You don't have to be right, just convincing
I've just biked from my workshop in Hoxton to the Gherkin, 30 St Mary Axe. A good day to do it, though the weather is cold and blustery. (Call this June? Huh!) Few cars and vans, just red buses careering around in packs with a gleeful freedom non-Bank Holiday traffic does not allow.
I went to get a feel for the building close to, and take some photos, as part of my WIP is set there. In my fictional 2018 London, twenty metres of snow cover the city, and only the taller buildings are visible. One of my characters conceals his snowmobile inside the Gherkin. I've studied the website carefully. Of course, what I'd really like is to wander round the building, camera in hand, but this is not possible. Luckily, it's not necessary either. I can make it up.
Because in fiction, you don't need to be right, just convincing. I don't know any Security Service officers, but no readers have yet complained that Nick Cavanagh in Replica is an unbelievable MI5 spec op. Probably because they don't know any either. Nor has anyone said the scene set in the Dorchester in Remix with information gleaned from their website and Google Street View lacks verisimilitude.
My advice: do all the research you can, go to the places that figure in your books, talk to people doing the jobs your characters do if at all possible - then make the rest up. Do it well, and nobody will know.
N.B. If any Security Officers are reading this and wish to put me right, email - I'm very discreet :o)
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K.A.
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Jun 09, 2012 10:51AM
So true!
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Thanks K.A. - you're not a Security Officer by any chance...?
No - sorry. Just an IT Geek, stay-at-home-caregiver, part-time farmer and writer. LOL
Enough material there for any number of books. I would seriously like to be an IT Geek.
IT is a great field - always something new and different to learn. Not female friendly for the most part, the bosses don't seem to know what to do with a female Geek. The pay is good, even at the low level I was at (phone support for Internet).I miss the money - but not the job.
Phone support people can be awful or so nice you want to send them flowers for fixing your problem. You'd have to be patient dealing with the inept and clueless (i.e. non-geeks) all day, I guess.
I found it to be interesting - when someone called, they had a problem they wanted me to solve. So I had a puzzle to play with.Some of the puzzles were very hard to solve. You never know what you are going to get.
You were clearly one of the flower-deserving support people :o)
I did very well - and was well-liked - until I made the mistake of going over to a contractor on Ft. Knox. Suddenly, I could do no right. It was very discouraging. That's about the time I joined Authononmy and posted the first book. It was instant addiction - which didn't help my attitude at work a bit. LOL
Authonomy was addictive. I'm totally cured now :o)
I'm still going back occasionally...can't quite break the addiction.
Has Scott Pack improved Authonomy at all?
There hasn't been as much drama in the forums - I haven't read many threads, I may have missed something. A few of the old rabble rousers are gone. There were meltdowns that made it to 'Encyclopedia Dramatica' which is a troll site.
I don't know which books (if any) have been published from the site. He promised 1 per month - which is insane IMHO - but he seems to have only published 1 this year. Then they are digital editions - not paperbacks.
I don't see how he can cherry pick when the best books have already been published by their authors.
I suppose naive new writers are still joining the site, and some will be good. But results for the one book Scott Pack has published this year seem underwhelming - I do wonder whether she'd have done better on her own.
There is that - any author with half a brain won't sign a contract with a company that...under proforms on their promises.
One can see the temptation - HC waving the possibility of a print edition if the ebook sells - but there seemed little or no promotion off Authonomy. Terrible to sign away your rights then get so little out of it.
Too bad they don't know what they're doing. OTHO - a first book is just a first book.
I use mine as an experiment - always trying things like Select (which worked in the UK, but not the US.) Just to see what happens.
Or it may be her first publishable book, which is another matter...The UK and US Amazon algorithms are not always in sync, I think.
Amazon algorithms give me headaches. (Swallow the Moon is still free, a week after it went paid on Sony. GRRR!)Absolution's 'daughter' is a troll on Authonomy now. (yawn) Trolls appear to breed true.
Poor soul, having Asbo as a dad. Unless it's him using her account. Now he was addicted.
Oh yeah! I think it's him. Using the same 'write a nasty thread all the way to the ED' technique that worked in the past.(Rolling eyes)
