I have, for more than two years now, been a member of the Bartholomew County Writer’s Group, and since its start the BC Story Spinners. Each group has in general the same goals but approached from different directions.
The Writer’s group is a general discussion of stories and parts of stories read aloud at the meeting. Story Spinners is a detailed critique of snippets of submitted stories.
One can create the most interesting cast of characters ever written, and the story still not be compelling because the setting and details are not believable within the setting laid forth.
This has lead to some rather intriguing questions, answers, and discussions in both groups. Sometimes the questions are, well, bizarre and hauntingly disturbing, and sometimes they are just a detail that needs to be accurate because we each know some reader out there will look at it and say, “this isn’t right.” We are always challenged on what seems at first, minor details. But it is those details that are the story.
For instance, one member is writing a horror story. I am not one to read horror stories. She needed to know… Never mind. Let me say it was disturbing and I believe the question will never be topped. The question needs an answer, the entire story demands it, but someone in The Cube Farm of Paranoia may take it wrong.
In our last last meeting, a question was prompted from a discussion of a snippet of a murder mystery, and the use of a silenced .22 Long Rifle.
And here is where it gets sticky. Years ago if one needed an answer to a question, all one had to do was spend time at the library searching through draws of file cards. If the question was not too alarming, one could even approach the Librarian for the proper resources. The “Restricted” Section was at the discretion of the local Librarian, someone who in most cases knew you and your writing and the motives behind your research. She or he would give that knowing smile and point you in the right direction.
But today, in a post 9/11 world and the internet, some of those questions can lead to the questioner finding themselves on one or more list which can limit travel and other liberties. Researching for a book or short story is no longer protected speech as it were. I mentioned several books that might shed light on the use of silenced .22 rifles and was met with wide eyed shock and protests of “Even searching for those titles will cause trouble.”
The sad fact is those protests are not without merit. So much so, that I will not here mention the names of the books that would be of help to a writer of murder mysteries.
I was careful with writing White Hot Skies, in avoiding quoting reference materiel to include titles of the materiel, lest someone in The Cube Farm of Paranoia decide for reasons only he or she knows, to add my name to some list for which I don’t have the money to hire lawyers to be removed from and have my liberties restored.
I understand the need to be aware of threats, but whatever happened to logic, context, and commonsense?
“Word bad, word wrong, word dangerous. Bad word make man bad.” Click. “Bad Word man now be watched for more bad words and cannot travel by air now.”
I wish that readers would see that as a complete joke, but anyone online has read news reports were someone being funny or sarcastic was fired for such and not hired back even after the likes of no less than the FBI clear them.
We are not writing “How to…” books or short stories, nor are we preaching sedition or treason. We are researching our stories in order to better entertain. We ‘MacGyver’ out minor details that give vital information on how to make it some or most all of it work, but give enough so the reader is shown it works and is entertained. Or I should say we try to, but because of the The Cube Farm of Paranoia, it may be imprudent to do the proper research.
To The Cube Farm of Paranoia, words are not bad of themselves, they are just tools, like a paint brush.