Back again

Lilysmom1 · ‎11-08-2020

Lilysmom is now Satomi. Nice to be back. Currently reading American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. It is a story about a Mexican woman forced to flee her family because of cartel activity she has inadvertently become mixed up in. Very good start. S.

maximillian · ‎03-12-2010

@Lilysmom1

Good to have you on Book Club forum. I read that title. It is quite emotional The author was criticized for some factual items; I was never clear why that came up, since it is clearly a work of fiction.

Lilysmom1 · ‎11-08-2020

@maximillian , thanks for the welcome. I agree with you...it is a work of fiction so one wonders why that is an issue. I read a book once that was also a work of fiction but locals panned it because some of the geography was incorrect. Street names were wrong. Maybe it is something like that. LM

smoky22 · ‎05-30-2010

@Lilysmom1 wrote:
Lilysmom is now Satomi. Nice to be back. Currently reading American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. It is a story about a Mexican woman forced to flee her family because of cartel activity she has inadvertently become mixed up in. Very good start. S.

Hi @Lilysmom1 I have to get used to your new name. Can you share with us why you chose that name? It's ok of you don't want to. Glad to have you on the book forum, whatever name you choose.

ETA: I just read that Satomi is a named variety of the Kousa Dogwood. Sounds beautiful.

"everybody counts or nobody counts"

Lilysmom1 · ‎11-08-2020

@smoky22 , Satomi is an ornamental dogwood tree. The trees flowers for long periods (6-7 weeks). Each year it's blossoms get larger and deeper in colour. Here are some photos from my garden.

It's good to be back! S. AKA Lilysmom

SWEET · ‎03-09-2010

@Lilysmom1 wrote:
@smoky22 , Satomi is an ornamental dogwood tree. The trees flowers for long periods (6-7 weeks). Each year it's blossoms get larger and deeper in colour. Here are some photos from my garden.

It's good to be back! S. AKA Lilysmom

@Lilysmom1

Welcome back. Pretty name and flower. I'd never change my name unless I had to since I've worked very hard to get the # of posts I have now. LOL

gardenman · ‎03-09-2010

@Lilysmom1 wrote:
@maximillian , thanks for the welcome. I agree with you...it is a work of fiction so one wonders why that is an issue. I read a book once that was also a work of fiction but locals panned it because some of the geography was incorrect. Street names were wrong. Maybe it is something like that. LM

Different readers expect a different level of reality. Sci-fi readers accept pretty much anything regardless of how absurd. There are very few accurate depictions of space travel in sci-fi. You're far more likely to find people just zipping from galaxy to galaxy at the speed of light and then instantly stopping. The acceleration and deceleration seen in sci-fi would have everyone in the ship a bloody smear on the back wall of the ship when it accelerates and then a bloody smear on the front wall when it decelerates.

In general fiction, you're expected to keep things generally accurate. Most writers do a lot of research and if you misname a street or something, it's just sloppy. I'm writing book four of my Sara X series now and some of it takes place in the LA area and I've pulled up maps, satellite photos, street-level photos to be sure I nail the local details. Readers escape into a book. When they find something obviously wrong it pulls them back out of the book. You don't want that as a writer. You want them to live in the book. You don't want anything to pull them out of the book.

We had a long discussion about this on the old Amazon Breakthrough Novels Award forum about whether it was more important to be completely accurate, even if it defied beliefs, or to keep the reader in the story. An example was on comparing Africa and America. As a rule, Americans think of Africa as a vast, untamed wilderness and America as a settled more developed country. In reality, America has more wilderness than Africa while Africa is more developed. If there's a character in your book who wants to get away from civilization and see an untamed wilderness and comes to America, most readers will think the writer is crazy. Send the character to Africa though and everyone accepts it, even if it is wrong.

Some writers said you always must be one hundred percent accurate and even use your writing to educate the reader. I tend more towards the need to keep the reader in the story and not stress widely held beliefs. You can do a bit of a tweak on widely held beliefs from time to time, but writing to reader's perceptions is often better for keeping the reader engaged. Now on things like using the wrong street names, that's just sloppy writing and poor research.

Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!

Lilysmom1 · ‎11-08-2020

@gardenman , yes that is it exactly. An error pulls you out of the book. In the one I referred to, street descriptions were in error. People jumped all over that. It didn't distract me because I was not familiar with the street location. S AKA Lilysmom