Impact of News on Story

[SEVERUSMAX]

I have just found out that one couple on whom I loosely based the stories "Quiet Desperation" and "Desperate Confusion" are getting divorced. I was wondering if I should let that affect the outcome of the next installment or not. Any ideas? I am leaning against it, however, as it is just a story and the characters don't seem to want a divorce, even if the real life people do.

 

[minsue]

That depends, are you writing fact or fiction?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Go with your authorial instincts, Sev

 

[Nostalgy_Prince]

Just my 2 cents (as an avid reader)

- option 1: you could do it, just for the sake of "authenticity" (but come on... where is the writer's freedom and creativity in that? You said after all

one couple on whom I loosely based the stories "Quiet Desperation" and "Desperate Confusion"

- option 2: don't mind the RL separation ... what could their life be in your hands/mind?

(hope I'm clear enough)

I'm leaning towards option 2 myself

 

[3113]

I have just found out that one couple on whom I loosely based the stories "Quiet Desperation" and "Desperate Confusion" are getting divorced. I was wondering if I should let that affect the outcome of the next installment or not. Any ideas? I am leaning against it, however, as it is just a story and the characters don't seem to want a divorce, even if the real life people do.

Even though you may be based the characters on these people, it doesn't mean that the characters should do as they do. First of all, characters DO take on a life of their own. As you say, they're "loosely based" on these people. So you've given them personalities that are not exact to these people. And what they go through in your story is not what the real couple went through. So they become their own "people." Leaving behind those they were based on.

Secondly, you have to do what's right for the story. As we've been discussing in several other writing threads, truth is stranger than fiction. And some thing happen in real life that you'd never believe if you read them in a story. It's not that divorce wouldn't be believed...it's whether divorce between the two characters that you've created and developed in this story would be believed.

If you just can't see them getting divorced...and readers can't, then don't.

In the end, the very best thing to do...ask the characters what they want to do. And trust them.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Go with your authorial instincts, Sev

Thanks. I was leaning toward keeping them together anyway. I guess the characters were very different from the real people, after all. Not surprising, as one can't see all sides of most people.

And minsue is right. It IS meant to be fiction, not fact.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who sees it that way. That's one thing about a story. The characters become people themselves, with their own distinct personalities. All of you have reinforced my inclination to keep them together.

 

[chris 44]

Hooray, creative fiction triumphs again...

 

[minsue]

And minsue is right.

Can you tell that to Matriarch? After inserting an always, of course.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Hooray, creative fiction triumphs again...

So it seems.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Can you tell that to Matriarch? After inserting an always, of course.

I COULD, but would she believe me?

 

[minsue]

I COULD, but would she believe me?

How good a writer are you?

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

How good a writer are you?

According to my slave, the best. According to others, that's a matter of dispute.