Thanks to Mike Cartoon Pony for indirectly inspiring this post.
Yes, this is a series now. Woo. It's not going to be especially structured or appear at regular intervals, but then this is me we're talking about here; what do you expect? :D
Something that's always pleased me in ponyfic is when an author takes the trouble to get background details right, or simply to add a fun little Easter egg. Sometimes these are little bonuses that the reader probably wouldn't even notice if they weren't familiar with the subject, but which give those readers an extra smile or two. For example, a story I read a while back1 had a glancing reference to the Theresa May/field of wheat story, which I doubt anyone much in the US has ever heard of. It amused me so much that I had to stop reading for a moment because I was laughing so hard.
1 The Cloptimist's very good Red/Yellow, PR 249.
It's also very satisfying as an author when you've done this and someone compliments you on it. It happened to me recently, in the "background research" sense rather than the "Easter egg" one with The Unbearable Lightness of Bucking, for which I did a reasonably significant amount of preparatory reading on existentialist philosophy. (If you haven't read the fic, trust me, it is relevant.) Although it's perfectly possible to enjoy the story without that knowledge, I was delighted when someone who clearly did know the subject complimented me on my use of it. It was a lovely feeling.
Thanks to Mike Cartoon Pony for indirectly inspiring this post.
ReplyDelete[Friendship Is Magic squee sound effect] This ghost does aim to please.
It's a common point in many writing books/pieces of advice, if writing about a subject you're unfamiliar with, to do research and familiarise yourself with it. It's a very easy thing to ignore or dismiss, but as you note, when that effort is taken, it's so great, for both the writer and the reader. Even a subject you, the reader, knows nothing about can still seem more authentic as a result.
And getting compliments for authenticity is always nice. [squee sound effect]
I absolutely agree! The old writing advice chestnut, "Write what you know," has often been taken to mean don't write about things you haven't personally experienced, but I think that's way too limiting. If you're writing a story set among ice fishermen, you can read several books about the subject and watch a lot of videos for research, without having to freeze your butt off on some god-forsaken Canadian lake!
DeleteThe fates help you if you just wing it, though. Particularly nowadays, some fanatical ice fisherman will most likely show up in the comments to rake you over the coals, and a gang of them will show up outside your house with badly spelled carboard signs to protest your cultural appropriation of their hobby. XD
Sure, not having personal experience didn't stop Edgar Rice Burroughs from crafting Tarzan and many other adventure tales from his cozy corner of Britain! Or Hergé on Tintin!* If authors abided by only writing what they personally knew, we'd be deprived of much of our great genre fiction.
DeleteHm, now I'm wondering what research you might have done for The Celestia Code (and, I suppose, the sequels)…
* Showing which side of the Atlantic I live on with these examples, heh. Though it's well documented that Hergé did extensive research for every fantastic locale he said Tintin and co. to, the highlight of which has to include months for a two-part storyline set for the moon.
Well, quite - to reduce the argument right down to its most inane form, none of us has ever been, or met, a magical talking pony (indeed most ponyfic authors haven't spent time with real horses either, although how germane that is is obviously open to debate!), but writers and readers alike still share the specialist knowledge of potentially thousands of hours of exposure to the universe, and can plausibly be expected to quickly identify whether somepony is acting out of character.
Delete(Emile Zola was the poster child for in-depth research of things he had no personal experience of. After he got famous he wangled things like trips down coal mines and rides on steam train footplates to get the details right for those who'd be checking, but in his early career - when he was a struggling jobbing journalist without two francs to rub together - he wrote a novel about the decadent lives of the ultra rich, based solely on hours in the library devouring etiquette manuals, fashion magazines and furniture catalogues, that was hailed as so accurate that more than one aristocrat and financier claimed to have been the inspiration for the story.)
@Mike
DeleteI mainly drew on my personal experience as a swashbuckling airship captain. ;)
BTW, I love the Tintin books, and one of the things that attracted me to them as a kid was the impeccable and believable portrayal of "exotic" foreign lands.
@The Cloptimist
Modern writers get a lot of credit for doing that sort of research. An incentive to being that dedicated to realism and accuracy is that (in the US, at least) if you write a book with a couple of scenes set in, say, Stone Town, you can deduct an entire four week vacation to Zanzibar from your taxes.
Thanks for the shout out! The reference in question was much more of an Easter egg than the other examples - I was thinking about things a filly might do in an isolated rural area which would seem rebellious from their perspective but laughably innocent to everypony else, and realised the Prime Minister had already given one which was not only perfect for the setting but which would also give a hopefully amusing reader bonus to anyone who picked up on it. So far, Logan, you're the only person *anywhere* who has commented on it as far as I know. But it was satisfying when it happened!
ReplyDeleteGlad to be of service! :)
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