Geography
IOMfAtS
Geography affects you as the author far more than it affects us as readers.
So why is it even a segment here?
That's easy. It's because you need to keep track of the place your tale is set. The routes, the pathways, the alleys, the school campus, the lot, need to be 100% clear on a map in your head.
I use real geography, sometimes modified slightly. This is a location in Chris and Nigel. The rest of the tale takes place in distorted geography in the area. I distorted it because the tale is fiction but it needed a consistent setting. And I had to be able to remember what was where.
Oh, it's an alleyway, on the left, in the dense greenery. Turn left at the tree by the railing. The railing's to stop kids cycling flat out straight across the road.
A reader identified that piece of geography perfectly. He lived at one time in a house near the alley and had been accused of taking a more than usual interest in the spanking of teenage boys' bottoms. But he couldn't actually identify the rest except in a foggy cloud. But I hadn't written it for him, I'd written the location for me, so I could work my way through the semi-fake location I set the tale in.
I choose places I know because they let me concentrate on the rest of the tale. Sometimes I alter them, other times not at all. It's horses for courses.
