When do facts get in the way of a good story?
Let's talk
Is it possible to know too much?
Think back about the novels you’ve read and loved – are there some that you love less or in spite of some details the author got wrong?
How important is it for you to link a piece of fiction to the author’s own life? Does it make the story more interesting to you?
Can you remember any story - on the page or in real life - that was ruined for you by knowing too much?
What’s going on here?
This week, I’m going to shut up (mostly) and invite you to fill in the blanks. As I mentioned with the inaugural “Let’s talk” question, I’ll be doing this once a month - introducing a question or a prompt and seeing where it takes us. Instead of lots of links, I’ll try to leave a little space for you to jump in.
This month’s topic was triggered, in part, by my brother who read a book I sent him by an author I really like. The thriller takes place in a rural part of the country and cars, particularly muscle cars, play a significant role in the plot. My brother has long lived in rural New Hampshire and has been driving and tinkering with cars since he was nine. I thought he’d appreciate it.
He wasn’t happy. Apparently a reference or two to one model of car or another was wrong. That small detail itched and burned as he turned every page and even though he finished the novel and appreciated the storytelling, he could not love the book.
A writer friend of mine is confounded and sometimes frustrated when members of her book discussion group prefer to talk about how close the book is to the author’s real life rather than how the book works on its own merits. “Why can’t they just accept the story as it is?” she asks?
Then there is my husband who refuses to watch movies starring actors he discovers are assholes in real life. The list of shows and movies we can watch together is shrinking daily.
Finally, there are those of us who are fixated on figuring out how the book is going to end before we get there. I have been known to read the last pages of certain books when I’m only half-way through just to see if I’m right about how it will go.
One time I told my teenage son how his real-life love story would end. Not my finest hour. In my defense, he and four of his friends were packed into my little Mercury Lynx just after their graduation from eighth grade. The car nearly exploded with testosterone and the euphoria of finishing school. They were talking about girlfriends. My son had just finished the year by connecting in some way (don’t ask me what that way was, I don’t know and don’t want to know) with one of the power-girls. The idea was that these girls would get these braying, giggling, spotted, sweaty, cute, and really loud boys off to a great start come freshman year of high school.
“You know what’s going to happen?” I said, probably in retaliation to the head-splitting energy in the car. “Those girls are just going to pretend they don’t know you and start dating a senior just as fast as they can.”
“Nawwww,” my son shouted in disbelief. “Nawww…” yelled the others.
The first week of freshman year came. My son came home one night subdued. The girl had dropped him, hard. There were rumors a senior was interested.
I may have been factually correct, may have predicted the end with spot-on accuracy but I felt awful about it – some stories need to unfold on their own.
So, while I sleep off the effects of my most recent COVID booster, here are those questions again:
Think back about the novels you’ve read and loved – are there some that you love less or in spite of some details the author got wrong? What was the book? What were those details?
How important is it for you to link a piece of fiction to the author’s own life? Does it make the story more interesting to you?
Can you remember any story that was ruined for you by knowing too much?
Two reads I loved this week
Jim Ruland of Message from the Underworld, made me think about beginnings and endings in new ways as he spoke about the passing of his father-in-law.
We move through our passions. White hot in the beginning, cold and brittle at the end. But the end is never quite the end, but an arbitrary point in time we may not even be aware of until the memory of a place, a scent, a work of art returns us to a place it comforts us to call “the beginning.”
In this essay, Courtney Cook of Survival by Book, reminded me of why I loved libraries as a kid and still cherish them now: they are big. Even the smallest one-room library contains worlds and stacks to hide in or discover. And no one ever says to stop.
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That’s it for this week but before we go, send me the titles of some of the books you are hoping to read this summer. I’ll add them to next week’s Spark along with some great reads and ways to find more so we can all get the beach/hammock/shady-tree/your-favorite-summer-spot reading season off to a good start. If you’d like to start browsing in advance, check out the books at the Spark Community Recommendations page over at bookshop.org. If you buy, you’ll be supporting local bookstores. Any commission we earn will support a literacy program selected by the community.
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Ciao for now,
Gratefully,
Betsy
P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…Digging deep
Meet Lilly. She is not digging for facts, or knowledge, or truth. She is digging for gophers. She has just joined our household. There is more to this story and I’ll share it soon but for now, if you need any excavation done - she takes her payment in kibble and every rodent she can find.
Here she is with a clean face:
Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”
What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.
Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed.
I can’t wait to see what you send!
I'll start by telling a story about my dad. He was an avid reader, grew up dirt poor. One of his brothers also loved to read and they had to share whatever cheap paperbacks they could find. My dad was a fast reader, so he tore the pages out as he went and handed them to his brother. Lol. I was appalled by that story of course as I treasured every book I could get my hand on, and until I went to school all my books came from the city dump. Later I learned that Dad also read the ends of books first to see whether he was going to like them or not. He taught me to read when I was four. We both read everything in view, including can labels, cereal boxes, old newspapers.
As for books being ruined for me, it doesn't often happen because of details, or my knowing too much, or the author's personal life (the less I know about the author the better usually). But I do require good writing and correct grammar (unless it's dialogue).
I read at least a book a week. I read poetry every morning, and fall asleep reading a book.
As for movies and TV, I will drop someone in a second and never look back. Woody Allen was the first to go, and I was a HUGE fan of his work. My list of never watch again grows daily. Thankfully, there seems to be a never-ending stream of new things to watch.
Thank you so much for Spark! I look forward to it every week.
I try to get the details right when I'm writing about something I'm not totally familiar with because it bugs me when someone-even one of my favorites like Elmore Leonard-gets something wrong.
One that recently made me toss the book to the ground was a teen character in Victorian England who compared something to the behavior of an aquatic animal on the ocean floor. All I could think was "Watch that on a National Geographic special on London Cable, did ya?"
Funny that this came up today because in a rush last night I may have made the name of a character somewhat implausible based on ethnic roots. I really try to get those types of things correct, though the American melting pot allows for some wiggle.