Characters from Unusual Places

[RetroFan]

In the stories I have written over the years, most of them have been set in Australia, England and the United States of America, with a smaller number set in New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Egypt, France and Ireland have also featured in my stories albeit briefly, and I've had characters from a variety of countries in Europe, Asia and South America show up in stories set in other places.

From your own experience of writing stories or reading stories, have you ever included a character from a lesser-known country, or a more obscure place within a well-known country such as a state in the USA you don't hear of very often? This of course can vary, for example as an Australian stories set in Australia and New Zealand or featuring characters from these countries is second nature to me, while for a writer in Canada or Scotland these far-away lands might seem very alien and having an Aussie or Kiwi character in one of their stories quite a novelty.

In the last year I've been writing a fantasy series called 'Incest in Another Dimension' and in the alternate world (the story is set in Brisbane, Australia) the mother has a handsome and much younger boyfriend named Jerome who is from Upper Volta. Of course, Upper Volta changed its name to Burkina Faso in 1984, but in this alternate timeline the West African country is still known as Upper Volta. Regardless though, one probably wouldn't encounter stories with characters from Burkina Faso or Upper Volta very often. Upper Volta does sound cool though. I did a similar thing with the main character's best friend, who in the 'real' timeline is bothered by an overseas female student from Thailand who has a yandre-like crush on him despite his lack of interest. In the alternate timeline the best friend and the student are boyfriend and girlfriend and constantly having sex, and she is not from Thailand but rather Siam, which like Upper Volta never had a change of name.

So what are your experiences writing or reading about characters from lesser-known countries or who are from more obscure parts of well-known countries?

 

[NuclearFairy]

Aw nuts, I guess me writing a story that takes place almost entirely underwater doesn't count?

Hmm, getting to your actual question. I usually try not to actually say that this person is from such and such a place when I'm writing my urban fantasies. But I do have a work in progress that is about a pearl diver from Japan. And while Japan isn't an uncommon place, I haven't seen a story about their pearl divers since I was a teenager, and it took quite a bit of digging to do the research I needed to write about her. So, unnamed, yet extremely rural coastal Japanese town is the most obscure place I've written about.

 

[old_prof]

Doing the research for an obscure place is some of the fun of writing. My FMC in my sci-fi novel grew up in a very small farming town 50 km east of Paris (Saint-Loup-du-Nord).
My FMC in Snow Fall In Love lives in Grand Junction CO, which I've at least been to a couple of times, but never more than overnight stays. Both fit the needs of the story for a location.

 

[Writer61]

So far, I have written characters from the following countries:

• United Kingdom
• France
• Belgium
• Netherlands
• Austria
• Czechia
• Slovakia
• Switzerland
• Croatia
• Hungary
• Spain
• Portugal
• Sweden
• South Korea
• Japan
• Thailand
• Singapore
• Australia
• Canada
• USA
• Dominican Republic

The last is probably the most exotic from my point of view.

FWIW, I have experience working with people from almost all of these countries, have lived in three of them, and visited all but one (many times for quite a few).

EDIT: corrected a couple of details

 

[BlueZen]

So what are your experiences writing or reading about characters from lesser-known countries or who are from more obscure parts of well-known countries?

I love, love, love alternate timeline stories. The what-if element it brings to the table is so scrumptious. It's like hiding little easter eggs for the people who are educated in the particular history that you're writing about. At the very least, it can get (some) people wondering about the potential authenticity of what you're inventing in your alternate universe and they can do a little internet digging of their own if they're so inclined.

I have a series here that is set in alternate timeline and I'm working on a period piece from the early 1990's, too. It's not a particularly unique city, but the setting is still a little different than the norm.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I once worked for and had a sexual relationship with a married woman from the Czech Republic. (Open marriage) I loved her accent and have used characters from the CP twice, because the memories are just so wonderful.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I have been to six of the seven continents, all the Canadian provinces, not to mention all fifty of the United States.

The characters in my stories reflect my exposure to the different countries, regions, and cultures.

