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Hometown fic
Feb. 5th, 2002 10:59 amYes! Research! She nailed it!
Let me assemble some sort of coherency here. I enjoy fiction that inhabits a fully realized world - if it's a fanfic where the action takes place in a fictional city, like Cascade or Seacouver, it's nice when it borrows from the real-life equivalents in Vancouver and Seattle. I didn't know either when I first got into Sentinel and Highlander, but I get a thrill whenever I can recognize something out of a story. Back when I was writing the Sentinel fic and living in Kansas, I went so far as to buy a Washington Atlas just to help set the fic geographically.
I'm not very familiar with Chicago beyond a few spots in Evanston, mostly related to my family history, and I'm lost when it comes to DC, so I don't quite get that from Due South or X Files.
But Stargate, I'm finding, is a little different. I lived there. I spent fully five years in Colorado Springs, learning downtown almost completely on foot. It's almost more familiar to me than San Jose, where I grew up, because I didn't really explore the Bay Area the way I did Colorado.
So it's incredibly easy for me to tell if someone has done their research about the city, or they're simply assuming and extrapolating, or if they really know the city. Biblio knows the Springs. When she drops names, they're instantly recognizable to me, like little pins in my mental map of the Springs. This goes so incredibly far towards establishing the realism of a piece, it's breathtaking.
The Dale Street Cafe. It's two blocks from campus. I love their gnocchi. Seriously adore it. And she mentioned it in her fic. I may squee.
Let me assemble some sort of coherency here. I enjoy fiction that inhabits a fully realized world - if it's a fanfic where the action takes place in a fictional city, like Cascade or Seacouver, it's nice when it borrows from the real-life equivalents in Vancouver and Seattle. I didn't know either when I first got into Sentinel and Highlander, but I get a thrill whenever I can recognize something out of a story. Back when I was writing the Sentinel fic and living in Kansas, I went so far as to buy a Washington Atlas just to help set the fic geographically.
I'm not very familiar with Chicago beyond a few spots in Evanston, mostly related to my family history, and I'm lost when it comes to DC, so I don't quite get that from Due South or X Files.
But Stargate, I'm finding, is a little different. I lived there. I spent fully five years in Colorado Springs, learning downtown almost completely on foot. It's almost more familiar to me than San Jose, where I grew up, because I didn't really explore the Bay Area the way I did Colorado.
So it's incredibly easy for me to tell if someone has done their research about the city, or they're simply assuming and extrapolating, or if they really know the city. Biblio knows the Springs. When she drops names, they're instantly recognizable to me, like little pins in my mental map of the Springs. This goes so incredibly far towards establishing the realism of a piece, it's breathtaking.
The Dale Street Cafe. It's two blocks from campus. I love their gnocchi. Seriously adore it. And she mentioned it in her fic. I may squee.
