Do you struggle with making things real in your fiction? I've been working on a story about a woman moving into a house that's been deserted for over twenty years. There's no electricity which means no running water so I gave her an artisan well in the back yard. Cool side fact - in the winter in PA, an artisan well can turn a back yard into a skating rink with a beautiful ice fountain in the center. She needs to heat the water to bathe so I gave her a cook stove in the kitchen. Now, some of this moves the story along but most of it is just keeping things "real".
I struggle with this practical side of myself when writing. I hate how people walk into deserted houses and the water magically works and the electric just flows with the flip of a switch. Hello....if no one is paying the electric bill, there's no lights and if you don't drain water pipes in an empty house in the winter, yeah, broken pipes.
What about you? Do you try to embrace the practical when you're writing, or do you just skim over the practicalities of a situation so your story will flow smoothly, or have you found a way to include them without sabotaging your story?
I think I may have mentioned Blood Bound Books before but they've added a few more anthology calls with 2010 deadlines. One, called Night Terrors is a contest with the winner receiving 5cents a word and runners up receiving a flat rate of $5 for their stories which is the going rate for all stories included in their assorted anthologies. You can find all the details here http://www.bloodboundbooks.net/submissions.html
And Jeff VanderMeer has written an essay about writer's despair that very neatly looks at what we all feel at one time or another when we're writing. http://booklifenow.com/2009/11/writer-despair-for-a-cheery-monday/#more-126
10 comments:
I totally get hung up on the 'reality' part. I've even had to decide why and how a house could end up abandoned-- figuring out the mortgage and tax situations, both of which going unpaid can, in theory, end up with the house being sold to someone else.
Glad to see I'm not the only one, Clair. I went so far as to set up a trust fund to pay the property taxes and keep the house in her name, then scratched the whole deal because it felt too far fetched.
It depends on the length of the piece. And also how versed I am on the peculiarities of the situation.
Right now I am trying like hell to figure out the most likely way someone would bilk medicare in the eighties. Way too much research for a few sentences.
A doctor or hospital can bilk medicare quite easily. My dad and my Uncle had the same name except for the middle initial, went to the same hospital and medicare was billed on both accounts. There was so much double billing and cross billing and people paid off to turn their heads back in the eighties, you shouldn't have any problem at all coming up with a workable scenario, Patti.
Because it bumps me too, Sandra, when I'm reading along and all of sudden think, "Wait a minute...they didn't cell phones in the early seventies..." or whatever,I pay attention to the details--and perhaps too much attention.
I try to blend reality with my fiction. And I would agree it would depend on the length of the story.
If you're writing a piece of flash, I think the reality should be keep to a minimum. If you're writing a longer story, then the reality should fit in only as much as needed.
I agree with Pattinase though, it's really easy to go overboard with research just for a few sentences. Got that problem right now as I spent an hour at the library trying to add to some Wikipedia research on an archangel called Raphael, simply for about two sentences worth of work. Also did research on The Divine Comedy so that I can rewrite a few sentences.
Sometimes it's incredibly easy to get sidetracked with researching facts for a story.
My favorite oversight by writers and screenwriters alike is the amazing visibility that people seem to have at night. I've worked the graveyard shift for over half of my life and even in well-lit areas, seeing things past fifty feet can become a real adventure.
I also love how dryrot doesn't come into play in an abandoned house, unless the villain or creature is chasing someone.
It's funny how different things cause readers to pause, Conda. For me, it's the small everyday details of life, I could care less about how the equipment works, so long as it does what it needs to do in a story.
Totally agree, G. Some writers tend to put everything they research into a story when all they need is one or two sentences. Readers will forgive everything except being bored to death with research details.
I was thinking about dryrot, Cormac and how plaster board and wall paper would be falling apart. I guess in the end, I'll need to find some middle ground and hope readers don't mind.
And you're right about walking around in the dark, I keep telling people on the TV to turn on the damn lights so they can see something.
I used to walk from the barn to the house in the dark and one night I was sure there was a bear chasing me. I nearly fell into the house and my husband looked out the door to see that one of the pigs had followed me up onto the porch. We had a good chuckle over that one! Not being able to see in the dark can make the story scarier if you keep it real.
I thought I was grounded in reality, even though I write fantasy, but apparently I forget things like feeding my characters or allowing them not to freeze to death. As a reader it annoys me when things aren't practical so I need to focus on this in my own writing a little more. Thanks for the excellent post and good luck with your writing.
Though, is it possible that they had contacted the power company before moving to said deserted house and had already organised for it to be turned on?
Welcome to the corner, cassandrajade. Yep, even fantasy characters need to eat and stay warm. And no, they didn't call ahead for the electric, they're on the run from the bad guys.
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