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“Life is an adventure, not a package tour.” – Eckhart Tolle
“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass |
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Have you read the accounts of the hospital front lines? I suppose the place doesn't matter right now, whether it is New York or Italy or somewhere else. There's a quality of surrealism to it, that we can't really be living in times like this.
My biggest question to you is - how can you bring that realism to your story? I know we're not all writing about a virus that has no community immunity. Most of us aren't ready for that right now. Some of us never will be.
In a war, it's the small details that bring things home to the reader or watcher. When Mulan picks up the doll on the edge of a ravaged village, it isn't that there is a specific number of deaths. It's one child's pain to lose a doll, to leave it forgotten in the snow for someone else to find.
For me, I think about the refrigerator trucks, and how all of the labels have to be scrubbed from the truck before it's used for the dead. Otherwise people associate whatever company with death and refuse to buy their products anymore. Those trucks are never used for food again, and they are donated to the cause (with compensation, I believe) with the knowledge that truck is never going back to the company. It only took one company going out of business to square that away. Not this pandemic, but another tragedy.
Often, in writer's groups, I'll hear that a new writer had the tragedy and none of the characters were changed by it. I've been that writer in the past, too. I found it hard to take another look at the circumstances and see what else happened. There's a grit to tragedy and trauma accumulated over the extraordinary circumstances of books that will leave a mark. The same is true for the modern time.
Dig deeper. Put yourself into that world. If it isn't real until you experience it, put yourself as close as you can to it. One writer I met left his office window open in winter to feel the appropriate level of chill. What is it like when you lose that many people within one community? Name them and see the holes they leave when they're gone. Jones is no longer the baker and he no longer sells the bread. Dr. Peabody is gone and his clinic is boarded up. This isn't just the business side but also the personal side of their circles.
What happens for exile, when you can no longer speak that person's name again? No longer see any representation of that individual? Many of the characters in my Dungeons and Dragons worlds have detailed backstories but we never talk about them. Ever. Why not? Isn't that what brought your character to this point? Don't we even think about the things that brought us to here?
In my office, there's a sewing machine. It was my grandmother's, though she hated to sew. I think of her when I sit there. My daughter's dresser was my father's, and it reminds me of him. My son's furniture was mine when I was 16, and I think about how I felt when I received it. Items hold memories, whether I got it for my wedding or for a gift. Touching it or using it brings that up, too. This is the realism that we forget to add.
Now there is a place where that's all too much. That someone can't focus on the tiny details because we've made it overwhelming for the reader. There's a fine line between she wears that dress every Friday to connect with her best friend and sister, who wears something very similar, to talking about where the fiber was grown and how it was woven together and finally designed to come into creation. Find that line, but make it real for the reader.
I hope you're all staying safe and that your worlds face different dangers than we currently shelter from. |
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Monty 
Now you can call shopping an adventure for sure, paper products, canned goods and even deli has taken a big hit. Sometimes even fights over these things, now that is action.
It is, and I hope to not witness it.
willwilcox
I'm not quite sure why toilet paper is the 'be-all and end-all' to the virus. I guess they think as long as I got this, I'm safe. 
That one baffles me, too. One of the local bridges is known as truck-eating bridge, and just after this newsletter ate a truck of ... toilet paper. On a rainy day. Oh well!
SB Musing 
It's crazy out there for sure and you can use it for inspiration too. But, yeah, some great points and a great article.
Thanks!
Quick-Quill 
A great idea. Put your character into this situation. What would they do? It doesn't have anything to do with your story but what would they do in this situation. There is a great contest about WHAT A CHARACTER. Its about a character's homecoming. What better way to enter this contest as to a character coming home to :Quarentine? a self quarantine and hunker in the bunker? What better way to show what prepared people do? They obviously are way ahead of us.
That's a great idea. I hope it turned out well.
charitykountz
You raise some excellent questions and I like the idea of using the experience to shape a character. I'm sure it will definitely influence my characters in the future.
That may influence all of us for some time.
tj ~ endeavors to persevere! 
Crazy as it sounds, I watched a woman grabbing up rounds of salt a few days ago, all that was on the shelf. It's good to know that even if she has no food left, she has a lifetime supply of salt!
Salt? Maybe she's planning to save some fresh meat?  Maybe she's got an exorcism scheduled? Who knows? I have purchased salt, but only one box, and only because we were almost out.
What new things have you become aware of in the last month? What has made you thoughtful? |
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Action/Adventure: April 15, 2020 Issue [#10119]
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