Real places that have inspired your stories?

[DeMont]

I usually don't spend much time describing places in my writing; I'm more interested in writing (or reading) about what people are doing, so a generic setting is all I typically ask or offer. That being said, I generally set my stories loosely within the confines of places where I've lived or spent considerable time, such as the Southeastern US, the Appalachians, parts of the Midwestern US, or the Mojave Desert. It helps me keep a certain amount of consistency for things like the weather and what people might do for seasonal recreation, as well as what kinds of people and/or attitudes the characters might encounter.

@Bamagan,
I'm in this school of thought myself. The actual locale of the stories holds little relevance to me because, I feel, if you make the location of a story too restrictive then you need to prove that you know the geography and demographics.

If I am writing about a city I will rarely ever use the name of the city but I will let my characters use language that can be held as synonymous with the location or the location of their origins. I find it resolves problems and complications with having to make the actual setting of the story take command (or interfere to any great extent) over the story itself.

I find it allows for more of a narrative flow to the events and action rather than painfully dull discourse on "place".
Deepest respects,
D.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

Greenport, NY: https://literotica.com/s/travel-nurse-or-the-last-word
Gig Harbor, WA (also Antigua): https://www.literotica.com/s/travel-nurse-or-the-monte-cassino
Oregon Coast: https://literotica.com/s/ch-01-food-critic
Seattle: https://www.literotica.com/s/ch-02-gym-bunnies
Vancouver, BC: https://literotica.com/s/were-tigress-ch-00-prologue
Sunriver, OR (also Redding, CA): https://literotica.com/s/cascade-fire-ch-01
Los Angeles, CA (also the Gulf of California and Guanajuato, MX): https://literotica.com/s/crossings-ch-02a
Pacific Crest Trail: https://literotica.com/s/packback

Basically, all of my stories start out in places I have visited or lived. Gotta start somewhere ...

there is an elevated probability that we have crossed paths in real life lol

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

Quite a few of my scenes are set in places based on real places I've visited, even in my fictional settings. But I also have quite a few set on places I really want to visit. That wanderlust fantasy offers a bit of escapism that makes it fun to write.

 

[StillStunned]

There's a spot between my wife's legs that has inspired several of my stories.

 

[Writer61]

I often set stories in places that I have visited, and while I don't mind making some up, I usually base them on somewhere that I know.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I tend to have a very solid sense of place, so all my stories are set in buildings and locations I know, mostly in London. Even a Welsh campsite which is just a field with a water tap had enough detail that someone recognised the precise location. Various houses, alleyways, woods, pubs etc all inspire me.

It helps with continuity, like keeping the time to walk to a station consistent. The only location used I've never been to was Vegas, but the action was in a generic conference centre and a generic large American hotel, and god knows I've been to enough of both of those.

 

[MelissaBaby]

In the afterword to my series, Mary and Alvin, I described the state of Maine as the third major character. And it was an important part of the story, not just in that series, but in many of my stories, particularly The Adventures of Ranger Ramona, Oyster River, and of course, Wild Birds of Maine.

I live in Michigan now, and have set several stories here, but there is no place that inspires me as much as Maine.

 

[iwatchus]

In the afterword to my series, Mary and Alvin, I described the state of Maine as the third major character. And it was an important part of the story, not just in that series, but in many of my stories, particularly The Adventures of Ranger Ramona, Oyster River, and of course, Wild Birds of Maine.

I live in Michigan now, and have set several stories here, but there is no place that inspires me as much as Maine.

The tie-in to Maine is a big part of what originally attracted to your stories (Wild Birds was my first story of yours) I would say Fall and Rise has a lot of ties to Maine, too, even if the Rise is mostly in Michigan.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I attach a lot of my stories to the state of Oregon, in the American Pacific Northwest. I've never been there.

One of the most recent epiphanies I had was about the video game Life is Strange. I am an avowed picker of Chloe, and have never once flinched at choosing her over the town of Arcadia Bay. On the one hand, sure, my gay little heart goes out to rebels and underdogs and punks.

On the other hand, one of the things I've started to pick up on is the way that Dontnod chose to use a kind of nostalgia. It's not explicit, but the game implies more about the town of Arcadia Bay than it shows, and as an unaware player I was happy to fill in the gaps with the town I come from. Experiences from my childhood. I believe this was intentional, and that the kind of player who drifts toward Chloe (rather than bouncing off of her (and lets be real, Chloe can be a lot)) probably comes from a place where there are some complicated feelings.

I would bomb the place I'm from into oblivion. Twice. I'd let a hurricane flatten it and not even blink.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I shared the above because I though it was a very interesting way of evoking feelings in me/the audience, and I'm still unpacking how it accomplished this. It's a very powerful tool.

