Friday open thread: specific real-world details in fiction

[dolorosa_12]

Friday open threads are back for now, and this week's one is inspired by a great Shetland fanfic I read recently. It's wonderful for many, many reasons, but one thing that I particularly enjoyed was its incredible specificity of place: having been to Shetland myself, it was like walking around Lerwick again. The crowning glory: it even managed to work in a reference to a specific waterfront cafe which (in my opinion) has the best coffee in town.


slung from the mast, a lantern (6069 words) by raven
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Shetland (TV)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Duncan Hunter/Jimmy Perez, Alison McIntosh & Jimmy Perez
Characters: Jimmy Perez, Duncan Hunter, Sandy Wilson, Alison McIntosh, Cassie Perez (Shetland)
Additional Tags: Slow Burn, why is "co-parents to lovers" not a canonical tag
Summary:

Every few minutes Jimmy’s feet leave the ground, and it’s only Duncan’s weight that keeps him down. It’s terrifying, every time it happens. All of this, suddenly, is terrifying.

(Or––Jimmy grieves, Duncan loves him, things work out okay in the end)

So, here is this week's prompt: what is your favourite tiny real-world detail in a work of fiction (original or transformative) that makes it clear the author has genuine experience of the place being depicted?

Comments

[yarnofariadne]

This happened to me recently reading a story I didn't otherwise like, so I didn't save the link to it. It was set in my hometown and mentioned the café I always went to for a treat after violin lessons. Later, my sister dated one of the managers of the café, and when she inevitably unceremoniously dumped him, he somehow got it into his head that he could get back in her good books by bringing me cake. My sister and I have hated each other all our lives and there was literally no way for me to put in a good word for him, but I happily accepted slices of chocolate chip cake for the few months he was at this! Anyway, was delighted to see the café mentioned. It's known by locals but I'm not sure it's famous enough to be known by tourists so I felt like the author is probably another local.

[dolorosa_12]

That's amazing — both the fact that the author mentioned the specific cafe, and that guy's ridiculous attempts to get back in your sister's good graces (given what you say about your relationship with your sister, her ex clearly can't have known her that well if he thought the way to her heart was give you loads of cake).

[yarnofariadne]

Very true! But I wasn't about to tell him that when I was getting cake out of the deal XD

[dolorosa_12]

The correct decision!

[chestnut_pod]

I actually strongly disliked Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky, but that woman has been in a twee San Francisco café a time or two! At one point, she is in a yellow hipster café, and I can visualize everything about it down to the bead curtain interior door clashing with the tin ceiling. I don't think it's a real place, but every element of it is note-perfect of its type.

[dolorosa_12]

I've likewise been underwhelmed by Anders' writing, but I have no doubt that she nailed that San Francisco specificity.

[edwardianspinsteraunt]

This prompt immediately called to mind a fanfic I once read which perfectly captured a very specific place except for one detail which completely broke my immersion (to the point where I almost, almost considered leaving a comment about it to suggest a correction).

The fic in question was a modern-day academia AU for a historical M/M ship set at a conference in Cambridge. The characters were staying in one of the city-centre colleges for the duration of the conference and had only booked one bed for the two of them, leading to lots of UST. The general academic hothouse vibes of Cambridge were beautifully evoked, and there were some lovely descriptions of the old buildings. Then, towards the end of the fic, the UST was finally resolved, the characters declared their feelings, decided to have sex, and then realised they had no condoms…at which point, one of them promptly legged it to the nearest Tesco.

The issue being that, at the time the fic was written, there was no Tesco in central Cambridge! And of course, if you were staying at a central college, Mainsbury’s would be your first port of call for any emergency shopping trips! (I’m sure the last thing you’d want if you were about to imminently release some sexual tension would be a mile-long run to the Newmarket or Hills Road Tesco.) I was a seasoned connoisseur of the different Cambridge supermarkets during my undergrad, so the detail irritated me beyond belief (I suspect it was a consequence of Tesco being the default British supermarket for American fanfic writers.) But looking it up now, it seems like there *is* now a Tesco Express near the Guildhall, so the speed condom-buying is no longer totally inaccurate or unbelievable.

[dolorosa_12]

I was reading through your comment, and at a certain point, I could see where this was (incorrectly) going, and I almost wanted to reach through the screen and stop the author, because of course for a central college, the correct central Cambridge supermarket would be Mainsbury's! I've lived — not in college accommodation — in two different places where the correct supermarket would be a Co-op, but it just wouldn't be a Tesco! And you're so right that the central Cambridge Tesco was only relatively recent.

Even Brit-picking wouldn't have worked for that fic unless the person had familiarity with Cambridge.

(It would have been a hilarious — though very tonally different — fic if for some reason it had to be a Tesco and the would-be pairing had to roam the streets of Cambridge until they got to Newmarket Road!)

[raven]

Aww, how nice to have inspired this! I must confess, however, that I am just Like This; I can only really write stories with that degree of hyper-specificity of place. It's why so much of my fiction is set places I have lived and been.

[tellshannon815]

I was Class of 2004 at St Andrews, and one thing I will say for that Merlin/Arthur "The Student Prince" fic is that all the St Andrews detail is accurate.