For Want of a Nail - Misha Route (Updated 11/1/19)

[Helbereth]

As I'm writing in a serialised format, from the point of view of one character, a lot of things happen without the story commenting on them - because Hisao is unaware of (or at least not paying attention to) their occurrence.

Believe me when I tell you that I'm well aware of this, having spent the past 18 months working on a story that differs in character, but views its world through a similar lens. Something Mirage_GSM once mentioned on my TD thread is why I bring this up:
"It also had me wondering if Yamaku doesn't have any students other than the named ones and if so, where they are all the time."
Basically, Yamaku has ~300 students and faculty, so statistically some of them should show up once in a while.
My response was less than understanding at the time:
"I have an odd rule about throw-away characters -- I hate them with a burning passion. I'd rather have people think only the named characters exist than fill the world with faceless bystanders who contribute nothing but wall-dressing."
In the 17 months since that exchange, I have concluded that I was wrong. Other people - those often nameless, sometimes faceless bystanders - can add flavor to the story, and as long as it's executed reasonably well and isn't just senseless fluff, it helps to breathe life into the surrounding world, and makes it just that much more real - believable. At least that's my opinion, anyway.

[Vempele]

"I have an odd rule about throw-away characters -- I hate them with a burning passion. I'd rather have people think only the named characters exist than fill the world with faceless bystanders who contribute nothing but wall-dressing."

The you of 17 months ago would have loved Cross†Channel.

[Helbereth]

"I have an odd rule about throw-away characters -- I hate them with a burning passion. I'd rather have people think only the named characters exist than fill the world with faceless bystanders who contribute nothing but wall-dressing."

The you of 17 months ago would have loved Cross†Channel.

I have no idea what that means. All I know is that a year and a half and another 300,000 words later, I've learned to appreciate those seemingly inconsequential characters.

[dewelar]

stuff

I wrote no such thing! Fix your quote tags!

So, there you have it. Certainly not canon, but probably as researched as we'd be able to do. And there are always alternate interpretations you can take if you don't like this result. Personally, I see it as an opportunity. Besides, drunk drivers and car accidents on a holiday? Who can argue with that?

Yeah, honestly, if I'd been more diligent in my own research (I've gotten better, I hope) I would have done the same thing. My only excuse is that I was a newbie to writing fanfiction . Granted, Developments might have gone in a completely different direction, and I like where it went, but now I feel a little unclean about the whole thing...

[Helbereth]

Yeah, honestly, if I'd been more diligent in my own research (I've gotten better, I hope) I would have done the same thing. My only excuse is that I was a newbie to writing fanfiction . Granted, Developments might have gone in a completely different direction, and I like where it went, but now I feel a little unclean about the whole thing...

Don't beat yourself up too much, I probably completely borked huge portions of the calendar in writing Tomorrow's Doom. My Tanabata fell on July 8th if I remember right, which is apparently wrong for the region. The only thing I figured out with reasonable accountability is that the 3-day weekend actually falls where I put it in the narrative, due to it likely being associated with Sea Day, which is a Japanese national holiday that fell on the weekend preceding the 16th in 2007.

[dewelar]

Yeah, honestly, if I'd been more diligent in my own research (I've gotten better, I hope) I would have done the same thing. My only excuse is that I was a newbie to writing fanfiction . Granted, Developments might have gone in a completely different direction, and I like where it went, but now I feel a little unclean about the whole thing...

Don't beat yourself up too much...

Yeah, I hear you, but...well, I get pretty crazy when it comes to research and details. I do things like check what phase the moon was in on a particular date if a character is going to make a comment about it . Still, I know there's nothing I can do about it now, so it's only going to bug me somewhat.

[Helbereth]

I do things like check what phase the moon was in on a particular date if a character is going to make a comment about it

Haa... Every time I have Aiko mention the moon on a particular day, it's following the lunar schedule for 2007.

