Quick question for writers
Oct. 27th, 2006 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicollYou've decided to have a character come from Canada. Which city do they come from?
It may simply be a sampling error but I keep coming across books where the Canadian is from Montreal. I can sort of see why this might be. If you are sticking to a city that non-Canadians will have heard of, you're pretty much talking one of the big three: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Toronto is a fine setting if the character is a bit dull [1] but if you want a hint of exoticism [2], you want either Vancouver or Montreal. Montreal is more exotic than Vancouver.
1: The exception is Asian Canadian movies, which are of the form "young Canadian of Asian extraction tries to balance what they want from life with what their family wants them to want from life." These can be good and are almost always set in Toronto, even though BC has a substantial Asian population.
The Asian Canadian movies I've seen set in BC involve public corruption of one sort or another.
2: "Canadian but exotic" may be one of those ideas like "Swiss but sensual".
It may simply be a sampling error but I keep coming across books where the Canadian is from Montreal. I can sort of see why this might be. If you are sticking to a city that non-Canadians will have heard of, you're pretty much talking one of the big three: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Toronto is a fine setting if the character is a bit dull [1] but if you want a hint of exoticism [2], you want either Vancouver or Montreal. Montreal is more exotic than Vancouver.
1: The exception is Asian Canadian movies, which are of the form "young Canadian of Asian extraction tries to balance what they want from life with what their family wants them to want from life." These can be good and are almost always set in Toronto, even though BC has a substantial Asian population.
The Asian Canadian movies I've seen set in BC involve public corruption of one sort or another.
2: "Canadian but exotic" may be one of those ideas like "Swiss but sensual".
