How do you handle a situation where a subject comes up that's in the news?
So, I've been working on my Valentine's Day story which features a guy with a fake internet girlfriend and now this Notre Dame guy with his own fake internet girlfriend is all over the news. If I'm setting my story in the present (the story starts about a month before Valentine's, so pretty much right around now), should I have a character mention the similarity to the newsworthy case, or would that just make my story feel dated when some future reader finds it?
I suppose I have to guess how relevant this Notre Dame guy's fake internet girlfriend will be in the future.
It seems to me
It seems to me that you could make a general reference to it without mentioning the athlete by name or the date.
What goes around...
There's been a movie and a tv show on the subject, too. So a mention of the current media mania would be okay, or don't bother. Up to you. :) If you DON'T mention it though, expect half of the comments you get at first to do so. LOL.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
If you talk
about the real story in the past tense (like Monica says, without any name or date anchors), then your story should avoid seeming to be 'dated'.
T
I'd ignore it
I'm not sure how interesting the Notre Dame story is beyond the US. I'm a football fan, but don't like College that much nor Notre Dame, So it isn't going to have much staying power with me. I say just write the story you had planned.
{{Hugs}}
Notre Dame
To most in Europe, Notre Dame is this big stone cathedral thing in Paris, optionally with a hunchback swinging from the rafters.
A US meaning? Well, the settlers in the US reused about every name from their homelands they could lay their hands on, so we're not surprised to find something there called Notre Dame, but I've no idea what or where it is.
Penny
Notre Dame is both
a U.S. A. university as well as a French Cathedral/Church. if you mention the topic, explain which Notre Dame. And that they got whupped by the Alabama Crimson Tide football team for the National Championship.
May Your Light Forever Shine
I think the context, intent is probably quite different
The big question (as far as I can see) with the Notre Dame story has been whether the football player was deceiving or deceived.
I'm guessing your story doesn't have the same slant as the news story, and neither are the first instances.
I'd say that if it helps your story in some way, pull the news story in, but if it doesn't help just ignore it. It'll soon get knocked out of the news cycle by some politician's sex scandal.
Good grief!
I also made the mistake of setting my story in Boston, so now it looks like I may have to work the biggest blizzard in a decade into the mix.
If you need a tow...
On the positive side, if your story requires that a car gets towed, you will be all set.
catching up
You may not be still looking for responses on this idea - speaking of timeliness.
IMHO, do not feel obliged to refer to the Notre Dame guy just because it was a news event. If the needs of the story - the story that you want to write - demand it be mentioned, then that is the story. But don't feel obliged to refer to external events merely because the events have more or less resemblance to events in your story.
Maybe an example or two better communicates what I'm trying to say?
When H.G. Wells wrote 'War of the Worlds', he made no reference in it to the madly popular 'invasion novels' in the U.K. at the time. Not even to the fact that his plot was a fairly faithful repeat of the first, seminal 'invasion novel' but translated into full-blown science fiction. Today, nobody reading 'War of the Worlds' finds that they need to have any of that mentioned in the novel. Mary Shelley doesn't draw us into a discussion of the real-world events that helped inspire her story, she just gives us the novel 'Frankenstein' and we are happy.
There are other versions of 'Frankenstein' and 'War of the Worlds' that could have been written, using overt external references. Equally valid versions. Which version Wells or Shelley ended up writing just depended on which version they felt called to write. You say tomato, I say tomato.
In other news: congratulations so much on resuming writing T fiction again. You can look forward to more than just two of us being very happy to read whatever you post here. All your stuff has made a real connection to me. :-)
Annie