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No alleys
One random tidbit of information that lodged in my head from something I read somewhere is that New York City doesn't have alleys. Or, more accurately, it has, like, three or four, none of them in the main part of town, and the handful of alleys that it does have are usually full of film crews filming movie scenes, because everyone puts alleys in film scripts set in cities.
But it is a surprisingly difficult limitation to write around! I have to keep reminding myself to do a find for the word "alley" in my rough drafts, because when you're writing about drug deals and chase scenes and that sort of thing, it'll slip in without even thinking about it.
It makes me think about how easy it is to rely on narrative shorthand and just reach for a mental image of a garbage-strewn alley, drawn from hundreds of movies and TV shows, rather than actually thinking about what's actually around the characters, and how to use the advantages and disadvantages of the scenery in their vicinity.
ETA: I'm totally bookmarking the discussion in the comments for future writing reference. :D
But it is a surprisingly difficult limitation to write around! I have to keep reminding myself to do a find for the word "alley" in my rough drafts, because when you're writing about drug deals and chase scenes and that sort of thing, it'll slip in without even thinking about it.
It makes me think about how easy it is to rely on narrative shorthand and just reach for a mental image of a garbage-strewn alley, drawn from hundreds of movies and TV shows, rather than actually thinking about what's actually around the characters, and how to use the advantages and disadvantages of the scenery in their vicinity.
ETA: I'm totally bookmarking the discussion in the comments for future writing reference. :D
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Er, no? We get maybe two or three thunderstorms a year, and thunder and lightning is actually very, very rare, and pretty much only in spring. But in almost every single story that was written where rain is a part of the landscape, thunder and lightning was part of it.
Which is sad, really, because the kind of rain we get here (and other similar climes, do as well), could add a very interesting element to any story. But people don't do their research, and just assume that what they know is what everyone else has. Bah.
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We get everything from steady, drenching rains to showers. But in the winter, it's mostly a solid downpour--straight down, for hours on end. Wind, now, we do get. That can be very dangerous, especially when teh ground is saturated and the trees are blown over because their roots won't hold any more. But it's not a given that we get wind, at all.
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I love a strong sense of place in fiction -- it's one of my favorite things, actually, a writer being able to evoke a powerful sense of location and take advantage of the location's natural assets and disadvantages for the characters. But it's hard to do! I'm sure I get a lot of it wrong, even when I'm writing about places I've visited, because I don't know them like a local would.
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Strong sense of place is awesome, until it takes over the story. Then, not so much. But when it's done well, it's a lovely thing.
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http://forgotten-ny.com/category/alleys/
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My part of Queens (Astoria and surrounding neighborhoods) is virtually alley-free and is mostly two to three-story buildings. What "alleys" do exist are those communal driveway things that go along the backyards of rows of cheap suburban houses, but there aren't many of them either. There may be lots of alleys in Brooklyn somewhere, but not in most of the places I've hung out.
In my area, I assume drug dealers hang out under the overpasses. There are a lot of them as you approach various bridges back to Manhattan, and they create creepy, isolated, dark places in our equally creepy, isolated, and dark park that runs along the water. That's also where you find illegal racing and people having sex in their cars. That's also where you'd dump someone (assuming you weren't chucking a dead person into the water, of course, which lots of NYC parks would also be good for). Many of the parks that run along water have a nice, open sidewalk and railing above a steep area with cliffs/gravel/bushes/visual obstructions. I'd have morning joggers pause and notice something on the embankment if you want a replacement for the standard Unconscious Hero Discovered in an Alley scene.
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This post has sparked such a useful conversation for New-York-writing ideas. :D I feel like I need to collect all these in a meta/resource post ... in fact, perhaps I should.
I love fandom. It's so awesome. \o/ You just can't ask questions to most people like "if you were dumping an unconscious person you'd just beaten up and didn't have any alleys around, where would you do it?" In fandom, EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS.
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So am I a total nerd because...