Jane has run into a problem. She’s writing a novel set in a specific locale, but a lot of the places she was sending her characters to (set in current time) have closed since she began the novel. So I’m axing you:
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: If you were setting a novel in the town where you were born, what public place (still there or currently closed) would you include?
MA
Dan
December 26, 2016 at 8:21amI like authentic for the time because I also really like history.
Jane
December 26, 2016 at 10:03amThanks, Dan.
I’d been hoping to make the book seem set in a sort of timeless maybe next year. Suddenly, five, I kid you not, FIVE bars around town closed! And I do mean suddenly! As in, shuttered the next day closed!
What night life is like all of a sudden is a great big question mark.
At least the Bambi Bar is still here. And Gerstle’s. Just not the atmosphere I’ve been going for. Sigh.
Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt
December 26, 2016 at 5:48pmIt took me forever to write Pride’s Children, Book 1. I had it set originally in 2000 or 2001, moved it once (to keep it in the present) to 2005/2006, and then locked it there – I’m not fast enough, and I can’t cope with changes in reality.
Fortunately, I seem to remember 2005 well enough, in the frame of the novel, to go back there and looke around when I need a detail with time that actually matters, such as how the phone system in the house worked (answer: the same as ours at the time).
If you are inconsistent, readers will notice the fuzziness, but not be able to pin it down – and not know why they are unsatisfied. It’s inevitable, but best minimized.
Also, the writer spend far more time with details than the reader, and it gets annoying if you can’t even trust how the answering machine works!
Marian Allen
December 27, 2016 at 8:13amI began A DEAD GUY AT THE SUMMERHOUSE in 1968. By the time I was satisfied with it, it was around 2005. I decided to leave it in 1968, and did some research on the time to refresh my memory on details. Now it’s technically an historical. ~sigh~ Ah, the dim, dear days of my youth.
A.C.Flory
December 26, 2016 at 8:44pmI don’t write contemporary stories, but as a /reader/ I’d rather follow a story that evoked an era than something that raised my expectations only to dash them. That said, a snapshot of a bygone era that is accurate for that era is something else again. 🙂 Expectations are tricky beasts.
Marian Allen
December 27, 2016 at 8:14amJane has a tough call to make. If she wants to keep the pub crawl up-to-date, she’s gonna have to find some new pubs and crawl ’em. What price we pay for our art, eh?
A.C.Flory
December 27, 2016 at 6:39pm@Marian Allen – You’re not wrong. I think contemporary writing is actually harder than world building for fantasy or sci-fi. No margin for error. 🙁
Jane
December 28, 2016 at 10:24amThanks everyone for the comments and advice!
Fortunately, my oldest MS is set in a fantasy world. Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one.
Ive started thinking about the weather as a setting, and wouldn’t you know it? Monday hit 76 or 78 degrees!! That was December 26, in case you’re wondering.
And in case you in other lattitudes have forgotten already what that’s like…..it was BALMY!!
Fun fact: that temp is not only a record for that day, but for ANY day in ANY December ever recorded in Louisville, KY.