How do issues in the non-erotic parts of a story affect you?

[TxRad]

Now who in their right mind would put a digital camera in a 1970's story based in old Mexico? And one with a large capacity data chip in it. And not catch it until a reader pointed out to me... uh... the stupid author.

 

[lovecraft68]

Now who in their right mind would put a digital camera in a 1970's story based in old Mexico? And one with a large capacity data chip in it. And not catch it until a reader pointed out to me... uh... the stupid author.

When I did flashbacks to the late eighties early nineties I had a character have a pager.

Someone sent me a message saying "I remember those, that was a great touch!"

They also told me how they had just finished a story also set in the eighties where the character used his I=phone.

So people do pick up on more than just sex here.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Note to self: double check any computer jargon you put in a story before sending it to BT.

Oh, you know computer jargon far better than me. I was thinking more about stuff like the legal details in "Edge of Reason".

I've mentioned it before, but I *facepalmed* something savage when Tom Clancy seemed to think that quantum computing was a programming technique and that the NSA's quantum computers could break one-time-pad encryption... his understanding of Ebola was also painfully off.

 

[Hypoxia]

Franz Kafka's novel AMERIKA was written with the author knowing zilch about America except what he read in newspapers and dime novels. So he just made it all up. I wonder how many authors base their work on similar foundations? Read some crap and use it as a basis for making stuff up, right. Those who know it's made-up crap can facepalm. The other 99.9% of readers just eat it up. Yow.

As some car-fanatic authors here demonstrate, throwing arcane tech details into a story is FUN. I do so with references to old cameras, chromatic harmonicas, Native American arts and crafts, various other stuff. But I make sure such is RIGHT. Well, I try, anyway...

 

[NickiC]

I don't like reading emotional scenarios that are immature and do not fit the age of the people. I don't like writing from experiences you most likely know nothing of the culture or situation or anything. I love historical stories and those writers research. They weren't there but they do take the time to know some background and details.

 

[JKendallDane]

I got a big thrill when I started getting emails from students at the University of West Florida because my series 'Pizza Boy at the Door' is based on two college boys that go there. These readers would go on and on about how real it seemed since they recognized street names, local sports teams, tourist locations, and even specific restaurants.

The funny thing though, one of the main characters is a med student and no one yet has brought up that UWF doesn't have a med school. LOL

 

[oggbashan]

Now who in their right mind would put a digital camera in a 1970's story based in old Mexico? And one with a large capacity data chip in it. And not catch it until a reader pointed out to me... uh... the stupid author.

I had a DVD in a story (Cleaner Christmas) set in the 1960s. The PCs soon put me right.

My excuse? Shakespeare used a chiming clock in his play Julius Caesar...

 

[FullyLoadedUK]

There's a series been on here called Hinterland, filmed in my home town area.

It's become quite a joke how they travel from one place to another, via the most obscure of roads 20 miles in the opposite direction.

The local trainline has a regular 10-minute service, instead of the reality of one every two or three hours.

And they called the bog a marsh. It's not a marsh, it's a bog.

Gah!

There is a show on SyFy filmed in a town I used to live in. There has been numerous car sequences were they go through the same junction two or three times in a row. Just from different points. Then they'll be in the next town over pulling into a parking lot.

It just makes me laugh.

As for computer stuff, given its nearly always wrong in literature, film and tv I don't expect much. Not anymore.

Again, I'll just comment on how wrong it is, laugh and move on.

For the record, I've been a software engineer for 30 years. I hacked in the past (younger me was known in that scene), I've contributed chapters to books, had articles published in magazines and given talks at conferences about various topics, mostly my specialty.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Now who in their right mind would put a digital camera in a 1970's story based in old Mexico? And one with a large capacity data chip in it. And not catch it until a reader pointed out to me... uh... the stupid author.

One reason I leave tech out. Even stories based in the here and now hardly mention cell phones, computers, etc. unless absolutely necessary to the plot line.

Although my last Sci-Fi book has human form androids, but much better than Mr. Data in STNG.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I got a big thrill when I started getting emails from students at West Florida University because my series 'Pizza Boy at the Door' is based on two college boys that go there. These readers would go on and on about how real it seemed since they recognized street names, local sports teams, tourist locations, and even specific restaurants.