From the Taronga Zoo outside of Sydney, Australia to the Great Blue Hole off the coast of Belize, to the Bakhchysarais’ke Highway in Ukraine to Lake Dhebar in western India, my characters originate from, and go anywhere the story needs them to go.

 

[RetroFan]

I love, love, love alternate timeline stories. The what-if element it brings to the table is so scrumptious. It's like hiding little easter eggs for the people who are educated in the particular history that you're writing about. At the very least, it can get (some) people wondering about the potential authenticity of what you're inventing in your alternate universe and they can do a little internet digging of their own if they're so inclined.

I have a series here that is set in alternate timeline and I'm working on a period piece from the early 1990's, too. It's not a particularly unique city, but the setting is still a little different than the norm.

I agree with you, writing an alternate universe story is a lot of fun and at the same time a real challenge, even though the Taboo-Incest fans weren't for the most part very impressed by my efforts. I also like writing stories set in the 1990s.

In my alternate universe story which is set in 2016 the narrator is 21-year-old university student Corey from Brisbane Australia who is very much in the real world, before slipping into the bizarre alternate dimension where some things are exactly the same, some slightly altered and other things completely different. On a personal level he finds that his cousin Jamie, an annoying boy in the real world, is a hot girl in the alternate one. Corey's twin sister Morgan had an irritating woke BFF Kate in the real world, but she doesn't exist in the new one. The twins' mother Marnie has a different job in the new reality, and a handsome black boyfriend from Upper Volta as opposed to Burkina Faso. The twins have stepsiblings in the new reality due to their father marrying another man who had a daughter and son from his first marriage, which wasn't the case in the old one. Corey and Morgan's paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather are alive and dead in the real world, but in the alternate one the reverse is true. His supervisor Claire at work is 8 months pregnant in the new world, she wasn't expecting a baby in the old one. His best friend Scott couldn't stand Vicki, the female overseas student who boards at his parents' house in the real world, in the alternate one they are boyfriend and girlfriend. There are differences with the twins other cousins although not so dramatic as with Jamie.

The new reality also has some major differences in many different areas of the world in general. Gay is an archaic term for happy, and has no link to homosexuality. September 11 never happened, and the Twin Towers are still standing. Other disasters in some cases didn't happen, happened just the same as the real world, or the outcome was alternately not as severe or in some instances far worse. Famous people who died are still alive, while others still alive are dead, died at different times or don't seem to exist or are famous for different things. The Beatles were a six man group. There were two President Kennedys in the 1960s, JFK and older brother Joseph Junior. Barack Obama was never US President. There are all these strange new sports teams, with some teams defunct for years still existing in the new reality, all mixed up with real world teams. Besides Upper Volta retaining its original name, there is still a West Germany and an East Germany, Thailand is still Siam and Beijing is still known as Peking, yet others are the same like Ceylon becoming Sri Lanka. Star Wars is only the original trilogy of films and a late 1990s prequel film similar to Rogue One, plus the Star Wars Holiday Special which is still hated as much in both realities. Cane Toads were never introduced to Australia in this reality, and the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) while critically endangered is not extinct. The McDonalds Arch Deluxe was a huge hit when introduced in 1996, and still a very popular burger 20 years on as opposed to the infamous flop it was in reality.

Just to mess with Corey, there are several glitches that seem to happen just to frustrate him. In the main reality Corey was musically talented but in the new one his sister Morgan is the one with musical talent, this version of Corey tone deaf. Corey's work colleague Bella is equally annoying in both realities however for different reasons, but in this reality the locations of the male and female staff toilets at work are inversed, something Corey only finds out when he goes into the wrong one and Bella threatens to report him for sexual harassment when she goes into the ladies and finds a perplexed Corey in there. Corey's secret shame from childhood is having a phobia of Barney the purple dinosaur when he was really young, but when his parents good-naturedly tease him about this in the alternate world he finds out the younger version of him was afraid of Barney the yellow dinosaur.

