A reader asks: How many different locations can a story handle?

Alle takes a stab in answering to her weakest skill: structure.

“I'm editing my first draft. I'm worried that there are too many locations. My characters in total go to 10-ish different. Does that turn off a reader?”

Counting the locations in As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back: Seattle, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Bali, a ferry between Bali and Java, Thailand, Japan; and we pass briefly through Malaysia, but it is a reference rather than fleshed-out scenes, so I’m not gonna count it as a full location.

So: seven-ish. Additionally, many, many readers will have no familiarity with most of the locations—especially not from the backpacker’s perspective.

That said, not one reader in over 80 reviews (scroll down) has commented that they were confused.

So: no, ten-ish is not too much if you somehow clarify each location in the first clause of the new location. Perhaps by:

• Use the character’s name to start the graph with the new location;

• establishing a clear environment and

  • returning to it again and again (The phone in Bat Cave?); or

  • a different object in the same location (Sorry, I don’t know; I don’t watch Batman movies).

Keep things really clear for the reader and I doubt you'll have a problem