: Re: What are the advantages and disadvantages of setting a story in a made up country, compared to a real one? I have story ideas that involve civil wars or revolutions happening while a character

@Smith147

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Create a fictional country if there are no existing ones that meet your needs. Or if you need to change things enough that it would be confusing or off putting to place your characters there.

If your story is set, for example, with the Spanish Civil War as the backdrop, then you would need to allow the timeline to unfold as it actually did. Unless you're doing an alternate Earth, but that's an entirely different issue. So you shouldn't change the major players in Spain and elsewhere, or change the dates, but you could still place fictional characters there.

If you'd like to show a major event (like a civil war or revolution) and the country that works for your story didn't have such an event, then don't use that country (unless you're placing the story in the future). Don't write a revolution in modern-day Japan.

Whether you accept the constraints of a real setting, or decide to completely make your country up, is your choice as an author.

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