One of the advantages of travel for an author is the ability to describe actual places. lending a sense of reality to a fictional story. Although I primarily write fiction. I want the reader to be able to place themselves into a real world. In some of my writings. the worlds I create are totally fictional and need more descriptive dialogue for the readers to immerse themselves in the story.
Other times my stories take place in our world. When this happens, the story needs to do one of two things. I can either create a fictional place. or describe an actual place with fictional events. I personally feel poor or fictional descriptions of actual places detracts from the story. The following is a paragraph from one of my books describing a place anyone would recognize if they were standing there.


Sarah was standing inside the market building and blended well with the colorful dresses and handbags hanging all about her. The market covered the entire block and was filled with small stands offering trinkets for the tourists and food of all descriptions. Buses were stopping along the curb to pick up passengers with bright packages swinging from their arms. Sarah was about to step from the crowd and join her husband when a well dressed man in his late fifties pulled her aside. He told her to be careful; the men she was about to approach were involved in a drug trade. Sarah allowed the stranger to pull her aside where they could observe without being noticed. She and her rescuer watched from one of the open sales booths while Jim traded briefcases with one of the two men he was talking to. The two men quickly disappeared into the crowded plaza while her husband stepped up to one of the popular open air cars used for taxis in Mazatlan and left.