This week: Who Knew? Edited by: Legerdemain  
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So Many Pieces!
Who knew there were so many parts to a saddle? Not me. When I was a teen, the local riding place would let us teenagers that spent all our babysitting money on saddle time, ride the horses in spring for free. And like a bunch of fools (with no helmets back then) would hop on those spring green horses and hold on for the ride of our lives.
Basically, the horse spent 55 minutes trying to scrape us off the saddle and go back to the barn. After 55 minutes, and trust me, they KNEW when the hour was up, they'd run to the barn. There was NO stopping them. So we would duck branches, pull up our legs away from fence posts and hang on for dear life crossing the creek.
I wanted to write about it, and since it was *ahem* a few decades since, I looked up the parts of a saddle to remember what the horn was called. It could just be 'the thing I held on to and tried to not die, for fun!'. I had no idea all the flippy flappy bits and strings had good names. Now I know.
So hey, do your research and Write On!
This month's question: Who knew?
Answer below  Editors love feedback!  |
APRIL SITE CONTEST
Excerpt: Genre Prompt for April 2025: Detective
Excerpt: I knew when I first saw the young woman, she was unhappy. The way she hung her head and dragged her feet told me she'd rather be anywhere but here, at my stable, helping take care of horses like me. It seemed like a world of shame and restlessness lay on her thin shoulders, as if the slightest wrong movement would make her turn and run away.
Excerpt: Seven-year-old Danny was fidgety and whiny in the back seat.
“We’re almost there, Buddy. Why aren’t you playing your video games?”
“I just want to hurry up and see Trigger and Bullet.” Mom and Dad shared a ‘victory’ smile.
Excerpt: "It's about Picasso, the worst painter in history, travelling through time to check out Goya, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and other great painters," explained Tessa: "To see what they did right, and what he is doing wrong."
Excerpt: The morning’s briskness still biting, I buttoned up my jacket and jogged to the stable. The smell of manure and hay filled my nostrils.
| | 54 EXCUSES (13+)
An aptly named racehorse sheds the cloak of loser and drapes it over its bevy of owners.
#1533412 by DRSmith  |
Excerpt: “Well, look who’s here,” Bob said, cheerily. “If it ain’t my dear friend, Trader Boo... maven of Chicago’s Board of Trade. Come in, come in. I’m delighted to see you,” he warmly said while leading me to his study. “So, how have the markets and horses been treating you these days?”
Excerpt: "But that way lies death, señor!"
Hezekiah Grant pointed his six-shooter at the farmer's face.
"Death's dogged me down lots of trails," the outlaw sneered. "But I only ever feared him when he was riding a bullet." He cocked the hammer. "Now finish filling my canteens."
Excerpt: The blackbird glided from the old oak through the archway and into the courtyard. He had seen the Foxhound skulking around, probably chasing titbits. However, when he landed, the dog was in mid-conversation with an Arabian horse.
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This month's question: Who knew?
Answer below Editors love feedback!
Last month's "Action/Adventure Newsletter (March 12, 2025)" question: Is detail accuracy in your stories important to you?
Quick-Quill  : Fun gun fact. If someone shoots up in the air, the bullet travels twice as fast on its way down. That bullet can kill a person. Its true, they had it on CSI and gave all the scientific facts. I looked it up. The bullet killed a person and the shooter was convicted of murder.
Monty  : Not very accurate at 1100 yards though.
S 🤦 : It is important. Nothing takes me out of a narrative faster than an impossibility (fantasy, of course, being an exception). So I research, preferring to talk to people and read books than to trust the ever-growing cesspool of disinformation that is the Internet.
J. M. Kraynak  : I'd add that the after effects are just as important. At long range, the impact would occur before you heard the shot. Older style ammunition loads with black powder are extra smoky and sulfur smelling. All of which could carry as much weight, scientifically, when creating the proper and accurate image of the firearm.
TheBusmanPoet  : As accurate as I can get is what I strive for. Some maybe speculating on my part but because I usually have a good idea of what I'm writing, I'll stand by it. 
Quilli ☕  : IMHO, the accuracy of the details is important. It's what makes a story believable and gets a reader invested in what's happening.
Nixie 🦊  : Absolutely. If my topic is unfamiliar I google to discover the finer details. For instance, I was writing about a Victorian mansion and had no idea what it looked like inside. Thank you, Google.
Jay O'Toole  : Most definitely. My Tendency is to get so bogged down in the details, that I have a slow-moving story. Then, I have a debate about what details I need, and which ones can be left unsaid to enhance the flow.
HollisFrances : Absolutely!
Scary Potato : I really enjoyed this news letter. The information on the science of ballistics was very interesting.
Anyways, details matter but I try not to get too bogged down. Mostly because I worry that I will bore readers. That and I've been told most of the stuff I know about the life sciences is gross and disturbing.
Friendly Neighborhood Derg  : Totally! Detail makes the story feel more real and gives the reader information to form a mental picture. For example, which would you rather have:
I was stranded on a desert isle.
OR
I found myself on a small, hot desert island with an oases near the beach.
Anna Marie Carlson : It helps people understand what's going on in a story better with detailed information. Rather than trying to figure out what is happening in a story. It would be helpful to have a good detailed background in your story. It makes for a better reading experience when you can get a picture of what's going on; this makes the story much more interesting.
tj wanderlust-words-in-motion  : Yes it is.
Kotaro : If we didn’t care about details, we wouldn’t have such a large vocabulary. An example is all the words we have for rain.
MayDay : Either not enough or way too much.
Pensivity : Accuracy is especially essential when writing non-fiction. Fiction is all made up anyway. Of course it is, however, I think Stephen King sometimes tends to over do them.
jackson : If I state where the story is taking place, all my details must be accurate.
Jaycin Alexis  : Yes. It's confusing to have different details describing the same situation. Like, if I'm writing a story and I tell you the grass is purple in one chapter, but then a few chapters later I'm describing the same exact spot but I say the grass is orange now, with no explanation to why the colour is different in any way shape or form, that's going to make you think this is not in fact the same place. It's going to be confusing. You have to keep the details straight for things to make proper sense.
Thanks to everyone for responding! L~
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Action/Adventure: April 09, 2025 Issue [#13075]
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