You've pointed out something that affects my desire/ability to write fics about these two. My NYC knowledge is limited (though it's better now that it had been three years ago, when I hadn't visited NYC in decades) and my Eastern Europe knowledge is pretty much nil, so, no Budapest stories from me. I've relied on "fantasy setting that needs no background since you all know what a horse and a castle looks like" stories for so damn long, sometimes I feel kinda helpless to craft any plotty stories for these characters.

I have this as well. I've never been to America (a brief stint in Miami Airport really doesn't count) and I cannot think of a reasonable way for either of them to end up in the UK, as I personally feel that the UK would have their own SHIELD-esque agency that wouldn't require them to ship in agents from America. So really, I write about completely ambiguous places and occasionally just go "fuck it" and write about somewhere I'd like to go, but know nothing about. :P Like Buenos Aires.

While I can't supply detail like someone who's been to New York, or other cities, I don't refrain from writing about it... I mean I wrote a ton of pregnancy stories but I've haven't been pregnant yet. So, I guess, don't let it stop you? :D While familiarity with the setting gives a new layer to the fic, it's not the most important thing for a good story. :) Plot and characterization are what counts the most for me.

I'm with Nuna and Franzi. While it's nice to use local knowledge for layering and texture it isn't necessary - the characters are what counts. I've been to NYC rather more than I care to remember but that didn't stop me from making bits up, either! You can get what you need from the movies or watching Law and Order...

Yeah I get that. But this is "Caroline the geography student" talking, and not "Caroline the writer" (Caroline the writer is not actually a real person to me. :P). Geographical accuracy is pretty damn important to me. As is generally knowing things. I don't like to pretend to know things I don't. So I'll do ambiguous New York/where ever, but I'm never going to mention real places there because I don't know them. If I could manufacture reasons for them to be in London, or Bergen or Paris or Prague or Dublin or Spieghtstown, then I could do them. I know places there and how big they are and where you can go from there and how. But I can't do that with New York. Or Budapest or where ever. My use of Buenos Aires was problematic enough, because I had to use Google Maps and all that to work out if what I wanted would work. I have to be able to visualise it, and I can't do that if I don't know the place.

So yes, I agree that a good story is more important, or good characterisation. But if I'm going to write a lot about a place, I damn well want to do it properly. :P

Heehee, I can understand that geographical twitch! Ways around it that I can think of are AUs or getting in your head that you're talking about a comics/movie world where reality is suspended, but then if you're writing about something set in a specific place where you want that place to feature, to be detailed as if it were a character almost...yeah, tricky. Especially, for me, when I want it to have a sense of place as well and not just the details. Those times when you can write or read a fic or book where you can feel what it's like to be in a particular place, the atmosphere, I love that.

Yes! I know you would understand! Geographical inaccuracy makes my eye twitch. :P And AUs are a very good way of getting round this. But then I'd go off and make my own map and everything would go downhill from there. :P

If I have the focus on character development or interaction I don't really twitch, but when the place is almost a character itself or a character's background is involved, which invariably brings belonging to a place into the fray...yep, twitch!

...map. Oh for the love of all things, I still have your wizarding US email half replied to in my drafts, don't I? *head desk* I am so much better at comment convos that email convos. Probably the instantaneousness. Bah. Will dash that off now.

Which I why I avoid doing it. :P

Hahaha don't worry. That whole idea sort of ground to a halt, though I am SUPER PROUD of that map. :D I want to fix it up and then make everyone use it. :P (and then one day I will finish that story. Which, funnily enough, will probably end up being about Clint and identity. If I can get it right.)

I've tried it. Research was needed! And it flows far, far easier with British characters or places *grins* or at least places that I've spent some time in.

Well pants, because I just dug that reply out, finished it, and sent it to you :P Stories that are maybe-one-days are fine, I have lots of those lol, but it was a great idea, you should keep it :D

Haha thanks. :) And I am rather attatched to the idea so I'd like to finish it at some point. Just right now I stare at it for ages and then close it. :P

Research, google, imagination? We can't all travel the world, but research and imagination are main tools for writing... and I think 100% accurate descriptions of a location isn't the most important thing anyway. You also get to learn ton of interesting things about new places if you research. Just don't let it stop you :)

For Franzi: oh, please finish that Buenos Aires piece!

As for Nuna, I totally agree with you. I looked up a map of Abidjan for "In the Service" Chapter 3, so I could figure out how long it would take *them* to get from the fictional Presidential Compound (for which I used some government buildings) on foot or by car. For the visuals of the city, I basically used Kampala/Uganda where I've actually been. And then I looked at photos. But imagine my surprise when I found all that water that the g***n city is built on ... and then there were some pretty tall office buildings. Hello rewrites ...

Bottomline -- you can make up a fair bit of stuff, provided you know how to use Google and have a bit of an idea of the atmosphere you want to capture with your mission. :-)