Research is the key to bringing foreign locales to vivid life, and you don't necessarily have to travel there yourself to get decent reference.
In my first post to what will be at least a three part series (need to screencap Ladyhawke...) I talked about the importance of location & the convenience of "eating local" in regards to reference material; based on the notion that everywhere, including your hometown, is exotic to someone. Here, I'll illustrate how the reverse holds true, and how it can also help you write effectively.
Back in college I was hanging out with a manager from my job, it was the sort of informal working environement where a couple of guys could make friends with their management and enjoy a movie together. Well, we'd opted for the anime Spriggan! and as the globe trotting mercenary hero got to this one scene, my boss's wife damned near jumped out of her seat.
No, not like I did, popping in the air and landing on the floor with a thump when she was playing Fatal Frame on the big screen. But she reacted to with shock to her recognition at the locale.
"I've been across that bridge"
An intense chase scene through Istanbul was also a trip down memory lane for my manager's Turkish wife.
The hero was pursued through a popular marketplace on foot where she'd shopped.
The Japanese animators had taken their time, done the job of researching the locations in their animated adventure to give the set pieces a more visceral feel. And it works. That attention to detail is the reason why so many of us prefer Japanese animation. Even as cartoons, the action so often feels like it's happening in a real way, because it's in a real place.
About the only innacuracy "Vu" could point out to us was, in Turkey, the Hijab wasn't compulsory, so almost noone ever wore one.
Similar treatment was renderd to Chicago for Kenichi Sonada's Gunsmith Cats. The production company sent a location team in order to create a Chicago that any midwesterner would recognize. The I-94's familiar logo flashes by as Rally Vincent's classic Shelby Cobra cruises onto the highway.
The shotguns behave like real shotguns. The Snozzberries tastelike snozzberries. And the location team found an actual gunstore run by a woman gunsmith to reference for the details of Rally's place of business!
And you don't necessarily have to travel the world yourself in the information age. One of my (unpublished) short stories takes place at the Haad Rin Beach Full Moon Party. A monthly technicolor riot on the beach of Kof Phangan that I'd initially heard about in a Stacey Dooley documentary on tourism in Thailand. A bit of cursory research allowed me to craft a generic description of the sounds, sights and smells of the event that (I hope) facilitated that immersion in the story.
My short story Dance to the Real Thailand crafted an adventure amid a drunken cacaphony of sound and flame.
You know damned well I incorporated things like flaming limbo sticks and jump ropes.
And this is research, these details both great and small, are now available with a cursory internet search or three. Incorporate as many details great and small as your story allows to spark the imagination of the reader, allowing them to enter the world you've created, with all it's romantic lures and thrilling perils.
Speaking of Small Details, anyone recognize that license plate from a famous Chicago-set, chase-themed movie?
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