My latest completed novel is a dark YA suspense called FIREBUG which takes
place in my hometown. I chose to use my town as the setting for a couple
reasons. First of all, there had been several cases of arsonists here over the
last several years. One summer about three years ago, we got a call in the
night because the haystacks on both sides of the farm were burning. It turns
out that an arsonist was walking across country and setting fire to any stacks he
ran into. Fortunately for us, he missed our stack, though many of our neighbors
lost their supply of feed for their cattle.
A bonus to setting the story in your hometown is that people
who live there often know things that an outsider might not. It’s easy to set
the scene at a high school where I walked the halls as a student.
It surprises me that I've had several beta readers say
that they would never write a story about their hometown—that the bad things
that happen to the characters feels too close and too real when the setting is
just down the road.
They also worry about offending people. If the story calls
for a dirty cop or an unethical mayor, then they worry that the real mayor or
police of the town will be bothered by a story written about them.
Here’s the part that intrigues me: Why does it make a
difference if the crooked cop is in your town or another town? Whatever town
the story is set in will have things made up about the people living there, be
it bad or good. Does distance from the made-up corruption make it easier to handle?
Sometimes our stories require the setting to be somewhere
far from where we live, but if your story COULD happen in a place like your
town, would you set the story there? Why or why not? Does writing about your
hometown bring things too close to home?
