I wrote a story about New York - but the characters never get there.

I did have the choice to write about Paris or London - cities I know - but had to be awkward.

I suppose when I do get to go to New York I can write the other half of the story?

Sarah

I think NinaLara is right - it's not just a matter of what a place looks like, although modern novels seem very often to settle for that. Maybe it's because we know so much about the world now that details aren't necesary - just a few names or things trigger memories of places or even of second hand experiences such as films.On the other hand, there is something very unsatisfactory about films that whisk you from capital to capital. I hate that.

I'm ruined, of course, by having studied English Literature written before the age of mass media, when authors had to know their locations intimately: Dickens, Hardy, Lawrence, Austen, Joyce - all those writers whose characters are unimaginable separate from their particular settings. Even George Orwell felt he had to live the life of a plongeur or a down-and-out to get the authentic sense of it down on paper.

I know what you mean about The Bill - I sometimes think the cops are so involved with their private lives it's a wonder they have time to go out and tackle any crime. What I meant was they use authentic locations, even if sometimes unidentified. For the ignorascenti like myself it's useful to know what the inside of a station might be like, how different ranks talk to another and something of their daily routine. Sooner or later in a crime novel there's going to be a copper, so it's as well to base him/her on someone I can see in my mind's eye. I find it impossible to create characters from scratch, and have to adapt from a model.This method worked quite well for a detective in a short story I wrote.

One of my favourite comedy series is The Thin Blue Line, with Rowan Atkinson as Inspector Grimm of Gasforth. It's useless in terms of location, though, because it's almost all studio-based and offers a dated portrait of a much sleepier backwater than busy Sun Hill, one that probably doesn't exist anymore. You might just as well watch Coronation Street to get an idea of Manchester.

Sheila

<Added>

necessary

Sarah - I wrote about New York and I've never been there either. I think the way writers 'get away with it' when fabricating an experience of a city is really dependent on how good the writer is. Remember also that everyone's perceptions of a place are different, so if your character thinks Central Park smells like a fish factory, who can question that in a city as ever-changing as New York? movies help too. Everyone knows New York, anyway, on some deep subconcious level, and the same can be applied to other famous places. You can literally think yourself there.

I guess I meant previously that for the finer details, a visit is necessary. If you're planning a chase across London, or using several monuments in any given scenario, it's important to get the logistics and geography right. When I did that with TA, it felt like I was planning a movie, asking questions in Saint Paul's and absorbing just where everything is. As a result, the book is stronger, and I know London a hell of a lot better than I used to.

JB

If I want to write about a place and it's just not practical for me to go there, one of the sources I use is travellers' stories from the Net, with photos attached. You know the kind of thing: 'here's me and Jurgen haggling with a water-seller' and 'there's Mindy drying her underwear on the thorn bushes'. You can't rely on the facts they give you, but it helps me to acquire at least a feel of the place. The rest is down to the imagination and writerly craft...

Tony