But I digress...
Most of the characters are ancient gods who have fallen on hard times and now live as caretakers, fortune tellers,etc. It is a wonderfully well researched book, incorporating mythology and religious practices from around the globe. Some less palatable than others.
Mr Gaiman also took certain liberties. He 'invented' a few facts to fit the narrative. Nothing wrong with that. It's a writers' job.
However, some lazy ass researcher has since written a reference book that includes these 'facts'. (Apparently they thought a work of fiction was a credible source!) Other writers have copied this in their reference books, and we now have a situation where fiction is quoted as fact by several independent authors.
I thought this was amusing until I encountered similar idle work this week.
I spent several days writing and perfecting a synopsis for the WW2 story I previously mentioned. I based this on information from a documentary. (Documentaries are my idea of a good time. That and pizza...) But, when I started to do a bit of research of my own, I discovered that a lot of the 'facts' in this programme were either incorrect or blatant lies!
How are people allowed to get away with this? How come someone can make a documentary when they haven't even bothered to check their info? Now I have to scrap the synopsis that I worked so hard on and start again.
It frustrates me that such indolent people can get jobs in tv, and I can't.
*Shakes fist at the Universe* Bah! Humbug!
**person who knows nothing about scripts or TV pop in**
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to simply write a good script or story ~ and loosen up on the *THIS IS 100% ABSOLUTE CONFIRMED FACT* part?
If you were writing a documentary...I get it ~ but I don't think you are (but I don't know what you're writing??)
...so can't you just take a good story and plug in some history?
Case in point ~
George likes Billy Joel ~ he has a song called 'The Ballad of Billy the Kid' ~ nice enough tune..but *completely* historically incorrect....so much so that it's part of trivia games and such....but it was a *huge* hit....because it's a nice, catchy song.
It fulfills all the requirements of a good song ~ without fullfilling most of the requirements of historical accuracy. Can't you do the same?
This post was not saying 'How am I supposed to make this 100% accurate?' It was venting my frustration at people who misrepresent facts, leading others to then quote them as being true.
ReplyDeleteNo-one ever writes a '100% absolute fact' screenplay. It's impossible. I wouldn't try.
But the selling point here is that this is BASED ON A TRUE STORY - so I need to know what the facts are before I begin. That way I can decide which bits to use.
Case in point... part of the story is that a woman was shot and blamed it on escaped German soldiers. She later died. The documentary said her husband was proven to be the real killer and was a violent and abusive man who murdered her during an argument.
The truth is that he was on pain meds and suffering from depression. He was also AWOL from the army, had a wife in Canada, and was 'living in sin' with the murdered woman (with whom he had a son). They were only pretending to be married.
This guy couldn't cope. He tried to kill himself. She tried to stop him and got shot in the struggle for the gun. I don't call that murder but they hanged him anyway, orphaning his child.
Which of those would you use if writing this story? Which provokes a more visceral response?
They didn't even get the number of escapees right. That's kinda important.