: 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

@Rambettina586

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To provide advantages of using existing countries:

You have to do fewer introductions and explanations.

People have an idea (however vague) of what kind of a political system is in place in a certain country, what the make-up of its population is, which conflicts lie at its heart, which defining past conflicts it may have had.

Same applies to the scenery or culture of the country. You do not have to make it believable. It already exists, as long as you stick to the facts (or clichés, if you must) of a country, people will take whatever they know already to supplement your sketchy picture of the country.

You can get into the action, the things that are unique to your story, much more quickly.

Also, you can leverage the personal relationships of your readers to certain countries. E.g. if you write a story for Germans, and the revolution happens directly below it in Switzerland, you immediately get impact on your readers. They may recall vacations they had there, they may even have friends or relatives there, they may be shocked to think that something like this may be going on right at their doorstep.

You also have a more rigid framework for your story. Certain things just don't happen easily in certain countries. So if you pick that country, you can intrigue your readers by showing them how a seemingly impossible thing can slowly, small change by small change, happen in a place they wouldn't expect it to happen in.

And things happening in one country have an effect on the surrounding ones. If the US suddenly went down the drain, the entire world economy would change abruptly, the military power balance would change. If Liechtenstein went under, it would probably cost a few people in Switzerland dearly because of their close economic and infrastructural ties, but beyond that, most of the world would probably hardly blink.

Also don't underestimate the knock-on-effects: Using real countries in a series of stories means that a revolution has consequences for the entire world. There won't be any more stories set in the Kingdom of France once the French Revolution happens.

On the other hand, if you make up your own country, not only do you have to "waste" a lot of time just establishing what this place is, and how it looks during its heyday, just to then tear it down, but you also have to convince the reader why they should care, you have to establish relationships with the surrounding countries etc. If you just make up a few countries as "redshirts" to be "killed off", readers might not miss those countries. They weren't there before, they're not there (or at least relevant) afterwards.

Also, it might be boring to read. If you make up a country with the objective of tearing it down via revolution, you'll probably give it a structure that facilitates that. Which means attentive readers will expect it to go down, and won't be surprised or intrigued. They might just go "yup, they had it coming".

Oh, and don't forget that you end up being "genre" if you make up your own country. It is common in Scifi and utopic/dystopic storytelling to make up new worlds or countries, but certain audiences see that as "lesser" storytelling. It all depends on what kind of a text you are going for, and what purpose you are writing it for.

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