naming places

magic15

Hi everyone I am about to start writing my novel soon and I have read Tim winton 'The Turning' that I have to say is excellant short stories cause it kept me awake at night , so I am going to banish cross-referencing from novel unless I have to use it.

The reason is I have two query's; my first is it possible to some use place names that exist in real life wihout actually getting sued for libel at all, the other is I am thinking of joining togeather some short stories of mine in novel to create chapters that re-connect with the main story except that I have no idea of how to do this so I would welcome some suggestions or ideas on how to this i.e main story-short one can u help ?
Phil.

Mutley

I think it depends on your subject Magic15 and how specific you are in your usage. No one thinks less of Oxford for all the Colin Dexter murders, in fact it makes it a tourist attraction for a different reason. I was talking to a few people at the Harrogate Crime Writers Festival about this and the general feeling is that small places are more likely to react than larger places. It's a tough one. For my novel I have chosen to create fictitious places for the ones that may be contentious but set them in real counties, so that the reader can understand the geography. I also use real places where they are not likely to complain!

dorothyd

I would not try linking the short stories to make chapter novels until you have a clear idea of what you want to say, how the novel is to be structured. I feel as if you want to fill up some chapters to make it look better and give you something to work on, I may be wrong here but that is what I am feeling. That's not a good idea. You say yourself you have no idea how to do it, so start a new story, forget the short stories, leave them to one side, you might need them one day.

Marc.B

I name places in my book. In one chapter my characters are in London. Ok, pretty safe, in Paddington, no probs there. In Praed St, mmmm. In the Hilton hotel. I posed this question once and the concensus was as long as you don't say anything really bad or bring the place down ie I would never say my characters had lousy service at the Hilton and the food was crap. Many welcome the free publicity I'm sure. Finally, (oh, I do go on) look at Ian Rankin, his books are like guide books for Edingburgh.

Chippy

I've been having trouble deciding where to set my novel - I want to set it in a real City but then I'm making up places within it - shops etc. I think I can I get by without mentioning street names though. But that was one of the first things I struggled with when I decided to write a novel [all 3 months ago].
I was worried that I would have to know every detail about a real place - and that if I got anything wrong I'd be swamped with complaints!

dorothyd

Chippy, you can get round it by not specifically mentioning roads, etc. If you worry too much about detail you won't write the novel. First write the novel ... then worry about the detail in the revision process.

Viv

I have set a chapter of my novel in Liverpool - a place I have been to all of twice. Mentioned the station, Catholic Cathedral and dock area looking across the Mersey, and I've thrown in a seagull, a nameless pub and a few Beatles references for local atmosphere! But I made up a specialist shop the characters visit to get a post-mastectomy bra. No real road names, no complicated directions or geography, nothing too detailed, but enough to get a feel that they are in a real city, not some made up place.

amboline

Magic15: the alternative is to use some place names that recur all over the place anyway. The reason "The Simpsons" gets away with calling their dysfunctional town Springfield is that there's a Springfield in almost every state of the USA and they're very careful never to identify it with a particular state.

If you're in England you can design a place name, to some extent, using some of the standard sufixes: "-by" = village, "-thorp" or "-thorpe" for a small settlement, "-ton" for a slightly larger settlement, "-caster" for anywhere that once housed a Roman garrison, etc. There must be lists of these on the internet.