Good writing in genre fiction

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

I picked up "Pink Smog: Becoming Weetzie Bat" at the library today after reading a review in the NYT Book Review (link below). The review is mixed, but I'm struck by how good the first chapter is. Yes, it's a genre novel, i.e., one that conforms to a defined structure and---I think---a pretty predictable outcome. The principal character and narrator is a 13-year-old girl who is "becoming," the theme of the novel, i.e., finding out who she is. Pretty predictable and pretty standard, huh? So the question is, how well does the author pull it off?

My definition of "good" is pretty straightforward: Do I understand something important about the main character? Can I see the world through her eyes? Is it plausible? (Forget, for the moment, the so-called "magical elements" that the reviewer tells us are integral to the author's writing, and the reviewer's claim that suspension of disbelief fails not far into the story.) So far, the answer is yes. I was taken at the beginning by the cover blurb, which is an excerpt from the opening paragraphs: "The pavement rumbled, rough under my feet and up through to my heart, as I skated to school past the palm trees ..."

Anyone who has ever skated on a sidewalk knows exactly what she feels. (Leave aside the apparent oddity of a middle-school kid who skates to school in the mid-1970s. Maybe they did that in L.A.)

Oh, and the topic of our writing being what it is, I should add that she also obsesses about her flat chest and the well-developed mean girl who persecutes her.

bb




http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/books/review/francesca-lia-blocks-pink-smog-a-weetzie-bat-prequel.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=weetzie%20bat&st=cse

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

 

2010 National Novel Writing Month winner (along with 37,000 others!)

2011 National Novel Writing Month---not so much

 

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach

[Veronica Dire]

It seems that YA is less of a "genre" these day as much as an excuse to write good books with actual stories, since *serious* grown up books are all post modern and about the fragmentation of perception or some shit like that.

Anyway, it sounds up my alley. I'll give it a look.

--
Stories:  http://www.asstr.org/~Veronica_Dire/
Blog: http://veronicadire.blogspot.com/

[Mazeppa]

"The pavement rumbled, rough under my feet and
up through to my heart, as I skated to school past the palm
trees ..."

It seems to me that is one of the main things that distinguishes
published authors.. ability to get into a scene quickly and
efficeintly, as seen and felt through the character instead of boring
narrative. Amazing, there's so much in that sentence. Tactile
sensation, motion, emotion, visulalization of place, and also plot as
to where she is headed!

"Oh, and the topic of our writing being what it is, I should add that

she also obsesses about her flat chest..." - yeah, and that too. No
doubting the psychological realism of that! Love it.

Of course it's possible to be a succesful writer without having any of
that kind of talent, just ask Dan Brown.



On Feb 22, 4:49 am, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I picked up "Pink Smog: Becoming Weetzie Bat" at the library today after
> reading a review in the NYT Book Review (link below). The review is
> mixed, but I'm struck by how good the first chapter is. Yes, it's a
> genre novel, i.e., one that conforms to a defined structure and---I
> think---a pretty predictable outcome. The principal character and
> narrator is a 13-year-old girl who is "becoming," the theme of the
> novel, i.e., finding out who she is. Pretty predictable and pretty
> standard, huh? So the question is, how well does the author pull it off?
>
> My definition of "good" is pretty straightforward: Do I understand
> something important about the main character? Can I see the world
> through her eyes? Is it plausible? (Forget, for the moment, the
> so-called "magical elements" that the reviewer tells us are integral to
> the author's writing, and the reviewer's claim that suspension of
> disbelief fails not far into the story.) So far, the answer is yes. I
> was taken at the beginning by the cover blurb, which is an excerpt from
> the opening paragraphs: "The pavement rumbled, rough under my feet and
> up through to my heart, as I skated to school past the palm trees ..."
>
> Anyone who has ever skated on a sidewalk knows exactly what she feels.
> (Leave aside the apparent oddity of a middle-school kid who skates to
> school in the mid-1970s. Maybe they did that in L.A.)
>
> Oh, and the topic of our writing being what it is, I should add that she
> also obsesses about her flat chest and the well-developed mean girl who
> persecutes her.
>
> bb
>

> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/books/review/francesca-lia-blocks-p...

>
> --
>
> My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com

> <http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach> and Amazon.com
> <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&...>.

> Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net

> <http://storiesonline.net/auth/Bondi_Beach>.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 2/22/12 3:35 AM, Mazeppa wrote:

 "The pavement rumbled, rough under my feet and
up through to my heart, as I skated to school past the palm
trees ..."

