harry says he's right there in the phone book. Such a 'straight up' Chicago that I can say, many times: "been there, been down that street, that intersection exists".
For some reason, all the Magical Mayhem done to Chicago by Harry and the Evil Things fighting never makes the papers. Nor have I ever seen the damage. There must be one-heck-uv-a Damage Control Squad in place. T. Rex Sue is in pretty good shape, for a 65+ Mn year old Lady, despite having been ridden down Lake Shore Drive ...
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With the increasing wonders of the 'Net, sometimes we can visit named locales. I've 'been to' a certain restaurant, to a museum, to a night club, and followed part of the Main Character's bicycle ride using Google Street View.
Sure, time passes, but that restaurant still has their tree in the middle of the dining area, growing up through the roof.
Ah, but 708 was created out
Ah, but 708 was created out of the suburbs, when 312 was pruned to just be the city itself, I think.. And eventually down to just the loop, which never used to be a residential area (although that has changed.)
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Tough to handle (as they depend on context) is "to read" and "to have read". Language models in the current AI boom may solve that one, but as all AI models want money by the minute, I won't find out for awhile.
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The link of Chicago and SF is deep; try E.E. "Doc" Smith's Triplanetary (1948), for example... And yes, I have friends that live "somewhere" around where Harry lives...
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Google Earth is your friend. I no longer have to spend quantities of gas to revisit some scenes, as you properly note.
Travel Research
So far in my book series the characters have visited a ton of places I've never been to, including several locations in the Middle East. I may overdo the research activities for them, but it's actually fun. This includes heavy use of Google Earth (and Google Earth VR to actually fly along the routes!), along with YouTube travel videos for the locations and even searching for restaurants (and their reviews) as well as hotels etc. The amount of information available now for doing such is freaking fantastic - even finding YouTube videos showing the exact car trips from place a to place b that take over an hour. (Okay, I skipped ahead minutes at a time just to get a feel for the scenery...)
How well that's helped 'ground' any readers with the protagonist describing sights, road directions, and even smells of places I've never visited I'll leave them to judge. But the process is very enjoyable...even if it can lead to falling down various rabbit-holes regarding weather patterns for various times of year, local politics, and who knows what else! Considering the time-frame of the story is supposed to be around 2010, it's also involved rolling back the time in google earth to realize that hey, that new building over there? It was an empty dirt lot back then!
My hope, of course, is that people who've actually been to all these places will nod and go 'yup' to what's written. As for all the off-world stuff that my characters stumble through...if any readers have actually been to THOSE places, wow, let me know about it! ;)
- Erisian <3
I’ve have GOT to get me one of those!
A Google Earth VR Headset sounds too cool for words!
— Emma
Chicago and SF? Don’t forget. . .
. . .that guy from Waukegan.
I can’t claim to have lived in the Chicago area, really. A few weeks in the summer does not count. Winter? I prefer not to visit. Of course some say that about summer here in the One Star Review State.
It's said we should be familiar with a place
Most of my stories are set in my hometown (Portland OR) and my home state (Oregon). If I must write a story outside of that, I don't mention any landmarks or street names if I can get away with it. If not, I make use of Google Maps street view to see what the Google cameras saw when their car drove through.
When I publish stories I always include an "About the author" paragraph.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
+44
Oddly, most of my stories seem centered in the UK. I don't know why as I've never been there, and any blokes from there, I only know online. Actually "Hala's Snow Day", and "Changed By Aliens", are centered in the Cowboy American West. As to Chicago, I've stopped there whilst flying other places.
Gwen
Ah, the "hub" concept in
Ah, the "hub" concept in travel; but no deep connection.
And none needed, in writing. Right.