It's wild how tiny little details can send one (at least me) down a rabbit-hole of unexpected research. "Character X is going to race Character Y. They're starting at Point A; X lives at Point B and Y at Point C. So, where would they pick as their finish point, and more importantly, what route would they take to get there?" should be simple. Right? 1/2
Nope! Particularly if Point A is in western SoMa, #SanFrancisco, and Points B and C are both north of Market Street. The tangle of one-way streets and "where can I cross Market?" options makes this a decidedly non-trivial question, which leads into, "How does each character *normally* go home from here? And so what would each of them suggest for a finish point, and what would they each think is a sensible way to do this?"
Do I need to rein in my full-throttle verisimilitude? 2/2
@kagan You may need to choose whatever is plausible but will be easiest to explain to people who do NOT know San Francisco AT ALL, without bogging down the action hopelessly.
I am trying to remember whether the total number of days I have spent in the city of San Francisco proper is nearer to 5 days or to 15, spread over the past 40 years.
My experience of the city mostly left me with a strong appreciation for Mark Twain's comment about the coldest winter he ever experienced..
@kagan In a class I took from Mary Robinette Kowal on avoiding the bad kind of info dumps, one comment was that in order for the info to matter to the reader, the info needs to include why it matters to the character(s).