The place I give myself leeway is weather. Sometimes it just needs to be raining for various reasons; either for dramatic effect, or simply to keep the characters indoors, or force them to walk under an umbrella. Other times it has to be burning hot outside, and last that way through a whole week; a heat wave, if you will, that makes people irritable, changes their clothing choices, or perhaps forces them indoors to hide in the air conditioning. Then there are the days when the cosmic tumblers align and it's perfectly comfortable outside, at which point you might trap your character in a classroom, a cubicle, a toll booth, or some other place that prevents them from enjoying the first nice day in weeks, or perhaps give them a break and let them out for a nice day at the beach - and maybe a shark attack. This is why authors note the weather in their stories: it can really screw with someone's world.

Anyway, yeah... I think being obsessive over the minutia is the mark of a good, thoughtful author. It can be maddening, which is probably why authors drink so much, but all the greatest authors probably put a lot more thought into the mechanics of their stories than ever shows up on the page. That's why I love when there are appendices at the end of a novel, or behind-the-scenes footage on DVDs: they're like a little window into the creative madness of the author/director/actors/etc., and witnessing their madness helps me feel less crazy.

[Atario]

I do things like check what phase the moon was in on a particular date if a character is going to make a comment about it .

Haa... Every time I have Aiko mention the moon on a particular day, it's following the lunar schedule for 2007.

I thought I was a little loony HA! for doing this… (I did it without character mentioning it, just to set the scene of how dark/light it is out… ¬_¬ )

[bhtooefr]

I thought I was crazy for checking Weather Underground for historical weather at EGPE (Inverness Airport) and RJSS (Sendai Airport), for Enjoy The Silence.

(Although I only did it for the awkward small-talk between Lilly and Hanako...)

[Helbereth]

I thought I was crazy for checking Weather Underground for historical weather at EGPE (Inverness Airport) and RJSS (Sendai Airport), for Enjoy The Silence.

(Although I only did it for the awkward small-talk between Lilly and Hanako...)

Dude, I checked the lunar cycle once just so two sentences about Aiko looking at the moon through her window would be chronologically accurate. Two. Fucking. Sentences. Turns out it was - almost - a full moon on that particular day.

As for weather, I'm also less of a stickler about it because meteorology still has trouble predicting its fluctuations. You could say that in one universe, it might rain on a particular day, but because of something that happened differently in another universe - like, say, for instance, someone farted in Malaysia - the rain was postponed, or arrived sooner, or turned into frogs, or perhaps it caused a rip in the atmosphere which invited solar radiation that turned all the rain into glass, resulting in the worst case of a baseball through your neighbor's window ever conceived - the sky literally falling as huge chunks of razor sharp, deadly glass. Can you imagine the size of the dust pan you'd need to pick all that up? It'd take weeks! And then you've still got a hole in the atmosphere letting in radiation that apparently has mutagenic properties. Good luck with that...!

I think I've been watching too much Doctor Who...

[griffon8]

I had to get the author of Misfiled Dreams to change a line in the latest published chapter because the moon was below the horizon at 4am in western Massachusetts in mid-December, 2004.

[dewelar]

Well, then, I may be crazy, but at least I'm in good company! As far as weather goes, I tend to be in Helbereth's camp of letting the plot dictate what the conditions are.

[Mirage_GSM]

This is the Youth Hostel the group is staying in in "Tripping".
I also looked up train schedules from Sendai to Sapporo, planned out day trips with google maps and lots of other minor stuff.
I'll have to take some liberties with distances in future chapters for story reasons, though...

[Atario]

I love it. We're all obsessively checking details that no one is ever going to bother thinking about, much less calling us on if we fudge them. Guess we're all trying to avoid this guy.

[ProfAllister]

I love it. We're all obsessively checking details that no one is ever going to bother thinking about, much less calling us on if we fudge them. Guess we're all trying to avoid this guy.

In all honesty, I don't think we're avoiding that guy. I think we are that guy.

Personally, I don't stress out too much about meteorological phenomena. If it turns out that they contradict the historical or natural order, I'll blame it on magical girls and the power of French Love Ships.

On the other hand, I do put a lot of thought and effort into all sorts of little things that few, if any readers will catch. I'm certain I've already frustrated my editors quite a bit on that. ED: "I don't get it." ME: "Yeah, I didn't expect you to."

But I think that ties back more to my reasons for writing. I like having an audience, and I like the praise, but really, I just want to write something that I feel deserves to be written. Being seen is great and all, but a good job doesn't get any less good because no one notices it.