Mixing fictional/factual places

[Jo Zebedee]

I have a very specific place I want to use for the climax of my current wip. It's a house off some old sea caves in a town on the North Antrim coast. The town is very touristy. The sea caves lead to a gate way which leads to a house -- according to my research this is the only access to the house as it has cliffs on three sides and a rocky beach on the other. Any pictures of it are from a distance, google sat doesn't get terribly close and from the gates (that I've been at) you can only see the curve of a driveway.

Presumably, since the owners go to a lot of trouble to keep it private, the building (which I can probably fudge going by the architectural listings on it) and the grounds are going to be known by very few, but it will still be identified (the rest of the book is naming towns etc so I don't think I can suddenly make a town up). Does it matter if what I come up with doesn't match the reality? Normally I try to keep these things reasonably accurate? Am I worrying (and googling) excessively? Or would it set your teeth on edge if a real place was described incorrectly?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I know with mystery stories it doesn't matter. Miss Marple still goes to London from St Mary's Mead in Downshire or Tom Barnaby still goes to major cities from Midsomer. It wouldn't bother me.

I've completely made up my mystery town, major town and county (I've basically moved North Yorkshire round a bit because I wanted Malton closer to the sea) but major UK cities still exist.

 

[HareBrain]

Can you put it in the same place but call it something else? Then it wouldn't matter if it was different.

In the good old days of fiction people used to live in towns with names like C___.

 

[Tecdavid]

If it's just one house, I don't think anyone will be unhappy about creative liberties you take. It sounds like something that must happen often before, in fact; Authors might know a lot about any given town, but when it comes to setting a scene inside a certain house, they can't be expected to know every little detail about it unless it's a house they have frequent access to. I think readers will expect you to work from you imagination when it comes to small, inconspicuous areas like this (They probably wont know much about the house you're inspired by, after all), so I think it should be fine.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Can you put it in the same place but call it something else? Then it wouldn't matter if it was different.

In the good old days of fiction people used to live in towns with names like C___.

I think this is the one option I can't go with. Everywhere else is named and it's a very unusual town, National Trust owned and designed by the guy who did Portmerion, so it will be known. I think this would stand out most as an option (although it would solve it all.)

Anya, yes, I think it's a bit like what Miss Marple and all do -- and here we have a town and the house.. unfortunately in this case, I think the house, too, is well known. (Because of the sea caves entrance.)

Tecdavid, that's what I'm hoping.

It's only one scene, after that I move it back to the public arena. I might wing it and hope the owners don't sue.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I think this is the one option I can't go with. Everywhere else is named and it's a very unusual town, National Trust owned and designed by the guy who did Portmerion, so it will be known. I think this would stand out most as an option (although it would solve it all.)

Email the National Trust let them know you're working on a project and ask if they have any information on the house.

I'm doing a story set in Gordonstoun in 1704 - but now it's a school. They've been very helpful and out local heritage was more fruitful than I expected.

I don't think you'll have a problem tweaking house or town though.

 

[HareBrain]

I think this is the one option I can't go with. Everywhere else is named and it's a very unusual town, National Trust owned and designed by the guy who did Portmerion, so it will be known. I think this would stand out most as an option (although it would solve it all.)

I don't see why that's a problem -- it tells the reader that you're going to do something un-factual with it, and it would be obvious that you've called it something else deliberately rather than by mistake. What objection would they raise? I think I'd be a bit wary of using a private house as a setting; a public building is another matter.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Can you put it in the same place but call it something else? Then it wouldn't matter if it was different.

In the good old days of fiction people used to live in towns with names like C___.

Email the National Trust let them know you're working on a project and ask if they have any information on the house.

I'm doing a story set in Gordonstoun in 1704 - but now it's a school. They've been very helpful and out local heritage was more fruitful than I expected.

The house itself is in private hands (I think it's a retreat of some kind). I had a look through a load of archives and can get tons of info but no pictures, which is what I need.