It seems to me that is one of the main things that distinguishes
published authors.. ability to get into a scene quickly and
efficeintly, as seen and felt through the character instead of boring
narrative. Amazing, there's so much in that sentence. Tactile
sensation, motion, emotion, visulalization of place, and also plot as
to where she is headed!

Exactly.

bb

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 2/21/12 9:19 PM, Veronica Dire wrote:

It seems that YA is less of a "genre" these day as much as an excuse to write good books with actual stories, since *serious* grown up books are all post modern and about the fragmentation of perception or some shit like that.

Anyway, it sounds up my alley. I'll give it a look.

I see from her list of published novels that she's also done a werewolf story and a vampire story. We'll see.

bb

[Veronica Dire]

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 11:35 AM, Joe "Bondi" Beach <joe.bon...@gmail.com> wrote:

I see from her list of published novels that she's also done a werewolf story and a vampire story. We'll see.

Heh. There is no requirement that I read *everything* from a writer.

I have a current "no vampire" policy. It has saved me from much mischief, I suspect.

 

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 2/22/12 8:40 AM, Veronica Dire wrote:

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 11:35 AM, Joe "Bondi" Beach <joe.bon...@gmail.com> wrote:

I see from her list of published novels that she's also done a werewolf story and a vampire story. We'll see.

Heh. There is no requirement that I read *everything* from a writer.

I have a current "no vampire" policy. It has saved me from much mischief, I suspect.

I'm wondering if she's writing for the parents of young teens as well as the teens themselves. There is no mention of what year this is, but it's clearly mid-70s from the clothes and movie and music references. I assume the places she goes to are all authentic for the time. Except, what would any of this mean to the young reader today? Ask the nearest 13-year-old what year "Season in the Sun" was popular, or when "Benji" came out. Pretty sure you'd get a blank stare. So, what's the point of the references if they don't mean anything to the target audience? Yes, they create time and place and mood, but not for young readers.

[Veronica Dire]

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Joe "Bondi" Beach <joe.bon...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm wondering if she's writing for the parents of young teens as well as the teens themselves. There is no mention of what year this is, but it's clearly mid-70s from the clothes and movie and music references. I assume the places she goes to are all authentic for the time. Except, what would any of this mean to the young reader today? Ask the nearest 13-year-old what year "Season in the Sun" was popular, or when "Benji" came out. Pretty sure you'd get a blank stare. So, what's the point of the references if they don't mean anything to the target audience? Yes, they create time and place and mood, but not for young readers.

Right. Clearly some "YA" is indeed YA at every level. But modern YA is just as much "thoughtful stories with plots."

Lots and lots and lots of middle aged ladies are reading Hunger Games now. For women, YA is about the only place to get cool female characters who aren't pining about their divorce or careers -- which are important topics, needless to say, but perhaps tiresome. Some of the best girl-queer lit is being written as "YA." (I'm ignoring for the moment rubbish like Twilight.)

Some thoughts on the subject by the best blogger on the Internet:

 http://veronicadire.blogspot.com/2011/12/on-superiority-of-ya.html


Speaking of YA for adults, did you ever finish my soccer girl thing? I decided not to post the rest on SOL, so it's only on my ASSTR page.

[Zine]

bb,

I wonder at the power of a pink-filtered cover wrapped around a slim
prequel that draws full-grown men as well as the intended audience of
old fans and a new generation of coming-of-mind teens. Another dark,
angel novel -- *Dangerous Angels* in this case (1998) -- yet again set
in Sin City we would say now, though this is actually the prequel to
*Weetzie Bat* first published in 1989 (the year of my birth),
purportedly written to answer the fans' question, what made Weezie,
Weezie.

It's a simpler question than how did Weezie learn make those spoonfuls
of magical reality that wrapped her in a pink, cotton candy cloud of
lyrical, luminous prose -- instead of drugs -- to protect her mind
from the harsh realities of life and the dangerous angel of love until
it was strong enough to face and conquer her fears, and in the next
book(s) enable rich descriptions and complicated characterizations.