 

[XerXesXu]

In the last year I've been writing a fantasy series called 'Incest in Another Dimension' and in the alternate world (the story is set in Brisbane, Australia) the mother has a handsome and much younger boyfriend named Jerome who is from Upper Volta. Of course, Upper Volta changed its name to Burkina Faso in 1984, but in this alternate timeline the West African country is still known as Upper Volta. Regardless though, one probably wouldn't encounter stories with characters from Burkina Faso or Upper Volta very often. Upper Volta does sound cool though.

I've been to Upper Volta, but not Burkina Faso - yet. Waga was a sh*thole and UV was not cool, quite the contrary. I've looked up some videos about Ouagadougou - it's changed. The same can be said for most countries I've visited. In a fast-changing world one's past impression of a place ceases to be accurate.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I've covered much of the UK, including parts often ignored: north and south London of various social scales, most of the Home Counties ditto, Manchester, Birmingham, Coventry, area near Dundee, southwest Wales, county Tyrone in Northern Ireland. Many of said characters end up in London and/or Cambridge.

Also a British Bangladeshi, black and mixed-race guys from Croydon, various Turks, a couple of third culture kids, one Malaysian Chinese, one Malaysian Indian, someone half Spanish half English, and bit parts like shopkeepers governed by the last ones I encountered when writing (lots of Eastern Europeans and Pakistanis).

A few Americans, one from Boston after advice from my beta reader, one from Iowa because it's boring and I was inspired by Bill Bryson: "I come from Des Moines, Iowa. Somebody had to." - though Bradley's more likely from near Iowa City and has moved about a lot including working with lots of Europeans, which is my excuse if any of his speech is implausible.

And one immortal hell being, who talks like a weary and sarcastic Londoner, with various archaic words and phrases. Possibly the most similar to me, actually...

 

[RetroFan]

I've been to Upper Volta, but not Burkina Faso - yet. Waga was a sh*thole and UV was not cool, quite the contrary. I've looked up some videos about Ouagadougou - it's changed. The same can be said for most countries I've visited. In a fast-changing world one's past impression of a place ceases to be accurate.

Burkina Faso - nee Upper Volta - is generally a very poor landlocked country in West Africa. It wouldn't be cool temperature wise or culturally wise. I just found the old name of Upper Volta to be catchy, it sort of has a nice ring to it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Characters from Unusual Places​

Does Trenton count?

 

[MrPixel]

I'm momentarily fascinated with the idea of a character from Greenland (all the rage these days) visiting friends in the US Midwest and doing things like laying out tanning on their patio in 40° weather because it's "So warm!"

Gonna have to do a bunch of research to validate the idea. F'rinstance, highs mid-summer in Nuuk never exceed 50°F.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Most of my characters are from the United States. One's from Zapala, I think, in Argentina's Neuquén province, but I haven't settled that. She's from Argentina, anyway. Parents are mixed Spanish Agentinian and Mapuche. She moved to Los Angeles proper as a child; another character in that story is from Riverside, basically next door. Another is from the northern Virginia/southern Maryland suburban bubble, but bonds with another, older, character over shared family roots in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania and, before that, Caerphilly in Wales. Most of that story takes place in a made-up town in East Tennessee based on the rural Virginia towns of Tazewell and Mouth of Wilson.

Both characters in my winter holiday story Plugged In were born in Knoxville, Tennessee; Katherine moved to Chicago as a baby and Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan as an adolescent, then to Paris. In April's Fool, April is from Chevy Chase, a wealthy census-designated place in the DC suburbs, and Evan, I think, is from Middleburg, Virginia, in the heart of Virginia horse country. Corrine is from a broken home, but I don't know yet where that home is. I'll figure it out sometime.

 

[redgarters]

Arctic Norway and rural North Dakota are the most unusual I've done.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

The two city-states where my stories take place into are based in my birthplace and a commuter town that's like five minutes away from it. Is not really an obscure place considering it's in the top 10 most populated places, but it is obscure enough for a French vlogger to come here last year and call my home a hidden gem.

Most of my characters are from my fictionalized home, except the foreigners, and yet the majority of them are also from the obscure places from their real life counterpart, which I made it less obvious than my country. Far less obvious.