Helpful Tips #8 - Location, location, location

Not only is this important in real estate, this is also important to your story. No matter what you choose as your backdrop think it through very carefully. And, whatever you do, keep very specific notes about said location.

Things to keep on hand about your locale's:

• State/Province, Country
• Area, ie: country side or city, suburbia or the crush of a down town jumping with action like New York or Vegas
• Buildings you use frequently, ie: where your characters live, work, play
• Side note here: basic descriptions of anything you use occasionally is good, but those places that they "live" in all the time, give more detail so people can visualize it all
• Know your weather patterns, ie: someone that's living in a Brazilian rain forest likely (though not impossible given weather patterns these days) won't see snow, so it shouldn't snow
• Neighbors, ie: do you have neighbors for your property, condo, whatever
• Side note here: if you do have neighbors give them names and basic descriptions if they are to be seen on occasion

Now, if you are doing Sci-Fi, or Fantasy, you need to do the same as the above but in even greater detail. You are creating a world, literally, for your characters to live in so ensure that you give amazing amounts of visual information. When you are creating something outside the "norm" if you will, you have to be even more verbose about it. Do not chintz out on your readers.

Oh, and don't just drop a bomb in the midst of things. For example, you give a great description of your world you've created, lots of this, lots of that, blah, blah, blah. And then you are into your story, character development, characters meeting and interacting, life is going well and then, BAM! You drop something in that is out of place and throws off their perception of the world you created.

We're not saying you can't add more detail, but keep it to the flow of the story, make it a part of what you've created instead of having it come off as an after thought. Thus why you should do your location development before you get too far into your story. The more you figure out ahead of time the more logical and real it will feel to your readers. You don't want to turn people off your story because it feels contrived or tacked on.

The Moderator