I was fourteen when I first met Weezie. I distinctly remember the
book made me hungry and for weeks after I finished it I couldn't get
this music video out of my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YxaaGgTQYM&ob=av2e

Zine


On Feb 21, 11:49 pm, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I picked up "Pink Smog: Becoming Weetzie Bat" at the library today after
> reading a review in the NYT Book Review (link below). The review is
> mixed, but I'm struck by how good the first chapter is. Yes, it's a
> genre novel, i.e., one that conforms to a defined structure and---I
> think---a pretty predictable outcome. The principal character and
> narrator is a 13-year-old girl who is "becoming," the theme of the
> novel, i.e., finding out who she is. Pretty predictable and pretty
> standard, huh? So the question is, how well does the author pull it off?
>
> My definition of "good" is pretty straightforward: Do I understand
> something important about the main character? Can I see the world
> through her eyes? Is it plausible? (Forget, for the moment, the
> so-called "magical elements" that the reviewer tells us are integral to
> the author's writing, and the reviewer's claim that suspension of
> disbelief fails not far into the story.) So far, the answer is yes. I
> was taken at the beginning by the cover blurb, which is an excerpt from
> the opening paragraphs: "The pavement rumbled, rough under my feet and
> up through to my heart, as I skated to school past the palm trees ..."
>
> Anyone who has ever skated on a sidewalk knows exactly what she feels.
> (Leave aside the apparent oddity of a middle-school kid who skates to
> school in the mid-1970s. Maybe they did that in L.A.)
>
> Oh, and the topic of our writing being what it is, I should add that she
> also obsesses about her flat chest and the well-developed mean girl who
> persecutes her.
>
> bb
>

> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/books/review/francesca-lia-blocks-p...

>
> --
>
> My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com

> <http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach> and Amazon.com
> <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&...>.

> Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net

> <http://storiesonline.net/auth/Bondi_Beach>.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 2/22/12 9:34 AM, Veronica Dire wrote:

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Joe "Bondi" Beach <joe.bon...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm wondering if she's writing for the parents of young teens as well as the teens themselves. There is no mention of what year this is, but it's clearly mid-70s from the clothes and movie and music references. I assume the places she goes to are all authentic for the time. Except, what would any of this mean to the young reader today? Ask the nearest 13-year-old what year "Season in the Sun" was popular, or when "Benji" came out. Pretty sure you'd get a blank stare. So, what's the point of the references if they don't mean anything to the target audience? Yes, they create time and place and mood, but not for young readers.

Right. Clearly some "YA" is indeed YA at every level. But modern YA is just as much "thoughtful stories with plots."

When I floated the cultural references idea my wife quickly set me straight: teen girls care *a lot* about clothes, music and movies (among other things), so the references themselves don't matter, only that they refer to clothes, music and movies. Not quite sure I buy that entirely---why set it in the 70s at all. Except that it's a prequel to subsequent "Weetzie Bat" stories, so maybe that's why it matters.

Lots and lots and lots of middle aged ladies are reading Hunger Games now. For women, YA is about the only place to get cool female characters who aren't pining about their divorce or careers -- which are important topics, needless to say, but perhaps tiresome. Some of the best girl-queer lit is being written as "YA." (I'm ignoring for the moment rubbish like Twilight.)

Some thoughts on the subject by the best blogger on the Internet:

 http://veronicadire.blogspot.com/2011/12/on-superiority-of-ya.html


Speaking of YA for adults, did you ever finish my soccer girl thing? I decided not to post the rest on SOL, so it's only on my ASSTR page.

Right. Still working on it. Slowly.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 2/22/12 10:15 AM, Zine wrote:

bb,

I wonder at the power of a pink-filtered cover wrapped around a slim
prequel that draws full-grown men as well as the intended audience of
old fans and a new generation of coming-of-mind teens.  Another dark,
angel novel -- *Dangerous Angels* in this case (1998) -- yet again set
in Sin City we would say now,

Well, most of us would say "Sin City" is Las Vegas, not LA.

 though this is actually the prequel to
*Weetzie Bat* first published in 1989 (the year of my birth),
purportedly written to answer the fans' question, what made Weezie,
Weezie.

It's a simpler question than how did Weezie learn make those spoonfuls
of magical reality that wrapped her in a pink, cotton candy cloud of
lyrical, luminous prose -- instead of drugs -- to protect her mind
from the harsh realities of life and the dangerous angel of love until
it was strong enough to face and conquer her fears, and in the next
book(s) enable rich descriptions and complicated characterizations.

I'm not a fan of YA fiction (at least since I was a YA myself), especially that directed to teen girls, but I may just have to look at subsequent "Weetzie" books. Maybe even the vampire one (sorry, V.)

I was fourteen when I first met Weezie.  I distinctly remember the
book made me hungry and for weeks after I finished it I couldn't get
this music video out of my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YxaaGgTQYM&ob=av2e

Hmm. Maybe you had to have been there. (It is the Evanescence video, right?) I made it through 57 seconds and I'm afraid I don't see the connection. I get the "hungry" part---literally---though, for a kid with all she has going on, she does an awful lot of cooking.

bb

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 2/22/12 9:34 AM, Veronica Dire wrote:

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Joe "Bondi" Beach <joe.bon...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm wondering if she's writing for the parents of young teens as well as the teens themselves. There is no mention of what year this is, but it's clearly mid-70s from the clothes and movie and music references. I assume the places she goes to are all authentic for the time. Except, what would any of this mean to the young reader today? Ask the nearest 13-year-old what year "Season in the Sun" was popular, or when "Benji" came out. Pretty sure you'd get a blank stare. So, what's the point of the references if they don't mean anything to the target audience? Yes, they create time and place and mood, but not for young readers.