 

[Boneman]

Blimey, Dan Brown does it all the time, and his fans trek off to see the buildings!! As long as there's the usual proviso about 'all persons are made up' etc, I see no problem. Of course when it becomes a best-seller is when you might get an irate phone call, because thousands of fans want to make a pilgrimage to the famous wizrad's lair in Xtown, and you've led them there, easily! If you're realy worried, dropping the NT or the owners a quick line won't harm. Or: by making up the building to suit your needs... oh, that's descriptive... but try it anyway... it makes it all a fiction, doesn't it, so no problem!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Ah, yes the description. That's for the nail me to my seat and make me finish it draft. At the moment I have two rocks, an arch, and a gateway... (Black ). I think I will keep it to the gardens and not worry about the house - and the gardens are visible (just) on google satellite... So they could sue google...

But, yeh, Dan Brown did get away with it, didn't he....

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I believe I would just rename the house and do whatever I wanted with the descriptions of it. Anyone who knows what house you are modeling it after would probably assume (maybe rightfully so) that you did so for legal reasons. Anyone who didn't know wouldn't care a bit.

 

[Abernovo]

I'd agree with HB, Boneman and TDZ. You can make up a single building, or a small estate, I'd say.

Not just Dan Brown. Taking it right back to childhood, Kirrin Island is supposedly a real place. Enid Blyton simply changed the name and some of the features. I bet it didn't really have a castle, a cave system and a tunnel stretching back to the mainland.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I wasn't planning on naming the house - I don't think the character would know it - just the town. But with my a- mazing descriptive powers p) it's a dead cert where it is. I think, looking at this, I'm safe enough.

 

[Mouse]

(the rest of the book is naming towns etc so I don't think I can suddenly make a town up).

Why? I did it in TBM and you never mentioned anything. I'm doing it in the romance too. Everything is real but for this one fictional town. And even that fictional town (as it was in TBM) is based on a real town. I made up a hotel for TBM too as stuck it in London, where in reality there is no hotel.

 

[EloiseA]

I agree with other posters here -- name the town and invent the house interior. You're writing fiction, you're not libelling anyone or invading privacy or bringing the place into disrepute. It sounds a brilliant setting, sea caves and all and too good to be wasted on reality.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

I've made up a suburb and the professional football team based in that made up suburb...made up a street name that does bear a striking resemblance to the name of a street in my real life suburb...

...but I've also made up super heroes for the story...and they do fly (or leap, or run amazingly fast) from that fictional suburb and the real city of Melbourne...

Bottom line? It's fiction.

 

[Ursa major]

I think I'd be less worried about the house itself - although drawing attention to somewhere that's meant to be a retreat is possibly not the best thing to do - than what you say about what happens there and who, in your book, lives there.

But back to the house itself.... Given that the general public doesn't know what the house looks like, why not make the building in your book look as little as the real one (presuming you can find out what that is**) so that as few people as possible will assume you've based your story on the house rather than its setting. (If you can't discover its real form, base your version on a building known from elsewhere, so it could, in the PoV character's eyes, 'look like a miniature Neuschwanstein Castle' or 'looks as if the design was based on the Taj Mahal, but built in red brick'. Well, something like that....



** - As well as checking elsewhere, the local council may have the plans online, particularly if there have been recent alterations.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

That might be a nice tie in to the theme, Ursa.

The house is well known, it's referenced in loads of guide books and the gate is very clear from the sea caves with the name of the house displayed on it, so I don't think I'll draw any new attention to it. Plus, the action (for what it's worth) happens in the grounds.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

In that case, the name of the house (displayed on the gate) is facing the wrong way for Our Hero to read it, if the action takes place on the grounds...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Ah but the gates must be pushed open in a sinister and squeaky fashion. Just cos, y'know, squeaks are needed.... Our hero is too busy to notice the name. Defineitely. Or else the sign has fallen off in a nefarious supernatural fashion...