Re: Midlist book report
Regardsing Setting, is it better to use fictional city/town/street names and base it somehwere you know, or use the real place and maybe add a few extras for effect?
Either could work -- author's choice.
You have advantages and disadvantages either way.
With a fictional city, no one is going to object that there's no such place as Eddie's Pawn Shop on Fifth and Elm, and there's no Fifth Street anyway -- it was renamed Pascal Drive in 1983.
With a fictional city people are going to say "Funny, I never heard of Dunton, and why don't all these people make their lives easier by moving to Sacramento?
With a real city, your readers will have mental pictures of the place already, so there's less work to do in building your setting. You can spend more time on your story. You can also research the place, and find interesting details that can help make your story come alive. (And you can go visit the place, have a great time, and write it off on your taxes. (Note: Take the advice of a tax professional before you do this.))
Unfortunately, a real city may not have real places that you'll need, and may trip you up -- see Pascal Drive, above. The natives may give you a hard time. And you may have to make sure that somewhere you're using as a set isn't real. If you make the owner of Gino's Pizzaria a serial adulterer and have him come to a sticky end, you may want to make sure there isn't really a Gino's Pizzaria in that town. The owner might get perturbed.
Anyway -- authors have gone both ways. I'm sure in your reading you've found both. If you can make the setting seem real to your readers, you've got it licked. Faulkner used Yoknapatawpha County, and there never was such a place. Ed McBain uses New York City, and there certainly is.
You want advice? Put it in a real place that you know. Later on, if need be, you can use the mighty hand of Global Search and Replace to change all the names.