Fictional location

A fictional location can be the size of a university (H. P. Lovecraft's Miskatonic University), a town (Stephen King's Salem's Lot), a county (William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County), a state (Winnemac in various Sinclair Lewis stories), a large section of continent (as in north-western Middle-earth, which supposedly represents Europe), a whole planet (Anne McCaffrey's Pern), a whole galaxy (Isaac Asimov's Foundation books), even a multiverse (His Dark Materials).

In a larger scale, occasionally the term alternate reality is used, but only if it is considered a variant of Earth rather than an original world.

Writers need working maps to keep straight at a glance whether the castle is north or south of the river, and how long it takes to get between valleys.

Authors are as forgetful and absent-minded as the lesser breeds of humankind, and a simple precaution like taking a moment to sketch out a map helps prevent such errors and inconsistencies (upon which eagle-eyed readers are bound to swoop with gleeful cries, thereafter sitting down to write nasty letters to the poor author).Sometimes an actual geographic corner is used as a model for "getting it right", and identifying these can become a game for readers.

Authors may turn an island into a continent or vice versa, rotate orientation, or combine two similar locales to get the best (for the story) of both.