Sci-Fi Novel Location Research Question

[waldenwriter]

I have a question about location research. I am working on preparations for a sci-fi novel set in London in 2345. But my book is more character-based; the location is more background. So how much research should I do on the location? Indeed, how much research can a sci-fi writer do in this situation (where the setting exists in the present time), knowing the time of the novel will be so far in the future?

Also, I keep hearing how good it is to visit the place where your book is set, but I don't have the money or the time to visit London right now, nor do I think I shall have either any time soon (I'm not good at saving money, and I have school in the fall). Do you think this will matter? Will it negatively impact my writing?

I hope I can get an answer to these. I thought of them while listening to Randy Ingermanson's lecture on StoryWorld (from his course, Fiction 101, which I bought recently) on my iPod today.

I know London is a weird place to set a novel since I live in California, but I just can't come up in my head with a way to set a sci-fi novel in the San Diego area (where I live).

[metalikhan]

No worries, waldenwriter. It's not necessary to go "on location" to research your setting. Depending on how much (or little) of today's London you want to retain 300 plus years from now, you'll be able to find everything you need in some good travel guides and on-line research.

I've heard/read similar advice, but the main emphasis was for comtemporary stories where incorrect details would be glaringly obvious. Even then, however, it's not required to travel. You just select location details that you can verify and cross-reference -- enough for believability and local "flavor". In a story so far in the future, you're free to take a few details and extrapolate from there.

*Sigh* But travel would be nice, wouldn't it!

[kouter]

With a timeline that far in the future I think you have pretty much free license on what London will look like. You might want to consult futurists and economists on what might happen to europe.

UK for example is already a melting pot with huge ethnic populations from all over the word. 340 years from now what would that look like? What language would people speak? Would they have become part of the EU by then? Would global warming have wiped out old london which is now underwater and now there is a New London?

Current travel books migth be helpful to spot significant locales and then you can extrapolate them into the future. i.e. does it still exists? Was it once a monument that is now used as a dumping ground?

My advice is to go wild!

~Kirk

[Teskas]

You might want to consider a contraction of the city. Suppose in the intervening years, there is a plague. London might well be a shadow of the sprawl that it is now. All you would need would be a few distinctive landmarks (perhaps in ruins), and that would be enough.

Remember what makes a city distinctive is not the architecture, but the attitude, the personality, of the people who live there. I promise you that the people who live in London are very different from the people who live in Paris. The best way to grasp that is to read a daily broadsheet (a top grade newspaper) from the locale that interests you. There are plenty of quality English-language papers all over the world.

[metalikhan]

UK for example is already a melting pot with huge ethnic populations from all over the word. 340 years from now what would that look like? What language would people speak? Would they have become part of the EU by then? Would global warming have wiped out old london which is now underwater and now there is a New London?

I never thought about possible global warming effects, kouter! How cool! The City that Wouldn't Die in WWII becomes The City that Wouldn't Drown in the 24th Century complete with seawalls, dikes, and canals like Amsterdam (and other parts of Holland) and Venice have now. Or maybe London does go under but the obstinate Brits keep the city alive underwater. What would Piccadilly look like with submersible vehicles? Tour the Tower of London in scuba gear. Hear Big Ben chiming under the waves.

And what would, say, a cockney accent do to ethnic languages from, say, the Middle East, India, or Africa? Or the words of any other nationality?

Ah, the possibilities...

[waldenwriter]

Jun 25, 2009 10:14:35 GMT -5 kouter said:

With a timeline that far in the future I think you have pretty much free license on what London will look like. You might want to consult futurists and economists on what might happen to europe.

You're right about the time space allowing for free license. But as for consulting futurists and economists...That's a thought. Especially with the European Union. I'm sure futurists and economists on Europe exist, or at least books about it (I've read books about U.S. foreign policy so I know stuff like this exists in regards to the U.S., but I don't know about Europe).

Jun 25, 2009 10:14:35 GMT -5 kouter said:

UK for example is already a melting pot with huge ethnic populations from all over the word. 340 years from now what would that look like? What language would people speak? Would they have become part of the EU by then?

The UK is actually a member of the EU already. They just didn't adopt the euro as a currency.

The EU thing is interesting though; in my storyworld an intergalactic organization called the United Interplanetary and Intersidereal Council has replaced the UN, but I forgot about the EU. I should figure out if the EU will still exist, as well as do research on both the UN and the EU.

Jun 25, 2009 10:14:35 GMT -5 kouter said:

Would global warming have wiped out old london which is now underwater and now there is a New London?

That reminds me of the Breton legend about the city of Ys, which sank into the sea because water overflowed the dikes. A version of this legend that I read said that Paris supposedly resembles Ys (the city's name coming from "Par Ys," or "like Ys"), and that one day Paris will sink underwater and Ys will rise out of the water in its place.

That's an interesting thought though...although I'm confused as to how global warming would cause a city to end up underwater. I admit I'm not very educated on the topic of global warming (or "climate change" or whatever we're calling it now).

Jun 25, 2009 11:50:09 GMT -5 Teskas said:

You might want to consider a contraction of the city. Suppose in the intervening years, there is a plague. London might well be a shadow of the sprawl that it is now. All you would need would be a few distinctive landmarks (perhaps in ruins), and that would be enough.

That's a possibility too. That reminds me of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is set in 2015 in Tokyo-3, an underground city built after the disastrous Second Impact, a cataclysm prophesied in the Dead Sea Scrolls (according to this anime's canon), nearly destroyed the Earth in the year 2000.

Based on London's history, I think a fire - something like the Great Fire of 1666 - would be a slightly more interesting way of contracting the city. Or maybe an invasion, since England has never been successfully invaded since the Norman Invasion of 1066.

***

Thanks for the advice, everyone!