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!
The present time doesn't affect my characters, as my story is set in the past.
You leave me with the burning question "What was it you saw?" :-)
My main work is set in the future - so the real risk for me is that the future will catch up with me... or will I catch up with the future?
I know what you mean though. Even with a future context there is a need to refrain from the temptation to slot in daily events in the news. It is also necessary to avoid any clear "prediction" of things that might happen between now and "then".
On a much more prosaic note I find that it is always necessary to check my recall of any specific scenes. Just what did (and does) Regent street look like? At least we can now cheat and check places out with Google Earth and street view (whatever they are actually/precisely called).
It's just so unreasonable that reality keeps messing about and changing!
:-)