I’ve been reading a lot of SFF lately, which has made me think more deeply about the locations in which books are set. After all, Dune would hardly have made compelling reading without the planet Arrakis at the heart of the plot and the theme. And what would Game of Thrones be without Westeros or The Hunger Games without Panem?
Those three are big stories with a deep anchor in broad politics and culture, with the first two locations (Dune and Westeros) being entirely fictional and Panem representing a fictional future for North America.
But it’s not just epic stories and dystopian fiction that need an anchor in locations. Sure, some tales can be set in actual, existing locations such as Manhattan, Los Angeles, or Austin. The small details might change but, hopefully, the author takes care to make the place recognizable. I’ve used all three of those settings for books, keeping the architecture of the city in place (Los Angeles for my Stark series, for example, and Austin in my Man of the Month series) and yet creating fictional sub-locations, like The Fix on Sixth, the bar that is the centerpiece of the Man of the Month series on Austin’s well-known Sixth Street.
With the billionaire-based, glitzy story that fills Stark world, I wanted a fast-paced location grounded in reality, so that the museums, buildings, and pace of the town could provide a mirror to the story of a woman moving to the big city to pursue her dream job, then finding herself wrapped up in a world of wealth and power as she battles her personal demons.
The book also has a theme of loss and loneliness, and while big cities vibrate, they can also be lonely, scary places. Many of the locations are fictional, but some are real places … but changed. (Stark Tower, for example, is more or less the building I worked in when I moved to town as a new lawyer with one of the largest firms in the country.)