First of all, let me apologize for not posting much lately. I have several posts written and ready to go, usually, but then decide I need to go over the content before actually putting the post up, and then I sleep on it and ambivalence sets in about whatever the topic was and . . . well, you know how it is. Or maybe not. In any case, here’s the latest.
Okay, so mostly a story is all fiction, right? But sometimes a few facts get sprinkled into the mix. The facts can be used to simply help move the story along, or they can just be something the author throws in for the fun of it.
In the story “Blue Girl and the Stars,” I threw in mention of an actual game from my childhood. When March talks about searching for rules to the game Wahoo for Buddy, he’s speaking of an actual game. I’m not sure what prompted the game to pop into my mind. I guess I needed something minor to use as an example of March using the memory chip for something other than just feeding his mother memories. Or it could have simply been a case of my not being exactly sure where I was headed with the story. Maybe I just needed to buy some time until some other idea kicked in and got the story rolling along on some definitive path . . .
In any case, the game of Wahoo was one I remember playing often enough as a child. I can remember many a lazy afternoon playing it with my mother and one or two of my siblings. I can distinctly remember my mother’s excitement at finally rolling a six on the dice so she could bring a marble out from the starting position. Or perhaps she might utter an “Oh, darn it” when the proper number didn’t turn up, or when someone else landed on the exact spot of her marble’s position on the board, thus sending her marble back to the starting position in the arrow.
Wahoo was always fun, and almost seemed like it was a game that belonged to my family alone. I have never in my life met a single person outside of my own family who had ever played or even heard of it. Though it’s not something I always go around asking people about. Other families had to have played it, of course, as it was an actual game that had been manufactured and sold in the late 50s and early 60s. The game just seemed a rarity, and I had a little chuckle at popping it into the story. Putting it in was just sort of a fun thing to do. There was no particular reason for doing it, other than perhaps what I mentioned above.
And speaking of games . . .
In the story “CAPTCHA” (also from Blue Girl and the Stars) I mention a chess move named Rykhov’s Defense. The game of chess is real, of course, but “Rykhov’s Defense” is a purely fictional move. I made it up. Perhaps I could have found and used a real move if I had wanted to. I just didn’t feel the need to do that much work. I did do a cursory internet search to check that the name of such a move didn’t actually exist before I used it. As far as I could tell there wasn’t such a name for a move. The move itself, though key to one aspect of the story, didn’t have to be a factual move for the flow of the story. If it was a factual move, however, I needed to get the move correct. I decided to wing it. What can I say?
And I’m sure all authors, at one point or another, mention titles to actual books in a fictional story . . .
Still speaking of the story “CAPTCHA,” I mention several actual books in a couple of scenes. Not that you’ve read the story, but there is a scene where Leah Cross, a computer whiz, is standing in Sir Trevor’s bedroom and looking at his shelf of books. The handful of computer books that she sees on the shelf are actual books in real life. If you go to one of my shelves in Goodreads (my computer tech shelf) and look, you will see Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus and all of the actual books that are listed in the story. Not all of the books on my tech shelf are listed in the story, of course, just four or five. I get all warm and fuzzy inside just remembering the late nights spent poring over these books.
I do wonder whether I might have gone a little overboard with mixing in unnecessary facts in one case, however. That was in the story “Last Stop Jericho” (again, also from the book Blue Girl and the Stars).
In the initial bedroom/sex scene with Robert and Renee, they discuss the Walter Tevis book Mockingbird, which I have admittedly beat to death in my posts. You’re probably tired of hearing about it by now. So okay, I’ll stop mentioning it.
In another scene, much later in the story, the couple (now married) stop what they are doing to watch a television show. Perhaps you’ve heard of it (though I don’t think it is on anymore). It’s called “Scandal.” I only threw that scene in the book so I could mention something that intrigues me: The fact that Natalie Portman and Kerry Washington sound just alike when they speak. In fact, I have one of the characters close their eyes and listen. This scene is pure self-indulgence on my part. I have to confess, however, that it leads to a nice intimate scene between the couple, bringing the two together for a brief few minutes in what has become a staid marriage. The scene is told from the viewpoint of one of the two looking backwards and appreciating the spontaneity of the intimacy.
