One of our goals here at Today’s Author is to help all of the writers among us to do what we love to do: write. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by talking to each other and learning from each other. Our Writers Circle series is designed to do just that – provide a chance for us to discuss writing, editing and publishing questions.
This week’s topic is:
When you build a world for your setting, do you tend to base it off of real-world places? If so, do you have any specific ways you alter it to make the world “yours” or do you try to stay true to the real world places? If you do not base your story’s world off of reality, how do you make the setting understandable for your readers without getting bogged down with less-exciting descriptions and details?
Let’s discuss this in the comments and see what our community thinks.
Today's Author 
One of my stories takes place in particular area of a real town. It’s a location I know fairly well but I studied Google Maps to find a blank spot where I “built” a house on a fictional street that veers off one that’s driven every day by hundreds of motorists. It was lots of fun to create this place but took a lot of planning and pencil sketching to bring it to life. You can drive up this little hill and spot all kinds of landmarks I wrote about but you’ll never find the house that’s the center of my story.
I generally write about real places. However, I like to tell stories either of the past or the future so I take a place I know and imagine what it looked like at a different time or what it might look like in the future.