Silencing Vancouver

I was in Vancouver, British Columbia, the first time an agent expressed an interest in one of my novels.  She raised an eyebrow at the title, nodded as I gave her my pitch, and then asked me for 50 pages to read, "and the first chapter with the American character in it."  I knew immediately that she wasn't going to like that book.  At least the setting-- small town anywhere-- wasn't as much of an issue.

I've had a good number of conversations with other writers about where their books are set.  Obviously many of the writers who come to the Surrey International Writers' Conference are Canadian, but even there the general consensus on setting seems to be: "make sure it's a place that could be any American city."

The idea about Vancouver, unlike New York or London or any number of international cities where fiction is set, is that Vancouver is supposed to be dull.  Or something.  Unacceptable, anyway.  Too Northern and too Canadian, maybe.  It's gorgeous but a bit forgettable, a void ready to be filled with whatever other city's personality the artist wants to summon.

I'm as guilty of this as anyone.  When I write about a city I usually call it "the city."  I wonder what I'm afraid of?  I know I don't want to scare agents or publishers from taking on my work because they're worried American or other international audiences won't recognize the place.  But are readers really that easily confused?   And is Vancouver really so unremarkable?

Television shows are often filmed there, because it's cheaper and easier to get in to locations, but also because it's beautiful and atmospheric and kind of amazing.  Hence the sci fi:  X-Files, Supernatural, Stargate, Fringe... even "Cylon occupied Caprica" on Battlestar Galactica took advantage of the gorgeousness of the Vancouver Public Library.  But even when they're set on Earth these shows rarely admit where they are within the story, because somehow that would put off viewers.

The most illuminating example, for me, is Highlander.  The show skipped back and forth between Paris and Vancouver.  In Paris there was a whole history and depth of setting to draw on, known events and characters from reality, a flavour to the city.  But when it was in Vancouver it was just "a city," nowhere particular, dubbed "Seacouver" by fans to show that although it was obviously Northwest America, it might have been Seattle rather than Vancouver (though it wasn't,) so don't be confused.  Washington license plates and US flags were dropped into the shot whenever possible.  But what about the Gold Rush, sawmills, First Nations, and feminism?  Chinatown, drugs, fire, rich men and their trains?  What about Gastown, Granville, Kitsilano, the Coast Salish, Simon Fraser, and False Creek?



I now live in London, England.  There's obviously tonnes of history and plenty of fiction that shows it.  For example Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry was based here, though the author doesn't live here, and that felt obvious to me: the descriptions were a tourist's description, an outsider's view.  I don't want to write like that.  I don't yet know London well enough to write as if I do.  My latest work in progress is based in Vancouver, the neighbourhood somewhere near Kits, stuck in beside English Bay.  "The bay" in "the city."  Do I want to erase its personality that way?  Or should I admit Vancouver into my story, its flavour and history and everything that it is, and tell interested agents, "This is where the story takes places.  The setting is not interchangeable.  And the reader will like the story better because it was based here.  They'll see the truth in it.  Trust them."

It's a gamble.