 

[MelissaBaby]

The tie-in to Maine is a big part of what originally attracted to your stories (Wild Birds was my first story of yours) I would say Fall and Rise has a lot of ties to Maine, too, even if the Rise is mostly in Michigan.

That is true, but I would not say that the specific location plays as big a role In MFAR as in the others I mentioned. Those stories really could not take place anywhere else, the character of the land, the culture, the often idiosyncratic people of Maine is so intrinsic to them.

 

[Dearelliot]

Berlin and a lady I knew there... Embellished.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I shared the above because I though it was a very interesting way of evoking feelings in me/the audience, and I'm still unpacking how it accomplished this. It's a very powerful tool.

I think the place within a story, done the way you describe it and as I always do it, comes across intuitively, subconsciously, in one's writing. It fits with my idea of grounding a story with some absolute truth (and a clear location in the writer's mind's eye can do that), however small, and it locks the story into place. Readers sense it, I reckon, and it goes a long way towards suspending disbelief

Even if, as I always do, the place names are changed and there's all sorts of geographical misdirection. I know the place, even if readers will never find it on a map, and that's enough.

 

[yowser]

Probably the greatest 'third character' role a setting plays is for my 'Infernal Folio' series which takes place in Cambridge (although its US namesake appears in a couple other tales as well.) The Nilgiri Hills, Cape Cod, the Berkshires and rural California also figure. I crave a vivid organic setting in stories and try to make location an important element in many of my creations. Oxford in the works (if I can pull it off...)

 

[MelissaBaby]

In the afterword to my series, Mary and Alvin, I described the state of Maine as the third major character. And it was an important part of the story, not just in that series, but in many of my stories, particularly The Adventures of Ranger Ramona, Oyster River, and of course, Wild Birds of Maine.

I live in Michigan now, and have set several stories here, but there is no place that inspires me as much as Maine.

"Does Maine's Bureau of Tourism know about you? Because really, you ought to be writing copy for them."

-LoquiSordidaAdMe, commenting on Mary and Alvin, Chapter 12

 

[SimonDoom]

In the afterword to my series, Mary and Alvin, I described the state of Maine as the third major character. And it was an important part of the story, not just in that series, but in many of my stories, particularly The Adventures of Ranger Ramona, Oyster River, and of course, Wild Birds of Maine.

I live in Michigan now, and have set several stories here, but there is no place that inspires me as much as Maine.

You're like the Stephen King of erotica in this way. Except, if I'm not mistaken, he never left.

 

[MelissaBaby]

You're like the Stephen King of erotica in this way. Except, if I'm not mistaken, he never left.

Actually, he did. After he got run over and broke about 20 bones, he couldn’t take Maine winters and mostly lives in Florida now, although he still has his summer house near Lovell. One of his sons lives in the famous Bangor house.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Using places that I know is expected in my writing because it has shifted into becoming a dark satire of the world we inhabit. The whole metropolis that comprises the city-state and close areas are based around the metropolitan area where I was born and raised in, from the slums I grew up at, to its features. Even its iconic twilights, the oppressive neon at night, the unclean cities, the stray dogs, the smells of human piss, roadkill, and trash are just as normal to me in real life as to my characters.

This whole thing didn't start as neon-noir, but as cyberpunk. I planted the first seed back in 2016 with a carbon copy of my home city, except high tech. The city has a very iconic monument that was built to celebrate it's 400th birthday back in the fifties, and the silhouette of that monument is now featured in the city's flag. I took that monument and gave it the cyberpunk treatment not in writing, but in drawing. It then became (using VtM's terms) the domain of a vampire, and some sort of watchtower because from the top of that monument you can see the whole city. I haven't featured it on my published stories yet, but I do remember that it exists, and I think I still have that sketch somewhere in my old drawings.

The schools I featured aren't really based on anything since those stories were meant more as strokers. However, I did envision those schools as the schools that I want for my country instead of the shit that we have for schools. This is a whole can of worms in itself, and it is beyond the scope of this thread, or the interest of this forum. Nevertheless, only two private schools meet that standard. I never worked at them in my time as a teacher, but I do know people who did. As for the uniforms, it's erotica, obviously they are skimpy in the context of my stories and completely unrealistic, yet the colors are similar. Nevertheless I do feel students in real life would feel a whole lot better if the uniforms made them look good and feel good. I mean it. As someone who grew up with a lot of self-image problems, I really mean this; a piece of clothing helps a lot with self-image. These uniforms are so simple in reality that I don't blame them for feeling disgruntled each time they put them on. The dress code is already too strict, and male students are the ones who feel the worst of this. I do think giving them a tie would make them feel a little bit more like they're dressing up, and they'll be forced to learn how to tie a simple knot at least, but that's far from a definitive solution, which could very much be radically different... but once again, this is beyond the scope of this thread.

