Novelistic Settings

     I was getting ready to write about a book I read years ago, The Secret at Shadow Ranch. It's a Nancy Drew Mystery, short and sweet, but I just couldn't remember the plot so I decided to search the internet for it. I came up with a Wikipedia site for Shadow Ranch--it's a real place!

     I was shocked to discover this so I continued reading, only to find that the ranch in real life is in California, while in the book it's in Arizona. All interest lost. But then I got to thinking: how many places in books have existed in real life (other than what we expect to be on the map) and how to people come up with them? 

      Then I heard about a book that's become extremely popular lately: the Fifty Shades books. My friend was complaining about how they're set in Seattle yet nothing about the setting is realistic, other than the rain. Another friend chimed in that it was because it's Twilight fan fiction and the author lives in Australia. While that's all good and fine, there are so many other, good books that have a better description of Seattle than the Twilight series and so many other ways to discover more about the area than to use another fictional book. 

     I know Jayne Ann Krentz lives in the Seattle area. Her books are usually set in the Pacific Northwest and have a pretty realistic setting. While you can't go to a particular part of town and say "Oh, So-and-so lived in that building on the fourth floor" you see parts of the city that the characters walk through and live in. 

     Why is it that some authors write much more realistic settings into their books than others? The mythical realms are usually the most detailed: Narnia, Middle Earth, Alagaesia, and so many other worlds have more dimension than places that really exist. But why? Is it so much more difficult to paint a picture in your reader's mind of a place they could actually go and visit than one only you can see?

Just a thought....
Stephie