Right. Clearly some "YA" is indeed YA at every level. But modern YA is just as much "thoughtful stories with plots."

Lots and lots and lots of middle aged ladies are reading Hunger Games now. For women, YA is about the only place to get cool female characters who aren't pining about their divorce or careers -- which are important topics, needless to say, but perhaps tiresome. Some of the best girl-queer lit is being written as "YA." (I'm ignoring for the moment rubbish like Twilight.)

Just ran across this in Frank Bruni's NYT column today.

" In fact one of the happiest and most hopeful developments in publishing over the last decade is the expansion of the sub-market known as “young adult,” or YA, to which “The Fault in Our Stars” belongs. Bookstores are assigning YA titles more space. Serious novelists who would once have blanched at the thought of writing YA novels are giving them a try. And publishing houses are pumping out more and more of them, creating special YA imprints and lines where they didn’t exist."

http://bruni.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/kids-books-and-a-five-hankie-gem/?ref=opinion

Some thoughts on the subject by the best blogger on the Internet:

 http://veronicadire.blogspot.com/2011/12/on-superiority-of-ya.html

Ahem. (Urp.)

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 2/22/12 10:15 AM, Zine wrote:

It's a simpler question than how did Weezie learn make those spoonfuls
of magical reality that wrapped her in a pink, cotton candy cloud of
lyrical, luminous prose -- instead of drugs -- to protect her mind
from the harsh realities of life and the dangerous angel of love until
it was strong enough to face and conquer her fears, and in the next
book(s) enable rich descriptions and complicated characterizations.

Just finished "Pink Smog."

That indeed is the question. Not impossible, even in real life. I recall a feature piece at least 10 years ago in either the Washington Post or NYT, a reminiscence by one or the other of siblings in LA growing up in a totally dysfunctional household and how they celebrated their own version of Christmas (they were Jewish) and somehow made something of their lives despite the emotional and sometimes physical absence of their parents and lack of money. Some kids make do, the lucky (and strong) ones, anyway. (The presumed lack of money---Dad is absent; Mom is a lush who apparently never leaves her sofa---is never quite explained in "Smog," I notice.)

bb

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

[Veronica Dire]

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:38 PM, Joe "Bondi" Beach <joe.bon...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Just ran across this in Frank Bruni's NYT column today.

" In fact one of the happiest and most hopeful developments in publishing over the last decade is the expansion of the sub-market known as “young adult,” or YA, to which “The Fault in Our Stars” belongs. Bookstores are assigning YA titles more space. Serious novelists who would once have blanched at the thought of writing YA novels are giving them a try. And publishing houses are pumping out more and more of them, creating special YA imprints and lines where they didn’t exist."

http://bruni.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/kids-books-and-a-five-hankie-gem/?ref=opinion

Right. Obviously I'm quite pleased with this development. My own theory is this: YA frees authors to be unpretentious and write good stories that please readers. There is no need to be "literary" or impress anyone -- although the better YA is entirely literary to my view.

 

Some thoughts on the subject by the best blogger on the Internet:

 http://veronicadire.blogspot.com/2011/12/on-superiority-of-ya.html

Ahem. (Urp.)

Heck yeah! Not only is she a great blogger, she is also a terrific dancer and can see well into the ultraviolet spectrum.


 

[Zine]

bb,

Oops, didn't mean to capitalize it.

The first book is better.

It was an anachronistic dreamland to me. "Wake me up! Wake me up
inside, call my name and save me from the dark."

Still, the book was relevant and resonated at the time. "How can you
[the author] see into my eyes like open doors? Leading you down into
my core where I’ve become so numb [to all the bad in the world].
Without a soul my spirit's sleeping somewhere cold until you find it
there and lead it back home." The rest of the lyrics were relevant at
the time outside of the book.

Zine

On Feb 22, 2:35 pm, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> <http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach> and Amazon.com
> <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&...>.

> Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net

> <http://storiesonline.net/auth/Bondi_Beach>.

[Tim Merrigan]

On 2012-02-21 21:19, Veronica Dire wrote:

It seems that YA is less of a "genre" these day as much as an excuse to write good books with actual stories, since *serious* grown up books are all post modern and about the fragmentation of perception or some shit like that.

