For almost all of my life, I’ve lived close to the sea. It has a special place in my heart and was a part of my daily life for a very long time, whether viewing out of my window or wandering along its beaches or up its piers. In 2017, I lived in a tiny little fishing village. The sea was a stone’s throw away; the harbour visible from my window. The experience of living in a tiny seaside village got me thinking about the delightful little seaside towns we see portrayed idyllically in books and films, and about the cliches which are undeniably true and some very loud omissions.

Writing a story set in a quaint, tiny seaside village? Here’s an incomplete list of things, obvious and not, which you can use to add some authenticity to your setting.

The Good Side

It’s almost guaranteed to be somewhere beautiful. The sea is beautiful all by itself. Small fishing harbours, cliffs, beaches – they’re pretty hard to mess up. The setting is good for the soul. As a writer, even the bad weather can be fantastically atmospheric. You know in those old films, where the wild winds literally howl? That actually happens. It’s easy to dismiss as creative hyperbole but there were times where I wasn’t sure if it was the wind or voices, screams, clawing their way through the shutters. Between the wind and the haars—thick, rolling fog that devours everything from sight—even the bad days can really put you in the mood to write. And, if you’re a writer writing one of these dark, spooky scenes, you can take solace in knowing that this isn’t the fancy of some overly purple prose. Between shrieking winds, consuming fogs, driving rains, and every other type of weather you can think of, there’s plenty of scope to put your characters in whatever atmosphere you need.

Even the tiniest, least touristy places are probably going to have at least one really great ice cream shop. And, if you’re anything like me, live somewhere like this long enough and you’re probably not going to just save it for the sunny days. There’s nothing unrealistic about your character going out for ice cream in the rain. Or snow. I know, I’ve done it.

Not always applicable if the town is more cliff than anything, but there’s a good chance you’re going to have a beach right there. It might be sand, it might be pebbles, perhaps a combination, but it’s delightful all the same. Depending on what route I was taking, I’d have to walk across it to get to the shops. I skipped across stepping stones that crossed the river right where it met the sea as I walked home from dentist, stones that were only there depending on the time of day. Seaside towns, especially old ones, have weird layouts.

In the summer, he village becomes Dog Central. Now, I’m actually pretty timid around dogs but I can appreciate how darn adorable they are from a distance. Where do people who can’t take dogs abroad or don’t want to put them into kennels go? The seaside. If soaking in the ambience of strangers’ adorable furry friends sounds like a good time to you, get yourself to the seaside in the summertime. Want a little extra authenticity to your summer seaside scene? Dogs.

There are other critters who are here all year round. Crabs, cockles, fish, jellyfish, sea birds, non sea birds (birds really don’t give a damn). A lot of cool things hang out in and around the sea, including some things you wouldn’t expect. Most people don’t generally consider mallards to be sea birds but no one’s actually told the mallards that.

The Bad Side

Winter sucks. And that’s speaking as someone who prefers winter to summer. My particular town took the full brunt of the North Sea winds, right in the face. And of course, it was an old town, full of beautiful buildings – which were all listed. That means no insulation, no double glazing, and a very unlikely chance of having decent heaters. We spent as much money on heating that winter as we did on rent, and we were still cold all the time. We lived in one room, because there was no way we could have afforded heating more than that. I couldn’t feel my toes until the end of March.

Every now and then, you’ll wake up ready to face another day, expecting to be gently rocked awake by the soft light of morning. It’ll take you a moment to realise that something is wrong. You frown, confused, and go to open the window. For some reason, you really need to get some fresh air in here. Only when you do, it gets worse. That’s right. We all know it, people are just afraid to say it. Sometimes that great majestic and mysterious body known as the sea quite simply just smells like farts. Often it’s subtle. Other times? It’s not. Just occasionally, it’s so thick you can taste it, like you’re stuck in a lift with that person. The entire town stinks and there’s nothing you can do. You’ve just gotta ride it out.

Another one that is easy to forget amongst the romantic idealistic idea of living next to the sea is that, depending on your particular town’s layout, there are occasions when the main road and the sea are the same thing. You’ll look out the window and think “wow, the tide’s really in toda- oh.” Good luck catching that bus! Always fun if you really just want to mess with a character’s day.

As mentioned previously, it gets busy in the summer. There’s people everywhere and they’re all in holiday mode. That means they’re walking slowly, taking up the whole pavement, and getting really confused and annoyed when someone is actually trying to hurry somewhere – the same type of people who’d probably kick a granny out of the way to get the train on their way to work. Anyone who lives in a holiday destination will probably know this already – people who are on holiday have the amazing ability to forget than not everyone is on holiday. Why in such a hurry, they wonder as they eat their ice cream cone? I wonder whoever sold them it, since everyone is on holiday. If your character is in a hurry in the height of summer, even if it’s getting into the evening, they’re probably going to have crowds to contend with. The town might not even have that many tourists but let me tell you, the older it is, the less it’s going to be designed to accommodate a lot of people.

This brings me to my next point. In the summer, every night is Saturday night. If your character lives between any pubs or restaurants and somewhere people might be staying, they’ll get to enjoy listening to drunks every night. Admittedly, I did have the worst of this as I lived right next to a pub. It was a poor choice.

Your character has a car? Great! They’re going to spend a lot of time swearing and/or parking really illegally. My partner and I used to have a game counting how many illegally parked cars we could spot in one place. The best we got was eleven on one corner. As you can image, this makes getting around—both on foot and by car—more tricky.

That’s right. These bastards. They sit on roofs and squak, swoop down and steal your food, sometimes they just stand in the way and refuse to move. It’s even more annoying than you’d think to be forced to walk around a stubborn seagull. Like sure, I’m probably 40 times your weight but I’ll walk around you, bird. Great. Stories of seagulls aggressively swiping things out of your hands or just point blank ignoring you as you try to walk past them aren’t exaggerated. They’re used to people. They don’t fear you. They don’t fear your character. Not even that cold blooded assassin of yours. The guy who makes the peasants’ neck hair stand on end or silences the pub with their presence as they enter? Seagulls. Don’t. Give. A. Shit. They’re watching. They’re waiting. And, if you’ve got a poke of chips, they’re coming for you.