Personal Pets in Writing
This is a post I've been formulating for some time. It's taken a great deal of time to finally put it together. And there's a reason why. This is a subject that I've struggled with in my writing, so that's why I see it so much with other writers.
What am I talking about? Personal pets.
No I don't mean a writer's actual pet. What I mean are those persons, places, things, ideas that writers have that the read can just tell is that particular writer's personal favorite aspect of the world. There are good examples of this, and bad examples. For a while one of my books had a group that fell under the bad example.
I've written about this before, but the nation of Garrison that I created. At first the place came across as a sort of utopia. And it was terrible. When I read the original draft I have to shake my head. The people the government, life in general, it was nauseating. And not even well done at that. It had to change.
Don't get me wrong, I still like the idea of Garrison, but I knew that it wasn't believable. Heck, I didn't even believe it. That led me back to the original concept. What was this nation supposed to be? Well it is a military nation. Everyone is a part of the military. Regardless of occupation, all citizens are required to spend time in the standing army, and can be called upon at any time to march. That was the concept. That is what I built upon to make a place that I don't think a lot of people would like to live in, if I'm being honest. It is a place of black and white. For the people of Garrison, those who live there and accept that way of life there is almost no such thing as "gray areas".
I have found examples in other books where clearly the writer had a personal pet that they put in, and either didn't come to the same realization that I did, or they did, but their fix wasn't really a fix. And again I'm not going to say what author, or what series even. That's not the point. Negative reviews serve no purpose.
Anyway, here's what I'm driving at. We as writers have a job to do. We have to make sure that the worlds we create and the stories we tell are consistent. That we are consistent in what we do. It stretches the readers sense of belief, their ability to buy in to the story, when there is one person, place, thing, that has no real flaws. (Deities aside. That's for a different day). I don't know maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm reading too much into an issue that isn't there. If that's how people want to look at it, that's fine. As for me, well I'm just a newbie. I still have a lot of work to do.
What am I talking about? Personal pets.
No I don't mean a writer's actual pet. What I mean are those persons, places, things, ideas that writers have that the read can just tell is that particular writer's personal favorite aspect of the world. There are good examples of this, and bad examples. For a while one of my books had a group that fell under the bad example.
I've written about this before, but the nation of Garrison that I created. At first the place came across as a sort of utopia. And it was terrible. When I read the original draft I have to shake my head. The people the government, life in general, it was nauseating. And not even well done at that. It had to change.
Don't get me wrong, I still like the idea of Garrison, but I knew that it wasn't believable. Heck, I didn't even believe it. That led me back to the original concept. What was this nation supposed to be? Well it is a military nation. Everyone is a part of the military. Regardless of occupation, all citizens are required to spend time in the standing army, and can be called upon at any time to march. That was the concept. That is what I built upon to make a place that I don't think a lot of people would like to live in, if I'm being honest. It is a place of black and white. For the people of Garrison, those who live there and accept that way of life there is almost no such thing as "gray areas".
I have found examples in other books where clearly the writer had a personal pet that they put in, and either didn't come to the same realization that I did, or they did, but their fix wasn't really a fix. And again I'm not going to say what author, or what series even. That's not the point. Negative reviews serve no purpose.
Anyway, here's what I'm driving at. We as writers have a job to do. We have to make sure that the worlds we create and the stories we tell are consistent. That we are consistent in what we do. It stretches the readers sense of belief, their ability to buy in to the story, when there is one person, place, thing, that has no real flaws. (Deities aside. That's for a different day). I don't know maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm reading too much into an issue that isn't there. If that's how people want to look at it, that's fine. As for me, well I'm just a newbie. I still have a lot of work to do.
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