There are many reasons I prefer writing fantasy and SF – one of them is that you don’t have to deal with the constraints imposed by real world settings. But some stories, unfortunately, insist on being set in the real world.
What is more, on occasion the real world offers up amazing coincidences and parallels that fit the story perfectly. Take for example, this ruin with a creepy history, which is not only conveniently located within walking distance of my protagonist’s home (another real world place not just tailor-made for my purposes, but perfectly matching a vision that had only existed in my head so far), but also ties into a childhood trauma the character experienced. The grisly history of the ruin will most likely never come up in the novel itself, most likely there never will be more than my hero walking or driving past the ruin and shuddering. But it will still make the story so much richer.
sending...