Creating a fictional place within an actual city?
I am writing a thriller novel set in St. Louis a lot of the important scenes occur at a university. I am familiar with the city because I live close to it but I don't think I know enough about the university of St. Louis (Or any of the other Universities in St. Louis) in particular to use it as the actual setting and I already know also some of the parking rules and housing arrangements don't fit with the plot as it would impede some of the events from happening. I am a stickler for details and god forbid my details being off ruin it for some one who actually knows the university on more than a superficial level. I am contemplating either keeping SLU's location and pasting a university of my creation in the void or carving out a place for a fictional university with in the city. Which method do you think would be the most satisfying fictional arrangement for a reader who actually lives in St. Louis? I'm just looking for some helpful thoughts.
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All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. So sayeth the Bard, and he should know.
No story is set in a real place. It is set on a stage created by the author, a stage designed carefully for the convenience of the author's plot. It may share names and physical features with some real place, but no real place is ever entirely convenient for telling the story that the author wants to tell.
It the real university in the real town on which you have based the details of your stage had parking regulations that are inconvenient for your plot, then give your stage university the parking regulations you need.
Is it possible that that detail will ruin you story for some particularly anal employee of the University of St. Louis parking patrol? Maybe, though if it is a good story they will probably soldier on anyway. But the vast majority of your reader (if you write a book that is good enough to get a vast number of readers) will tacitly understand that your stage is not the real city or the real university, and, in any case, will not have the USL parking regulations in the front of their minds when they are reading your book.
If it really bugs you, though, you can do what some historical novelists do when they combine two naval battles into one or put their hero's division in the thick of two different battles when the real division was present at neither: you write a confessional end note for your book that outlines exactly where you have transgressed. This will blunt the teeth of the anal SLU parking patrol person and salve your own conscience.
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I'd say who cares beyond the University students and staff. Most fictions fudge it somehow. I would say it matters if and only if the building in question is instantly recognizable to a general audience. I was once writing a scene that had a chase sequence through the White House grounds and I had a floor of the building in the window next to my word processor, but that's my exception and I only did it because its so Iconic if I got it wrong, someone would point it out. I'm a stickler for details too, but I've found even with fictional places, the location in my head will look nothing like the one in the film.
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I get that way myself sometimes. I think we all do. I once used a building throughout the whole book, only to discover that my character lived on the tenth floor and most of the tale took place on the ninth and tenth floors of a build that was only eight stories high. I considered tossing the entire book and starting on something new. But then I decided if anybody noticed, they could email me and I would explain how the top two floors fell off in a tornado a few years ago. I could even feign surprise that he hadn't heard about it on the news.
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I'd replace the existing university myself it gives you a solid location but you can set your own rules.
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