I am in the planning stages of working on a noir novel set in a fictional city on the West Coast that takes ques from both Las Veas and Miami with a little bit of NYC. My question is how do i make the city a believable setting that does not just feel like a cardboard cutout but instead a place that could actually exist in the real world ?
In one of my projects, I've put together a city that's based on three different cities/towns I've been to - one being where I live. For me, that seemed like the best way to create a place that would feel organic and genuine. This is also with the mindset of wanting the setting to be memorable and interesting on its own, because I plan on setting several stories in and around it and forcing the city itself to change throughout them. If you want a 'setting as a character' type thing, my personal recommendation is to make it a character that you know. Obviously, that's not doable for everyone. I purposefully set out to write some crumbling SE American Gothic because it's what I know, but you can't just pick your life up and move to Miami. So, failing a somewhat literal interpretation of 'write what you know', I suggest lots and lots of research. What do you know about Vegas, Miami, and NYC? What aspects of each individual city is it that you're wanting to emulate? I'd do some digging into what caused those conditions and work that into your fictional city. It didn't just spring up overnight - there's a history behind it. That said, unless the city is actually important in some way, I don't think too much time and thought needs to be given to it. Do you know what cities, in general, are like? Maybe I'm just a hick yokel bumpkin, but imo once you've been to one or two you've seen enough It can just be a city. It doesn't have to be more than a backdrop.
I don't know much about Miami or NY, but I live on the West Coast and have been to Vegas several times. So here are my observations about West Coast cities and about Vegas: West Coast: Cities in California, especially near the Bay Area, are delineated administratively rather than by settled areas. That means that you can drive on a free way, and you won't know when you've crossed from one city to the next unless you notice the sign ("Cupertino City Limit"). West Coast cities are almost entirely suburbs, with downtown being only a speck of tall buildings among a sea of one or two story buildings. Downtown tends to be a mix of new corporate buildings and dozens of really old ones. Suburbs usually have nice and easy to navigate roads and huge plazas with an abundance of parking space, while downtown is a web of one way streets and traffic lights, and only a rumor of mythical parking. Suburbs range from mansions in the hills, to two story homes in affluent neighborhoods near the hills, to one story middle-class homes, to run down areas with small, run down homes closer to downtown. On the peripheries of settled areas you will find old farms or the largest mansions, straddling hills. Mostly it's light forest, rolling hills, or sweeping plains. Almost all of the major settlements are within several dozen miles of the coast- further inland is relatively underpopulated. Vegas: A mid sized city of mostly one-story suburbs like an oasis in the desert. In the center is a street lined with casinos and miniaturized world-wonders like the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramid. This central street is The Strip, and the name becomes even more appropriate given the amount of semi-naked ladies shown everywhere. The sidewalk is littered with cards of nude women and phone numbers to call. Inside the casinos, you will be dazzled with thousands of lights from hundreds of gambling machines, and the smell of cigar smoke is always heavy in the air. There is never a quiet minute. The casinos, much like the strip, are a land unto themselves, isolated from the outside world. There are no windows, no sense of time, and the employees will do their best to get you to stay and spend your cash. Aside from gambling, Vegas is famous for some good restaurants, interesting shows, and hookers. The periphery of the city is empty- just dusty plains filled with desert shrubs. If you want to write about a place that can exist in the real world, do two things: 1. Show that there is more to the city than just the small downtown area. Life continues outside the city center, and there is often much to see in the suburbs or beyond. 2. More importantly, make your city feel like it has a history. Maybe talk about the intermingling of the crumbling old but beautiful buildings with the fresh new but simple ones, about how your character remembers the city when they were growing up vs how it has changed. San Francisco's skyline has grown massively since I was a kid, for example. 3. Just make sure your city is more than just an atmosphere trope or the name of the setting. 4. Talk about the little things and day to day life.
I have a question. If you're trying to create a realistic west coast city, why then are none of the cities you're drawing your inspiration from actually west coast cities? Where's San Francisco? Where's Los Angeles? That's the place you want to start. The cities of the west coast cities are younger. They have a different history. Many Eastern cities like New York and Boston are older than the United States and that's why people like to use Noir in those cities. All of the cities on the West Coast existed after. That means there's going to be generation after generation after generation influencing the culture of the east, where the west coast will find its own culture. The old families are typically an east coast attitude. They have different values. A different way of doing things. Different tastes of music... They don't even talk the same. Hell I think there was a war between west coast and east coast rappers once. You can almost think of it like the Great Gatsby with the West Egg and East Egg. The old money and the new money. Fitzgerald was a genius in how he wrote that book, stating that money moved west. So the first step would be to draw inspiration from appropriate sources. Things that are compatible to your fictional world rather than shoehorning things that aren't. The second thing is to create a "feel." This a little difficult. First off, do you know much about the west coast dialect? I admit, I have no idea. I grew up in the midwest where we use words like "pop." So I don't have a clue how they talk in California. It's not too terribly different, but you certainly don't want a "born n' raised" Californian saying "pop." Then there's the way people experience the world around them. It's easy to just state what your character sees and that's it. But what about what they hear every morning when they wake up? Is it waves? Is it traffic? Is it silence? What are the ambient sounds? How about the smell? Things like these are minor, but they make a big difference.
I do admit that i kinda threw in NYC at the last minute and rather abritarily, i had decided to replace it with a more fitting L.A to add in the whole New Money side of the west coast. My reasoning of trying to Add Miami and Vegas was to try to create a costal Casino city of sorts and Mixing in the Night life of both cities, along with thier criminal elements, though i do Admit that Miami could probably be replaced with L.A.
Just draw on the elements that make a real city real. Even when you're using a real-world setting you still have to make it believable. Just use the way you would describe real cities as a template.
In every city I've been in there is them that got and them that ain' got. I would show that the wrong side of the tracks exist even if your characters don't live there. I used to spend a lot of time at 20th Century studios when I was younger and the thing that made each city different was the people and the advertisement. Guido's Pizza is going to be in a different city them Marge's vegetable wrap.
I would also add, think about to what extent you really need to describe everything. I'm writing a story that so far takes place in two cities, Denver and Chicago, but about 50 years from now. I will not describe in detail what's going on in those cities, I just call out some details here and there (it's written in third person limited). I feel like making sure those details are believable will allow the readers to start building a mental image of that city. Or you can go the Dan Brown route and go into every minute little detail, but I think he sometimes overdoes it a bit and I end up skipping over lines to get to the actual story. He sometimes writes almost two pages just describing a setting, which can get tedious.
My current WIP is set in Bournemouth. I think the way I have described the setting is working well. I've picked out what makes it unique, and what gives it it's own "feel". The park by the seafront with pathways scattered with dead pine cones, and more bins for dog shit per foot than any other place I have been. And it's alive with squirrels. Yellow taxis EVERYWHERE. Lots of students with extreme hair styles and weird clothing choices. Most of the streets smell of take aways, and no matter what time of day or night it is, you can always seem to be able to buy a pizza. The steel girders in the Victorian train station are always covered in pigeon poo. Scots pines. Everywhere.
