I think you're making Brian's point about carefully chosen city names for him.
Nathan Jerpe said...
Now consider the same story bereft of all this detail, but told skillfully enough that the reader can fill in the gaps.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction
I like vagueness. Don't get me wrong I like to know what is going on and where, but sometimes leaving it open enables the reader to imagine and the writer to get on with it. Also, if you don't know the place then best not to pretend. For instance, when I set something in a city in the present time, I didn't want to get caught out about the look or culture or ways, so I called it simply 'the city'. It didn't matter what city it was anyway, simply what went on concerning the characters, and I wanted a feel of this could be happening anywhere.
If you have a place concrete in your mind, then set it out for the reader. However if you don't vagueness, giving moods and shapes and lighting, but no detail, can let the reader imagine the place, and focus on the character.
I would also consider pace. If describing the place will slow down an action piece, or something that needs to be quick, it would be self defeating. I would also warn that sometimes describing a place can be dull. If it is a vivid and wonderful place, great, again go for it. But sometimes when reading a lengthy description of a setting, I can't help but skip it. Especially if I really NEED to know what is going on, or what has happened to someone.
A name for a city could give it character, yet if it is just a name, I don't see the need for it.
?Hello, I am William Burton, Head of Recruitment and Integration for the Agency for Peaceful Regulation and Definitive Cooperation of Extraordinary Existence.?
spinetinglers.co.uk Bakemono will not stop!
Ah...touche!
Jordan Lapp said...
I think you're making Brian's point about carefully chosen city names for him.
Nathan Jerpe said...
Now consider the same story bereft of all this detail, but told skillfully enough that the reader can fill in the gaps.
I take it Brian is tchernabyelo?
http://roguelikefiction.com
If you want 'anytown', then you should start right in the midst of the buildings at eye level. If you're at eye level, you don't have to give the city a name because you don't see the city, you just see a bunch of buidlings.
Giving us a bird's eye view and an omniscient narrator and then failing to give us a name feels odd.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction
Yup. tchernabyelo is Brian Dolton.
Nathan Jerpe said...
I take it Brian is tchernabyelo?
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction
I'd agree with that. If someone approaches a place, is apart from it and it is clearly an entity, in a way, then a name is very suitable.
Jordan Lapp said...
If you want "anytown", then you should start right in the midst of the buildings at eye level. If you're at eye level, you don't have to give the city a name because you don't see the city, you just see a bunch of buidlings.
Giving us a bird's eye view and an omniscient narrator and then failing to give us a name feels odd.
If you're right in amongst it, then the lack of name can help create a sense of a mysterious and hostile environment. Again, I think when I want to jump right in I'll start in there, and so a name seems to make the story focus pull away.
I don't think there is any set way, to name or not to name, but more what is suitable for the story. True of most things I'd say.
?Hello, I am William Burton, Head of Recruitment and Integration for the Agency for Peaceful Regulation and Definitive Cooperation of Extraordinary Existence.?
spinetinglers.co.uk Bakemono will not stop!
Ok, seeing as I've commented here I thought I'd go back and actually read the piece. What I would say is that in reading, i never felt the need to know the name, and I totally agree with CW's point that giving a name doesn't add anything to it. Call it Gi, call it Mullaboolla, call it Bob, but it is just a name. I was far more interested in the character who popped up in this place.
I will add that I thought the same thing considering city and town, it makes it sound as if you're in doubt. I did think, well is this a sprawling city or a simple town? I did think street lights implied something more modern too, yet once I read cobbled streets I got the picture, so wasn't too bad. I imagine those lights are more lanterns though.
As for clothes on a line in the cold, I can say round here they get left out in all weathers. I'll always remember one morning taking clothes off the line and they were solid! But besides that, a character can be wrong, that isn't a problem. Although interesting that he knows enough about the place to know of farms and clothes lines.
But to return to the main point, I didn't think a name mattered here. It is some place Dale turns up in, so prefer without.
?Hello, I am William Burton, Head of Recruitment and Integration for the Agency for Peaceful Regulation and Definitive Cooperation of Extraordinary Existence.?
spinetinglers.co.uk Bakemono will not stop!