The funny thing though, one of the main characters is a med student and no one yet has brought up that UWF doesn't have a med school. LOL

Google Earth is great for that...Blind_Justice's and my Team Work entry is mostly based on observation with Google Earth to get the distances and timings right. Also to add local color. Although I have been to America's deep southwest, it was a long time ago. Street names, hotel/motel names, places and things names...Google Earth!

 

[TxRad]

One reason I leave tech out. Even stories based in the here and now hardly mention cell phones, computers, etc. unless absolutely necessary to the plot line.

Although my last Sci-Fi book has human form androids, but much better than Mr. Data in STNG.

I was just saving time on changing film. Oops.

I have another story due out shortly that I got the camera right in. The second tie is always the charm.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I was just saving time on changing film. Oops.

I have another story due out shortly that I got the camera right in. The second tie is always the charm.

We learn from out mistakes...well most of us do...there are those though...

 

[Hypoxia]

I carefully included details of a 1930 German camera in BIG BANANA but nobody cares.

 

[lovecraft68]

I carefully included details of a 1930 German camera in BIG BANANA but nobody cares.

I feel that pain. In a story I removed here awhile back I go through great lengths to describe a German Mauser semi automatic pistol. It was never noted by anyone.

I kind of fell in love with that gun after Robert McCammon had a biker vampire named Kobra use it in They Thirst.

No one else sees the attraction I guess.

 

[Hypoxia]

No one else sees the attraction I guess.

I will have my revenge. I will write a story containing more than one ever knew about... harp (harmonica) technology: the varied tempers and tunings; the innovative designs of Lee Oskar (that's him blowing LOW RIDER); the great old German chromatics; the tricks of valving and otherwise modding harps; the joys of overblowing; the rush from getting the opening of RHAPSODY IN BLUE right the first time; et fucking cetera.

Will anyone care? Fuck, if I'm any good, I will MAKE them care. Or groan.

But just think: The two basics of harp-playing are BLOW and SUCK. Throw in some fancy work with hands (carefully cupped), tongue (blocking appropriate holes), and lips (tightly puckered), and we're right there, aren't we? Why aren't there more erotic stories featuring pocket saxes?

 

[lovecraft68]

I will have my revenge. I will write a story containing more than one ever knew about... harp (harmonica) technology: the varied tempers and tunings; the innovative designs of Lee Oskar (that's him blowing LOW RIDER); the great old German chromatics; the tricks of valving and otherwise modding harps; the joys of overblowing; the rush from getting the opening of RHAPSODY IN BLUE right the first time; et fucking cetera.

Will anyone care? Fuck, if I'm any good, I will MAKE them care. Or groan.

But just think: The two basics of harp-playing are BLOW and SUCK. Throw in some fancy work with hands (carefully cupped), tongue (blocking appropriate holes), and lips (tightly puckered), and we're right there, aren't we? Why aren't there more erotic stories featuring pocket saxes?

Easy enough, guy and a girl are learning the instrument, one makes a joke its like practicing something else, "whatever do you mean," well let me show....

Oh, wait I forgot who I was talking to.

So a brother and sister are learning.....

 

[JKendallDane]

Google Earth is great for that...Blind_Justice's and my Team Work entry is mostly based on observation with Google Earth to get the distances and timings right. Also to add local color. Although I have been to America's deep southwest, it was a long time ago. Street names, hotel/motel names, places and things names...Google Earth!

If it wasn't for Google and websites to use for research, I would get in so much trouble using actual locations.

One chapter of 'Destiny in Daytona' included a day trip to Disney World and a lot of serious edging and foreplay between the two main characters while on rides. Now I hadn't been to Big Mickey's place in more than 30 years, but thankfully I found all sorts of places that listed the more popular rides, including how long they lasted time wise, so I could keep it realistic.

 

[lovecraft68]

If it wasn't for Google and websites to use for research, I would get in so much trouble using actual locations.

One chapter of 'Destiny in Daytona' included a day trip to Disney World and a lot of serious edging and foreplay between the two main characters while on rides. Now I hadn't been to Big Mickey's place in more than 30 years, but thankfully I found all sorts of places that listed the more popular rides, including how long they lasted time wise, so I could keep it realistic.

Tell me about it, I just had to google detective rankings.

 

[Hypoxia]

Oh, wait I forgot who I was talking to.

So a brother and sister are learning.....

