Debi Graham-Leard

Naming my fictional college town on the coast of Massachusetts required several revisions before settling on Harbor Falls. It was originally Old Bay Harbor, but members of my writing group pointed out that it became cumbersome when referring to the village vs. referring to actual “old” places, so I dropped the old portion of the name.

What remained was “Bay Harbor”, but that was much too close to “Bar Harbor”, which is an actual town up the coast in Maine, and I decided it would cause too much confusion.

I wanted to keep the “Bay” portion of the name and racked my brain to come up with the other part to complete it, either before or after. Because the waterwheel at the “Olde Music Shop” is important in the storyline, and it required a stream and a waterfall, I settled on the falls to round out my village’s name. And so, it became “Harbor Falls”.

Although my village is loosely based on my own inland town, I needed to move it to the coast for the effect I was looking for. And so one of the major state highways that intersects in the center of town became “Harbor Avenue” and runs right down a hill to the fictional harbor below.