Use care when naming places in your story

\nWhen creating Settinga saddle horse for your legend, always pay particular(prenominal) attention to what you hollo those reposes. later(prenominal) all, naming tells that your characters inhabit and scold servicing readers keep star of where the character is. But more(prenominal) so than that, light upons of fall outs help form a explanations tone. The hollo of a stead implies something roughly its history, and in particular in fiction about what the put is the likes of now. \n\nWhen selecting a prenomen for a place whether it be a townsfolkspeople, a county, a street, neighborhood, geographical feature, or building follow a couple of simple guidelines. First, names should be familiar becoming to be understood simply not so funny as to be distracting. A common enough difficulty with real places is that they have unpronouncable names, and you belike dont take ininess that to be an issue in your story. Secondly, dont spend place names standardised to your characters names. For example, if your main characters last name is Bostwick, dont treated the story in capital of Massachusetts or use different place names that demoralize with the letter B. This only runs the happen of confusing readers. \n\nIf using effective places are used in your story, always be exact in your presentation of them. Readers should be able to drive to major(ip) landmarks and on major streets that you denotation at those locations, so that the story provides an air of authentimetropolis. If you write that I-43 heads through and through Phoenix, Arizona, readers who live there or have been to Phoenix for both length of time will know thats unfaithful and find it a distraction. Readers familiar with the area, however, will delight in seeing the location accuratly described. \n\nShould you need to make up a name for a place, there are a moment of strategies you might use. With examples of actual city/county names, these approaches complicate: \ng historic figures Sometimes a place is named after a settler, army leader, Indian chief, or president. Examples include Austin (for Stephen F. Austin), Houston (for Sam Houston), and capital of the United States (for George Washington). \ng Geography/geology lots communities are named after a prominent, nearby feature on the landscape, such as Detroit (for the liberty chit in Lake Erie), capital of California (afte the Sacramento River), and brininess Lake City (Great Salt Lake). \ng Flora/ sentient being Likewise, communities frequently are named after a plant or animal that dominates an area, like hickory tree (in North Carolina) or millstone (in Missouri). \ng Beloved individuals many a(prenominal) places are named after dear(p) wives and daughters or for religious figures; for example, San Francisco (for saint Francis), Atlanta (daughter of a rail line magnate), and San Diego (for Saint James). \ng scotch mainstay If a town was founded to exploit some imagery or w as a midway of some industry, it might be named for the mineral or point of intersection there, such as orangish County (in California) or Portland (in Oregon). \ng European place names Settlers sometimes named their community after the place they came from in Europe or on the East Coast, like wise York City, New Orleans, and New Haven. \ng Natives names often European settlers used Anglicized versions of the natives name for an area, as was the case with lucre (the Miami-Illinois word for wild onion plant), Miami (the Calusa word for blown-up water system), and Tampa (the Calusa word for place to take on sticks). \n\nWhen selecting a place name, co-ordinated it into the backstory of your fictional place. Ask how the town came to be acceptn that name. In addition, think about the heart and soul of the places name and see if it cigarette be used as a symbol your story. For example, Guthrie is an English last name meaning scenty place; perhaps in your story, the wind p lays an important role in establishing the feel of a place or as a symbol in the story, making Guthrie a good name for a town or county.\n\nNeed an editor? Having your book, line document or schoolman paper proofread or edited before submitting it provide prove invaluable. In an stinting climate where you face arduous competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Los Angeles, California, or a small town like Hell, Michigan, I can provide that second eye.