Anyway, it sounds up my alley. I'll give it a look.

Off hand, from BB's description, I say that's a "coming of age" story, rather than YA.

BB:  Whether or not it's commonplace, some (1 in 1000, 1 in 10,000) would skate to school.  If the option is available, someone will do it, particularly out of a population of tens of millions.  And both roller skating and skateboarding were available options in the 1970s.

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 11:49 PM, Joe "Bondi" Beach <joe.bon...@gmail.com> wrote:

I picked up "Pink Smog: Becoming Weetzie Bat" at the library today after reading a review in the NYT Book Review (link below). The review is mixed, but I'm struck by how good the first chapter is. Yes, it's a genre novel, i.e., one that conforms to a defined structure and---I think---a pretty predictable outcome. The principal character and narrator is a 13-year-old girl who is "becoming," the theme of the novel, i.e., finding out who she is. Pretty predictable and pretty standard, huh? So the question is, how well does the author pull it off?

My definition of "good" is pretty straightforward: Do I understand something important about the main character? Can I see the world through her eyes? Is it plausible? (Forget, for the moment, the so-called "magical elements" that the reviewer tells us are integral to the author's writing, and the reviewer's claim that suspension of disbelief fails not far into the story.) So far, the answer is yes. I was taken at the beginning by the cover blurb, which is an excerpt from the opening paragraphs: "The pavement rumbled, rough under my feet and up through to my heart, as I skated to school past the palm trees ..."

Anyone who has ever skated on a sidewalk knows exactly what she feels. (Leave aside the apparent oddity of a middle-school kid who skates to school in the mid-1970s. Maybe they did that in L.A.)

Oh, and the topic of our writing being what it is, I should add that she also obsesses about her flat chest and the well-developed mean girl who persecutes her.

bb




http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/books/review/francesca-lia-blocks-pink-smog-a-weetzie-bat-prequel.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=weetzie%20bat&st=cse

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

 

2010 National Novel Writing Month winner (along with 37,000 others!)

2011 National Novel Writing Month---not so much

 

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach

--
Stories:  http://www.asstr.org/~Veronica_Dire/
Blog: http://veronicadire.blogspot.com/

-- 

I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America,
and to the republic which it established, one nation, from many peoples,
promising liberty and justice for all.
      Feel free to use the above variant pledge in your own postings.

Tim Merrigan 

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 2/22/12 3:22 PM, Tim Merrigan wrote:

On 2012-02-21 21:19, Veronica Dire wrote:

It seems that YA is less of a "genre" these day as much as an excuse to write good books with actual stories, since *serious* grown up books are all post modern and about the fragmentation of perception or some shit like that.

Anyway, it sounds up my alley. I'll give it a look.

Off hand, from BB's description, I say that's a "coming of age" story, rather than YA.

In this case, it's both, although certainly there exists one without the other.

bb

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 2/22/12 3:24 PM, Zine wrote:

bb,

Oops, didn't mean to capitalize it.

The first book is better.

It was an anachronistic dreamland to me. "Wake me up!  Wake me up
inside, call my name and save me from the dark."

Still, the book was relevant and resonated at the time.  "How can you
[the author] see into my eyes like open doors? Leading you down into
my core where I�ve become so numb [to all the bad in the world].
Without a soul my spirit's sleeping somewhere cold until you find it
there and lead it back home."  The rest of the lyrics were relevant at
the time outside of the book.

Got it.

bb

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

�

2010 National Novel Writing Month winner (along with 37,000 others!)

2011 National Novel Writing Month---not so much

�

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach

[Invid Fan]

On Feb 22, 12:25 pm, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'm wondering if she's writing for the parents of young teens as well as
> the teens themselves. There is no mention of what year this is, but it's
> clearly mid-70s from the clothes and movie and music references. I
> assume the places she goes to are all authentic for the time. Except,
> what would any of this mean to the young reader today? Ask the nearest
> 13-year-old what year "Season in the Sun" was popular, or when "Benji"
> came out. Pretty sure you'd get a blank stare. So, what's the point of
> the references if they don't mean anything to the target audience? Yes,
> they create time and place and mood, but not for young readers.
>

They create the same mood and sense of place that a good Fantasy of SF
writer will for the young readers. What matters isn't that the setting
is "real", but that it's consistent and completes a mental picture. A
past setting like that also gives teens lots of "Oh!" moments, long
after they read the book, as references they would otherwise just
ignore or miss in their everyday life suddenly click in their mind.