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Author Topic: Altering reality  (Read 7098 times)

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Lance Charnes

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Altering reality
« on: April 15, 2012, 10:05:57 PM »

I'm faced with a situation where it's useful to alter an real place to make a sequence work better.

If you're published: have you done this? If so, what was the reaction from your readers?

If you're a reader: if you run across a change to a place you know, can you accept it or does it blow you out of the story?
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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2012, 10:19:51 PM »

Usually if I am using a real place and have to alter reality to make the plot work, I create a doppelganger of a mirror place or business. Then you may do what you wish. E.G. If you are using the Mayo Clinic then rename it and alter it slightly then use it for your purposes. I did that with local landmarks and the like when using my town as a locale in a series of detective stories. The complaints about altered reality were not forthcoming.

If it is a major change and you are writing a series, make sure that you will want to continue it for future plots. As a reader, sometimes if I come across an obvious error, I will see if it interferes with the plot of the book I am reading. Usually I will say outloud the correct answer as I am reading it. Then I will proceed on. If the plot is intriguing enough, my belief is that readers will skip right past it.

This is only my opinion.

In my first book, I used the wrong name of one of the Great Lakes were a body was to be found. It was pointed out but wasn't part of the plot specifically. It was just another place to find a body. Had it been integral to the plot, I would have been more upset about it.

Again, just my opinion. Good luck with your ms.

Jeff
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Dave Freas

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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2012, 08:37:26 AM »

If you're a reader: if you run across a change to a place you know, can you accept it or does it blow you out of the story?

I think a lot depends on how well it's done.  Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels were set in New York, yet he never named it that and gave familiar areas new names.  Even as a teen reading my first 87th Pct. novel, I recognized it as NYC and accepted it.

Most of my (as yet unpublished) novels are set in small towns that are an amalgam of the one I grew up in and several nearby towns.  If I want or need a feature such as business or university that might exist in a large city but not in any of them, I modify or tweak it until I believe its presence in a small town would be realistic to readers.

A book on writing I read (the name escapes me at the moment) suggested if you want to create a fictional place (totally or based on a real one), draw a map of the place and put in the features you want or need.

Hope this helps.

Dave
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MTH

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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2012, 09:10:43 AM »

I call my city Arbor City. It's based on the real city where I live and people who live here recognize it but haven't objected to the name change or any other changes I've made. Unless you take a well known landmark and really alter it, I don't see a problem. One advantage in making up a place is that people who might shy away from a book because they are either unfamiliar with the site or aren't interested in a particular locale won't have that reaction.

Mickey
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Lance Charnes

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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #4 on: April 16, 2012, 03:16:56 PM »

Let's go a little more micro on this subject.

In this WIP, I've established the setting for my dilemma is the real Brooklyn and have used numerous real Brooklyn places (including a specific Starbucks, a real Barnes & Noble and Green-Wood Cemetery). I've used these locations as is with no modifications.

That said, I need my MCs to go to lunch with a Mystery Man/potential ally at a restaurant within easy walking distance of the (real) NYPD 72nd Precinct house. There's a (real) White Castle on the opposite corner that would be perfect except for one thing: there's no seating, inside or out. The next closest restaurant isn't much better.

Having already set the bar for using real places in their real state, how serious a breach is it if I were to add seating to the White Castle? I know people are pretty obsessed with their sliders.

To abstract: if you were a reader and happened to know the establishment used in a scene was blue instead of green/one floor instead of two/open six hours later/take-out only/whatever, would you care much?

Am I totally overthinking this or what? I can probably find better things to worry about.
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MTH

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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #5 on: April 16, 2012, 04:31:46 PM »

Yes, you may be in a bind here. A place within easy walking distance gives you some room for fudging, but if you're dead on identifying the police station, that might be a problem for readers who know every building on every street. Maybe your MCs don't need to go to have that meeting at a lunch? Maybe they can grab something and take it somewhere or maybe they can just forget them having lunch completely? Most readers won't be familiar enough to know the difference but I don't think you can make something up from what you've said.

Mickey
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Dave Freas

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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #6 on: April 16, 2012, 04:44:12 PM »

Or make it a 'new' restaurant only open a week or two?
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B L McAllister

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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #7 on: April 17, 2012, 01:30:46 PM »

I seem to recall that some prominent writers simply insert in the prefatory material a sort of apology saying that they changed some features of the locale just because they needed to.
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Books by Byron and Kay McAllister can most easily be obtained as e-books or in print from the publisher at http://www.writewordsinc.com/ For "Undercover Nudist," the print version is an improved version of the ebook version. The others are the same in both formats.

Lance Charnes

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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #8 on: April 18, 2012, 08:45:57 PM »

That sounds like the ticket, Byron, and it's a lot less work. Thanks.
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Charles King

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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #9 on: April 28, 2012, 12:02:47 PM »

O'Brian's Master and Commander has a long forward where he freely admits he fudged history to make his stories work.

CKing 8)
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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #10 on: April 29, 2012, 02:21:57 AM »

I do understand that this is fiction and altering reality is what we do, in one form or another. It would be my thought that we do it as little as possible and if we are going to do it in a specific way that we recreate another reality, like Superman's Bizarro world within which to do it.

I think of old time stories that had silencers screwed onto the barrels of revolvers. Alters reality but is factually incorrect.

Just my thoughts.
Jeff
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Chuck

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Re: Altering reality
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2012, 08:56:04 PM »

I use Albuquerque NM for most of my novels. I grew up there and know the town, or knew the town. The city I use is as I remember it from decades ago.

In one novel, I had some of the action taking place in a cemetery. I was well into the script when we took a trip to Albuquerque for shopping or something, and I was stunned to find out that where I put the cemetery was actually a park. The cemetery was fully a mile south. Fixing it would have required re-writing several sections, so I left the graveyard in the wrong place.

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