Real Places, Fictional Places

Many of my stories are set, in part or whole, in Florida. This is not necessarily the ‘real’ Florida nor do they all visit the same fictional version of the state. Scenes in the Wilk novel ‘The Dictator’s Children,’ for example, do take place in the real Naples Florida. I attempted to keep the narrative and description historically accurate—the tale is set in 1948—but was willing to bend or invent as needed for the story.

It may be noted that the Women in the Sun novels, written under the pen name Sienna Santerre, are set in that same Naples but the details vary to fit a different fictional timeline. There are definite parallels between the two; indeed, I originally thought to tie the two series together but chose to go with a completely different vision of Naples. The decision to use the pen name brought a final division between the two.

My Shaper novels are set in a fictional Cully Beach Florida, a place that draws from a number of Atlantic coast towns but especially from Flagler Beach. It is not Flagler, however! It is Cully Beach and exists in its own fictional space. These novels are set in the same Florida as my novel ‘The Middle of Nowhere’ and a number of my short stories.

The Ruby of ‘Middle’ is somewhat loosely based on Steinhatchee Florida. Again, it is not Steinhatchee, nor are the neighboring towns the same, though they have resemblances. I ‘flipped’ a few of the locations there. The town of Genoa, from which some of my characters hail in this version of Florida, is pretty much a disguised Naples. But I also visit real places around the state in the stories—including White Springs to attend the Florida Folk Festival in the Cully Beach novel ‘Smoke.’

‘Asanas,’ the first (but I hope, not only) Tamarind novel, is set in yet another, different Florida. The town of Tamarind is completely fictional, though nearby Leawood is, in part, based on Englewood. But there is also something of Fort Myers Beach to it, and certainly other places I know. As with Ruby, I flipped some of the geography. Most of the places around it are real Florida locations; I invented nothing beyond the Tamarind area itself, aside from Karen’s ‘farm’ on an invented lake somewhere north of Sebring. There are a whole lot of lakes there! I will admit that Consonante Springs and its spa/hotel is loosely based on Bonita Springs, which is located quite a bit further south. And the Hot Dog Stand derives from a beach-side restaurant in faraway Keaton Beach.

I’ve done somewhat the same sorts of things in my novel set in southern Ohio, ‘These Remembered Hills.’ I’ve moved things about just a tad in the Hocking Hills region where the tale is set—not any towns or such, but the valley where the Fry farm is located. That is based on a very real place.

I am entirely likely to draw from a hodgepodge of remembered places and events when writing my stories, mixing them up and altering them to best fit. There is no need to stick strictly to the facts in a work of fiction, as long as the result is believable and consistent. Then the world we create is just as ‘real’ as that of our everyday lives.

Yet, if we name a real place and get some detail wrong, there will be those to pick at it. This is a pretty good argument in favor of changing the names. I’ve no doubt someone will see something in my versions of Naples that they think is not quite correct. I myself have found things in stories set there. Like getting the dry and rainy seasons reversed! If it doesn’t hurt the story, it’s no big deal, but major blunders can impact our willingness to believe.

Ultimately, any setting is fictional, no matter how closely it is modeled on reality. It comes from the author’s mind and it is for the author to make it seem real. Tamarind and Cully Beach must be places the reader can believe exist, places where they can live for a few hours. The same is true of ‘my’ Naples.

But the goal is not to make the reader see those places as I see them. It is to let them see as the characters see. That is the final step to making it real.

Storms in Steinhatchee

I lived in Steinhatchee Florida for several years before relocating to the Panhandle region. The town has its good and bad, like any other, but as the news has pointed out it has never before been hit by a major hurricane. Idalia has changed that.

Anyway, that got me to  remembering the Storm of the Century, the storm that clobbered the area in the spring of 1993.  I was there and remember the storm surge—including waking in the wee hours and finding ankle deep water in my place!. It got way deeper before things were over. I don't know how the surge compared with that of Idalia but it looks to have been comparable. Of course, this was a winter cyclone. The winds were heavy but not hurricane strength (much less Category 3). But it was a heck of a lot colder.

I borrowed some from that experience for scenes in my very first novel, the Young Adult title 'The Middle of Nowhere.' I also had to write a song about it. Not necessarily a 'true' personal account but one based on the event:

THE STORM OF THE CENTURY

March Twelfth, Nineteen Ninety-three,
That’s when the Storm of the Century
Came ravening from the wind-swept Gulf,
Howling like the hungry wolf.
When the Storm of the Century came calling,
When the Storm of the Century came calling.

The wind was throwing knives at the night,
And startled the clouds into sheepish flight;
I heard the black oaks together sigh
As they offered themselves to the sky.
In the dark, I prayed the storm would pass,
But the river was rising, the field was a glass
Where the moon played hide-and-seek with its twin,
While the endless ebon flood poured in.

And it was time to take higher ground,
But there’s not a lot to be found
In a Florida Gulf Coast town
When the Storm of the Century comes calling,
Oh, comes calling.

The river came knocking at my door,
The icy flow swept across the floor
To clutch at my ankles as I made my way
Into the gale, for I could not stay.
With two guitars and the clothes on my back,
I waded through the night with black
Water rushing around my knees;
The remorseless wind shouted symphonies.

And it was time to take higher ground,
But there’s not a lot to be found
In a Florida Gulf Coast town
When the Storm of the Century comes calling,
Oh, comes calling.

I saw a light, I climbed a stair,
Strangers gave me shelter there;
Some didn’t reach the dawn alive
But God agreed I should survive,
When the Storm of the Century came calling,
When the Storm of the Century came calling.

Stephen Brooke ©2003