Yeah, we can sit here and nitpick until the cows come home, but the fact is that it's a great piece as it is, and that's that!
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction
You obviously didn't read the chapter.Jordan Lapp said...
If you want 'anytown', then you should start right in the midst of the buildings at eye level. If you're at eye level, you don't have to give the city a name because you don't see the city, you just see a bunch of buidlings
Not only did I start right in the middle of the town, I started in an alley. And yeah, I think perhaps the pov of a drunk sliding down a wall to sit on the ground is about as eye-level as you can get.
YesNathan Jerpe said...
[Ah...touche!
I take it Brian is tchernabyelo?
Which is perfectly fine. The MC doesn't have any idea what sort of place he's materialized in either. And the street lights can be lanterns in your mind if you like. The important point is that you understood that they were shedding lightSteven the Git said...
Ok, seeing as I've commented here I thought I'd go back and actually read the piece. What I would say is that in reading, i never felt the need to know the name, and I totally agree with CW's point that giving a name doesn't add anything to it. Call it Gi, call it Mullaboolla, call it Bob, but it is just a name. I was far more interested in the character who popped up in this place.
I will add that I thought the same thing considering city and town, it makes it sound as if you're in doubt. I did think, well is this a sprawling city or a simple town? I did think street lights implied something more modern too, yet once I read cobbled streets I got the picture, so wasn't too bad. I imagine those lights are more lanterns though.
He doesn't have to know anything about the place or know whether it has farms and clothes lines to want there to be farms and clotheslines, does he? He just has to have had past experience of his own that allows him to know such things exist in places.Steven the Git said...
As for clothes on a line in the cold, I can say round here they get left out in all weathers. I'll always remember one morning taking clothes off the line and they were solid! But besides that, a character can be wrong, that isn't a problem. Although interesting that he knows enough about the place to know of farms and clothes lines.
About the same as you walking down a street in some small village in iraq and thinking 'man, what I need right now is a McDonalds!' That doesn't mean you know, or even believe, there's a McDonalds anywhere around, just that you want one... right there, on that street corner.
Huh? I've read it many times. Both here and on Writing.com.
crystalwizard said...
You obviously didn't read the chapter.
Jordan Lapp said...
If you want "anytown", then you should start right in the midst of the buildings at eye level. If you're at eye level, you don't have to give the city a name because you don't see the city, you just see a bunch of buidlings
Not only did I start right in the middle of the town, I started in an alley. And yeah, I think perhaps the pov of a drunk sliding down a wall to sit on the ground is about as eye-level as you can get.
[quote]
crystalwizard wrote...
Darkness covered the city, flowing down the streets and collecting in the alleys. Silence sat heavily on the sleeping town, buildings swathed in thick fog while orange light pooled in liquid puddles under the occasional street lamp.
[quote]That's not in an alley, that's a bird's eye view.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction
as you wish. i'm not going to argue with you about, it's not worth it. I don't consider it bird's eye.Jordan Lapp said...
crystalwizard wrote...
Darkness covered the city, flowing down the streets and collecting in the alleys. Silence sat heavily on the sleeping town, buildings swathed in thick fog while orange light pooled in liquid puddles under the occasional street lamp.
That's not in an alley, that's a bird's eye view.
'man, what I need right now is a Macdonalds!'
I don't think I've ever thought that or ever will. [img]/emoticons/rofl.gif[/img]
Ok, I get both views in this. The story starts looking down on the city, you sense it as covered by darkness and fog and coated with silence.
However, the MC starts in an alley. The plot itself starts with the drunk, we're watching him stagger into the alley and then are transferred to Dale.
I guess you could cut the opening and start straight with the drunk, but to do that just for the sake of a name seems overdoing it to me.
Personally, even though start looking at the city, because the story really gets going within it, think that the city's identity is passed by. Also, for me, not knowing ourselves added to the MC's sense of being lost.
?Hello, I am William Burton, Head of Recruitment and Integration for the Agency for Peaceful Regulation and Definitive Cooperation of Extraordinary Existence.?
spinetinglers.co.uk Bakemono will not stop!
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