In another scene from the same story, Robert (the husband) is sitting on a fallen tree, just off the trail leading up the mountainside. He is in his special place, and thinking about things in a dreamlike fashion. He spies two butterflies fluttering about some weeds and tries to remember a science fiction story by either Ray Bradbury or Philip K. Dick, where butterflies (or perhaps it was moths) try cutting through the top of a spaceship with lasers or tiny sawblades that are attached to their bodies. Robert can’t remember the name of the story for only one reason—I (as the author) can’t think of it. I thought the story might have been Bradbury’s “The Sound of Thunder.” It wasn’t. It must have been a PKD story. I think I might need to find it in the “what was the name of the book/story that . . .” section on Goodreads. If I find it, do I go back and change the scene in my story? Maybe. But my book is out there. It isn’t really a major issue in any case. I also have Robert mention another author, whose name he can’t quite remember (Me, of course) who also has a sci-fi story involving butterflies. I can’t remember if he actually mentions the title of “The Red Kimono” or not. Okay, so that is true self-indulgence, or ego-stroking on my part. But really, it is only me having fun with things. Most people who read it, if they aren’t familiar with my other works, won’t have a clue as to who I’m talking about. Or I guess I should say, who Robert is thinking about. That’s part of the fun of it all, just one of the many small joys of writing.
And another small pleasure is . . . well, should I let you in on the secret?
Okay, I will. But it really has nothing to do with mixing fact and fiction in a story. And it isn’t really much of anything significant, but . . .
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Incidentally, the above sketch (which I’m sure looks familiar to you) is from Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates. I’m not sure whether it is a Wyeth sketch or whether Pyle drew it himself. I can’t remember. In any case, the sketch is a fitting one for our stranded friend in the story, no matter whether it depicts Ketchum, Steele, or Percy.
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If you read the story “Marooned,” from my book of Pirate Tales, there is a scene where the doctor and Berendt are standing on the beach and discussing which of them is going to go back to the boat and retrieve the tranquilizer darts and blowgun. The scene in the book has one of the characters going back, and the scene in the story where I have the story posted on my website (It is under the category “Stories,” (go figure) and is spread out over three posts. I would reprint the section from the book here for comparison purposes, but the scene is important to the story and I would have to give a spoiler alert) has the other of the two characters going back to the boat. The two scenes are basically the same, and only vary in the conversation the two have and the conclusion of which of them is to retrieve the gun. The whole difference came about with me copying and pasting from the book to the post. As an author, it is hard not to change a word here and there at odd times when you read over a small passage or section. And if you have two copies of the same story and change part of a scene in one, well, sometimes it is tough to decide which scene is better. That really wasn’t the case here, because it is basically the same scene even though it changed in some aspects. I just left the difference. At the time, I was just playing with the story for the enjoyment of doing it, and there is really no justification for doing so. Do I need to justify doing it? Nope. If I want to have fun and play around with my writing and stories . . . well, I just will. I can’t, at the moment at least, think of a good reason for doing it, other than it being playtime when I write. And the way I see it, as long as I adhere to not cheating the reader out of enjoyment in reading the story, then what’s the harm? You guys are like gold, after all. I wouldn’t cheat you in a million years, or for any amount of money. As a reader, I would hate to be cheated. Just give me something good and entertaining, a story I can think about and maybe come back and read again later. As I like to say, the story’s the thing, it’s not about the author. The author is only the reference point, a way to locate a story you might like. That’s not to say the author is totally irrelevant, as he or she is the creator or origination point of the story.
In the story “Marooned,” I also wanted to play with the idea of Berendt waking up tied to a tree and have Percy hitting him with another tranquilizer dart when he woke up. I decided that was unnecessary really. I figured the reader could figure out (whether the tranquilizer/dart gun was involved or not) what had happened, more or less, between on the beach and—well, you’ll just have to read the story. It’s available, like I mentioned, in the posts.
While writing “Marooned” I almost got too caught up in research (it happens) on blowguns when I just checked online to find out whether blowgun was spelled as one word or two, or perhaps hyphenated. I watched a couple of You Tube videos on the manufacture of blowguns and darts that were pretty interesting. I decided to save all that for another story . . .
So, anyway, getting back to the original point of this post, when it comes down to it an author can pretty much mix things up as he or she sees fit. As far as I know there are no hard and fast rules to the game when mixing facts in with the fiction.
So, did I mix too many facts in with the fiction of the story “Last Stop Jericho?” I don’t know. Maybe. The story seems to flow okay. You tell me.
I’m guessing I still need to figure out what the story was with the butterflies cutting into the spaceship. That still bugs me. I’m guessing it won’t matter to Robert one way or another.
The Rules:
The Game:
