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This Short Stories Newsletter is dedicated to readers and writers of short fiction and to those who want to know more about the art of telling big stories in small spaces.
This month:
Check Your Facts
Be confident in your writing by knowing what you're talking about, and research your details for best results. |
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Recently, I participated in a writing class where one of our assignments gave us different regional foods to incorporate in our stories. Some were exotic, and some familiar comfort foods. One of the stories was a great character piece-- lots of layers of emotions and complexity for an assignment intended to be around 500 words.
However, the thing fell apart for me as a reader because it hinged on one set of facts-- the recipe for the dessert item assigned to this author for the story, and the author had gotten those facts completely wrong.
The author hadn't even looked on Google to see the recipe for the dessert in question. (And it was clear that the author hadn't done this, because the story hinged on the idea that the recipe was incredibly complex... for a dessert with three ingredients.)
Because of this, the story flopped for me; it relied on the details so completely that even fixing the story to make the details correct wouldn't have worked; ultimately, my suggestion was to pick a different dessert for which these details would be true. I pointed the error out to the author, who thanked me for taking the time, but I definitely felt conflicted about it, because my prior knowledge of the recipe meant that I was skeptical of the rest of the story, so I felt like everything I pointed out was becoming pickier and pickier, but at the same time-- the details weren't true, and they influenced my experience of the story.
I've had the experience even in my own work, of being in a situation where I should have checked my facts on something, or used an inaccurate name, or made some other, similar mistake. If you're going to include details about the make and model of a car, make sure you know what it looks like! (This is a mistake I've made!) Guns are another common problem; a lot of us writers aren't gun owners or don't have much experience with them, and if this is true for you, it's doubly important to look up the details before you start writing about them.
In short stories, in particular, errors in your detail mean that your entire story could be off-kilter without even realizing it, all because the details don't line up. Even in speculative fiction, it's important that your details are accurate if they can be. Sure, made-up places have looser rules, but say your story is set up on someplace like the Moon, for example. Now, our moon is actually pretty well-studied, so there are lots of details which can actually be researched before you use it as a setting for a story.
Historical fiction can be a quagmire of research for some people; while of course some details, like speech patterns, are often modernized to ease the reader transition into an older period of history, there were many social norms which did not go as one might assume; it's always worth checking for source material before making any kind of blanket statements about a past historical period or an older culture.
What about if you're writing about a country you've never been to before? It's worth looking at a tourism guide, but that's not really far enough, because it won't give you the meat of the thing. Same thing with famous cities and towns. For example, I'm incredibly critical of any story claiming to be about New York City, because I'm in the city every day and I've seen many, many facets of it. The neighborhoods are very different in flavor and feel, and it can be like another country in its own right, depending on where you are. It can be hard to get the flavor of a place just right without having been there, but it's far from impossible. If you're writing about a place you haven't been before, look at maps, look at pictures of the area, find someone local if you can, or if your budget allows, make it a working holiday and take a trip to the place you'd like to write about.
With the rest of the Internet ready and waiting at our fingertips, it's important to check and double-check our details. Don't rely on a single source, unless it's the only source available. Look things up before you write about them, and be confident that you're writing something meaningful-- and accurate.
Until next time,
Take care and Write on!
~jay
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Feedback from "Under the Microfiction-Scope"
northernwrites writes:
That was an interesting SS NL. Great pointers.
Thanks for featuring my item. 
Thank you for allowing me to use it, NW! I thought it was an ideal example of the kind of deconstruction I was looking for in micro fiction.
blunderbuss writes:
Thanks for a great newsletter. I just checked out Northernwrites piece (Jack & Jill nursery rhyme) and it was really strange - I liked it and thought it was so clever - right down each example of the ever reducing word count, until I got to the 100 word limit. At that point, I lost it - it meant nothing any more. The other 'reductions' were great, so I wonder why I switched off at that final one?
I'm not sure; I think it might be that the piece is 100 words and, in that instance, none of the words repeat. It's sometimes hard to read a 100-word story without any repeating words; it requires a really fluid interpretation of the story action. My feeling is that, most likely, since the previous iterations of the story are on the page first, they prejudice the mind a bit with certain expectations which won't be met in a 100-word no-repeat piece. Fiction like that is very nearly more like a poetry form at that point, and we have to be able to bend our imagination a bit, and I think that's harder to do when, going into it, we have expectations of what the story is "supposed" to do. Just my thoughts, though! |
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Short Stories: September 18, 2013 Issue [#5892]
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