Timeline for How can my story take place on Earth without referring to our existing cities and countries?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
27 events
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| Jun 26, 2019 at 18:22 | comment | added | Draco18s no longer trusts SE | An xkcd that might be relevant here somewhere. | |
| Jun 26, 2019 at 14:05 | comment | added | Rand al'Thor | Very relevant: my Literature SE answer about why place names in stories are obfuscated, with many links for further reading. It's a common practice in fiction. | |
| Jun 26, 2019 at 12:12 | history | edited | Tom B. | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 25, 2019 at 21:25 | comment | added | Kai | Consider the book Anathem by Neal Stephenson. It's on an Earth-like world, with similar but near-future types of technology and language, and similar societies, but entirely different cities, countries, governments, etc. | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 15:13 | comment | added | T. Sar | Think about Superman/Batman movies and the related media - They've been using Metropolis and Gotham City for such a long time that some people even think they are real places. | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 11:23 | answer | added | Thomas Blankenhorn | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 10:49 | answer | added | Graham | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 10:09 | comment | added | AJFaraday | Another time, another dimension, an undiscovered part of the world or just a made-up place name that sounds like a real place. | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 8:24 | answer | added | NofP | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 6:30 | comment | added | rexkogitans | This questions seems a bit odd to me. Do you know the TV series "Midsomer Murders"? Where, the heck, is Midsomer? Do you know the movie "The Saint" (1997), who is this Russian president (and what about cold fusion, anyway)? It is quite common across all genres. | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 6:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackWriting/status/1143398549654253576 | ||
| Jun 25, 2019 at 1:45 | answer | added | Muz | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 23:33 | comment | added | asgallant | How important is it that your world actually be Earth, just with different history? If it is important, you might want to look at examples from the alternate history genre where the author defines a time/event in which the story branches from real history (though alternate history is about exploring the consequences of that break, which might not be what you are going for). If your world is just Earth for convenience or familiarity of the reader, then maybe you don't need it to be Earth after all; calling your world something else might actually help the reader get over these differences. | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 22:42 | answer | added | taylor swift | timeline score: 7 | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 21:19 | comment | added | Afrog Nuñes | Two questions: a) how much your story is related to the politics and history of your world? b) is it a short story or a novel? For a short story without focus on politics you can skip naming places, setting your characters into a generic unnamed country (maybe with a generic city name as "Metropolis") and focusing only on technological and cultural aspects (which in a globalized world, as near-future will supposedly be, can be generic for most urbanized areas). | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 20:47 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Jun 24, 2019 at 19:18 | history | edited | Tom B. | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 24, 2019 at 19:11 | history | edited | Tom B. | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 24, 2019 at 19:04 | history | edited | Tom B. | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 24, 2019 at 17:40 | answer | added | Jay | timeline score: 8 | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 15:58 | history | edited | Cyn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 24, 2019 at 15:53 | answer | added | Cyn | timeline score: 8 | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 15:04 | answer | added | SFWriter | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 14:33 | comment | added | PoorYorick | I think it would not confuse me at all to read a sentence like "Keith Coleman, a Quimbletonian inventor, invented the light bulb in 1804." Quite the opposite, sentences like this early in the book will make it very obvious that things are going to be different. In my opinion, this is a good approach. | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 14:11 | answer | added | Chris Sunami | timeline score: 29 | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 12:45 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 24, 2019 at 13:30 | |||||
| Jun 24, 2019 at 12:44 | history | asked | Tom B. | CC BY-SA 4.0 |