Yes, I said the K word, but I feel way too lazy to tag Wanda even if it is a pair of extra keystrokes. That one's for free.

Some of the apartment buildings are based around the same apartment buildings I used to live at; with Red's husband living in the same exact building. There is a very popular suicide spot close to them. People claim that place is haunted for many reasons, and I think it is, but not for all of those reasons. It certainly feels wrong, and many crimes have been committed in there. Yes, I've heard screams, and yes I've seen people ending their lives there since I was a teenager, and yes I think I saw a ritual sacrifice from afar. Not exaggerating; some folks have broken in there and found evidence of ritual sacrifices performed, like actual animal sacrifices. Is not pretty, but when you live there, you get used to it.

I know I should leave this city because it looks like a shithole, and it is. But it's my shithole, it's my home, and I have a lot of love for it because it's the city that shaped me into who I am, and I'm very attuned to it no matter the distance. Believe it or not there are far worse places in this country than my home city; the capital for example is just as bad as my home city³.

 

[Britva415]

A University of California nature preserve field station

A friend-of-a-friend's seacliff cottage near Pescadero, California

Ibiza

Milwaukee

St Augustine, Florida

The Bahamas

The Trader Joe's near my house

Alameda, California

San Francisco

 

[nice90sguy]

San Francisco + Bay Area, Los Angeles, London mainly.

Most important to me when reading or writing is that the characters match the locations. I've been put off stories that get the locations slightly wrong -- I recently read one story where Tottenham Court Road in London was descibed as being full of late night revellers on a Saturday night, which is wrong. The author probably got confused, thinking that it was Soho.

My current WIP is very detailed in its description of London, where I've lived most of my life. It's a very, very deep, magical place, a palimpsest.

 

[jd_sw]

The Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, MN for my https://www.literotica.com/s/olivias-journey-ch-02-nightout

 

[Bramblethorn]

Several of my stories here are set in Melbourne, with occasional detours to Sydney etc., and the intro conversation in Red Scarf takes place in a café that many locals would know, though I didn't explicitly identify it. Near the end of Red Scarf there's a trip to Iceland; this was going to be a longer sequence, based on my own time there, but when I got to that part of the story it felt like it would've hurt the pacing so I kept it fairly brief.

Magnum Innominandum is set mostly in Boston and a fictionalised one of the Seven Sisters colleges in that area (which I suppose makes them the Eight Sisters). Some parts of it were suggested by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

 

[Codoc24]

I'm working on a story that was inspired by a Rhine river cruise that my wife and I took a couple of years ago. The locations are the same but the character names have been changed to protect the guilty.

 

[Off_base]

I walked past one of the real places I've used as central points in my stories by coincidence today, Fait Maison in London.
I got a warm feeling, and am wondering if using places that you know or have personally experienced is something you prefer?

I gravitate towards using areas or locations that I've been to (Like London, North-Dakota or Arctic Norway), or even very specific places, like the hotel bar in Hotel-Dieu de Lyon. I find it makes my witing flow a lot better when I have that first hand experience.

This question made me realize that I've only described real places, but never named them in any stories.
Now I want to write a story that focuses on a specific place, so thanks for the inspiration

 

[Comshaw]

I walked past one of the real places I've used as central points in my stories by coincidence today, Fait Maison in London.
I got a warm feeling, and am wondering if using places that you know or have personally experienced is something you prefer?

I gravitate towards using areas or locations that I've been to (Like London, North-Dakota or Arctic Norway), or even very specific places, like the hotel bar in Hotel-Dieu de Lyon. I find it makes my witing flow a lot better when I have that first hand experience.

I had to go take a look at my stories to remind myself if I have used places I know in them. I need to admit that most of mine are set in either a generic setting, like a home, a park, with no real distinguishing characteristics, or constructed to match the needs of my story.

A few though, I have used places I know. In my "Common Man" stories, one of the main characters owns a campground on the Washington coast. The inspiration for it was a campground in the little coastal town of Grayland.

In "Medicinal Mountain Magic," the meadow and pool exist because I've camped there more than once.

"Stranded" is another. The location "Black Crow Pass" is based on Bon Jon Pass in the Olympic Mountains.

The last one, "The Best Job I ever Had" contains the most. When I got out of the Army I took a job with a local refuse company. All of the routes, the travel times and the distances are how it was. The rest of the story...not so much.

Comshaw