Tonight I watched a documentary that broke the hearts of most of my characters simultaneously. I could hear the disbelief, the anger and upset of each of them as I watched. It's a very strange thing when events in the real world take their toll on your invented characters. It's happened to me a couple of times, but never with such a blow. My story line will have to be altered to accommodate as there is no way this could pass by without their mentioning it.
Has this happened to you? Did you happen to be writing about Woolwich in 2013? Or further back did anyone suddenly have to remove a certain trade center from their story? Perhaps you wrote about a clear sunny day in downtown New Orleans in late August 2005!
Do you consider your reflection of social history when writing about the present day? Think about your understanding of Dickensian Britain and where it comes from. Does and should fiction written in the present day reflect the reality or do your characters exist in a bubble to maintain the reader's escapism.
Hmm, that's more than one question. Sorry!
Actually, that's the other thing. I've got a whole story line surrounding a Chechen terrorist group. It's actually a similar thing because the damage done by the war to a specific character makes him violent in his adult life long after he has moved to Moscow. It was supposed to be fiction but...
The documentary was the cash for questions one. I'm sure it seemed perfectly benign to most but Britons living in Fiji (as most of my characters do) were probably quite crestfallen at the use of their hopes for the future to prove a point. And it's not as if there ever will be an appg to aid Fiji now, is there. I know the journalist had to pick a cause but I do feel as if he actively damaged one in the process.
Hmm - I was thinking about this the other day.
A few weeks before the Boston Bombings I started writing a novel about Russian terrorists... It's been put on hold for the time being!
I think the best stories are about the turmoil and emotion of everyday events. I try not to include too much infomation that fixes a story to an exact time and place. One person's perception of reality is very different from their neighbour. I consider that's the root cause of so many family disagreements - altered perceptions of reality. So no, I've never had to alter a story line as a result of world events taking an un expected turn.
By the way, what was the dcumentary that affected you so much?