First off, happy, happy Valentine’s day!
Now let’s quit the mushy stuff and focus on writing.
How does what happened yesterday affect your story?
I’ll give you two examples to consider.
Example #1 –
You based a story in Southern California in 1979 with a teen girl as your protagonist. A coming of age story. Something light and filled with girlish dreams and meandering around the sunny beaches.
Sounds like a nice tale, right?
Now through the lens of history. What was happening at that time and place?
Well, a team of serial killers were trolling for young teen girls in the Southern California area.
Therefore, the actions and reaction of the protagonist might be different. Maybe she’s less open to strangers. Maybe her parents aren’t as free with her. Maybe she’s not allowed at certain places.
Example #2 –
Not his example actually happened to me. I wrote a book based on my protagonist looking remarkably like Heath Ledger, who was alive and well at the time.
A week after I finished the book, Heath Ledger died of a drug overdose.
Both his death and how he died impacted my novel. People would have assumptions about my character. Or the time and place of the novel. And an emotional response to the tragic ending of Heath Ledger.
My advice when writing is two-fold.
First, keep your eyes on current events and climate. Do your research, even if you don’t think it will matter in the long run. Better to know than to be sorry about a factual error.
And secondly, understand that every reader comes into your book with a e=wealth of knowledge, experiences, and views. You aren’t going to make everyone happy. But seeing as your job is to keep the reader entertained, you should consider who said reader just might be and the events that impact your narration.
Has something like this happened to you? Have you used an icon, or a place, and then learned information that changed the perspective of your story?
Good advice. Thank you.