Or Dad is teaching daughter, or son is teaching Mom, or the cousins (triplets, of course) are getting a harmonica orchestra together, etc. But I'm shifting more towards LW and Mature now. Okay, so the bored wife thinks the neighborhood kids would make a good band if she trained them right...

 

[Bramblethorn]

There is a show on SyFy filmed in a town I used to live in. There has been numerous car sequences were they go through the same junction two or three times in a row. Just from different points. Then they'll be in the next town over pulling into a parking lot.

Oh god, that reminds me of a SyFy movie I saw a few weeks back where an escaped convict travelled from Pretoria (South Africa) to somewhere in Australia by motorbike. Apart from a few shots of landmarks the "Australian" bits looked suspiciously South African too (black housemaids, wrong number plates, Table Mountain in the background of shots).

It felt like they'd started with a South African story, decided to shift it to Australia for some reason, but botched the rewrite.

 

[oggbashan]

Oh god, that reminds me of a SyFy movie I saw a few weeks back where an escaped convict travelled from Pretoria (South Africa) to somewhere in Australia by motorbike. Apart from a few shots of landmarks the "Australian" bits looked suspiciously South African too (black housemaids, wrong number plates, Table Mountain in the background of shots).

It felt like they'd started with a South African story, decided to shift it to Australia for some reason, but botched the rewrite.

One of the James Bond movies starts in Gibraltar including a long sequence with Bond fighting on a blazing LandRover as it careers down a road from the top of the Rock.

That road isn't long enough for a quarter of the action so they used it four times over.

The Carry On films were made very cheaply in studios with a very few location shots in locations close to the studio. Their furthest excursions were to Camber Sands for the Sahara Desert in (Carry On) Follow That Camel and a Welsh sheep farm for the Khyber Pass in Carry On Up The Khyber. In both movies, and in Carry On Camping, the cast were freezing cold because they were dressed as if in hot climates and filming in an English winter. In Carry On Camping they spray-painted the all-pervading mud - green to look like grass.

 

[Athalia]

The only thing that does get to me is when someone attempts a fight scene-and I mean more than one person smacking someone, I mean an actual fight- and just botches it. I don't see writing a fight scene as much different than a sex scene as far as describing two people doing something to each other, yet there are serious flops out there.

Which may be another function of the effect of the movies and TV. Real fights don't look anything like the ones the media shows. They're clumsier, more brutal, sometimes bloodier, and usually over before you know it. But when actors try to portray a fight authentically on TV or film, it comes across as somehow "not realistic" because it doesn't match the audience's expectations of what a fight is supposed to look like.

But going back to the topic, I recently edited a story of Jehoram's about a photographer in the Los Angeles area in the 1960s. As an editor, I felt it incumbent on me to catch mistakes and anachronisms, but I don't know squat about photography (except that cameras won't work if you hold them backwards), or LA (except that I get hopelessly lost every time I visit there). I had to accept his assurances that the technology of photography was accurate. As for the location, I was grateful that he simply referred to the location as the "L.A. Area" so that I wouldn't have to worry about whether a Woolworth's happened to be on a certain corner of the neighborhood he was describing. It could have been a mythical enclave of the region without anybody being the wiser. If he had described a specific location, such as "Wilshire Boulevard," I'm sure that a savvy local would know that there was never a Woolworth's at that location. But he didn't. Moral: Be vague wherever you can, without calling attention to it.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Tell me about it, I just had to google detective rankings.

Yeah, in a recent story I just finished I had to google the current enlisted ranks of the Air Force...they have changed since I was in back in the '70s.

If it wasn't for the web, I would have never even known of the change.

 

[redzinger]

I'm sure if someone was monitoring the sites I frequent, they would get very worried.

I spent a fair amount of time a couple of months back researching the UK handgun laws, Army and Police ranks, what to do if you lose your passport abroad, how facial recognition works, how to sneak in or out of the country under the radar, the most common crimes in South Wales and how to travel there, different drugs, forensic analysis and to top it off, male bondage.

Is there any other occupation apart from writing which would make it non-suspicious to be finding this stuff out?

(Btw, got talking to a police friend who works at Heathrow with a massive gun strapped to him most of the time. He answered my questions about most of the above, and was willing to find out even more for me. Fascinating.)

 

[Hypoxia]

Challenge: Write one or more stories where ALL the details are WRONG but the sex is so hot that nobody cares.