Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

So I was proud of myself thinking look at me finishing my 20th nano (even if we were doing it adjacent to them this year) Nano kept saying I started in 2004 But I always thought I had done my first you while living in FL. Then I remembered that nano had lost data years ago. Well they must have recovered it. It was year 21 this year....I DID start in FL in 2003 (I remember it doing a story Evil Little Dog still likes and asks about) Either way, I've done good. We're not talking about finishing today though. Nope not ready.

I was thinking more about talking about dating your story. Okay every story will have some datedness as time goes on but there are ways of making that worse. But let's get to that in minute.

Sometimes we want to date a story to set it in its time frame. Like my abovementioned monster hunter story which I started for nano 19 and finished two days ago or so. It's set in the 1980s and you need more than no cell phones/lap tops to set that time period. I use popular clothing choices (gloria vanderbuilt jeans, swatch watches), music and even movies to set it perfectly in 1986 (Aliens, though I need to check, I might have messed up and had them going to Princess Bride which is 87). This is a good form of dating. I want you to feel the 80s. (Nothing I hate more is someone making a big deal of their time period or their setting, let's say Paris, and it could be any time and any city because there's nothing to set it there)

On the other hand, putting in too many trendy references in a story you don't necessarily want dated. I just finished skimming (because it wasn't great) a book pubbed in 2006 and maybe it was written 10 years before because so many of the references were from the late 80s early 90s. And the author used them so damn often. it was like...fill in dated reference. Some things are timeless (Wizard of Oz, The three stooges) and even if we think they are, they probably aren't. My students, for example, may not know who the stooges are.

So maybe use those references sparringly. If you comparing your character to someone you run that risk of someone reading a book 10-20 years down the road (like me and the aforementioned boredom) we have no idea who you're talking about (this is the one thing that's great about fantasy, no worries on datedness)

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Comments

[justphoenix]

Oddly enough, we were just talking about this in critique group on Saturday! One of our members submitted a chapter set in the late 2000s, and we were talking about some period details to add. Music? Home design trends?

I like my period details to fade into the background. In my now-on-hiatus WIP, I have a few flashback scenes set in 2000/2001. I have the characters get a new DVD player and one guy playing Quake in his school computer lab. Since it's set in Boston, I also have a throwaway line about college kids daring each other to jump into the Charles River, which was full of sewage at the time (it's much cleaner now).

[cornerofmadness]

Yeah definitely anchor that chapter in the time period. right now I'm reading something set in North Dakota (picked it for a challenge) and I couldn't tell you where this is. It's SO generic.

You can certainly over do it. I think little details like you're describing would certainly help.