And don't get me started on that pop song from years ago about the "East Side" of Chicago. The east side is the lake.
And don't get me started on that pop song from years ago about the "East Side" of Chicago. The east side is the lake.
Het hem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side,_Chicago
IIRC Ed Vrdolyak represented the East Side back in the "Council Wars" era.
There is a community with that name, but the geographic east side of Chicago is still the lake. There's a difference between, "I live in East Side" and "I live on the east side."
By that logic, the east side of Illinois is Indiana, the north side is Wisconsin, the east side is split between Iowa and Missouri and the southern side of Illinois is Kentucky and a bit of Missouri, so basically Illinois doesn't actually exist at all. :icon_think:
I know that we are just tiny Hobbits in the grand scheme of things, but I want to believe that we can change something. Every single book, every single message matters in this fight.
Don't get anything wrong about guns. A beta reader told me that few people had heard of an Italian pistol I mentioned, so I did a blanket replacement with Glock. Big mistake. I mentioned the safety and got jumped on in at least one review and several e-mails. Glocks don't have safeties. I knew that, but I didn't pay attention to what I had changed. Gun people are protective of their domain.
2. I have found that the thing that keeps the Window of Disbelief™ from slamming shut is an Explaining Sentence™.
Now I'm getting nervous. In my WIP I have someone being shot with a Derringer pistol. I know the years they were manufactured match my book's time frame and that they only held one shot (unless you had the double barrelled type) and that the range was poker-table length. I've seen photos so I can describe it (or them, as they were usually sold in pairs). Anything else?
The only time I've ever named something that exists in this world as a brand was mentioning a fender stratocaster guitar. Otherwise, hell, I don't even mention car brands. All of my vehicles are "color-style", e.g. silver hatchback, black pickup truck.
I don't see this as much in books, but as a former teacher, I often wince over how schools are portrayed in TV shows. The most common patterns that irk me are teachers getting fired on the principal's whim, or students getting expelled the same way. In both cases, there are processes involved, and particularly in the case of student expulsions, the offense has to be pretty serious. I guess it doesn't occur to directors that a technical adviser might be helpful in situations like that.
Context is helpful. What did the kindergartner do to get expelled on the first day? And are you sure the kid was expelled rather than suspended? (The bar is much lower for suspensions, and people often confuse the two things.)I don't see this as much in books, but as a former teacher, I often wince over how schools are portrayed in TV shows. The most common patterns that irk me are teachers getting fired on the principal's whim, or students getting expelled the same way. In both cases, there are processes involved, and particularly in the case of student expulsions, the offense has to be pretty serious. I guess it doesn't occur to directors that a technical adviser might be helpful in situations like that.
This is true and its not. I've seen a student expelled from school the first day of kindergarten. Literally the first day.
I have also seen teachers fired willy nilly to. Until a teacher is tenured in many places the principal can get rid of them at any time for any reason or no reason. Once you're tenured it's harder, but that protection is different in each state.
I agree that fact checking is important, but points of reference change from town to town, state to state, and even country to country.
Interesting subject. It's a balance I suppose in some cases, because I do think Swain had it right in Techniques of the Selling Writer that you always want to drill down and be as specific or "concrete" (as he put it) as possible to maximize engagement with the reader, i.e. instead of 'steak' you'd say 'T-bone' or instead of 'car' you'd say 'Cadillac' because it's more evocative, paints a sharper image.
Cadillac doesn't paint a "sharper" image for me. This is actually one of my pet peeves in fiction. Do not tell me random car names. I don't know cars, and I don't care about cars. I don't know what a cadillac says about a person over a camry.
Your indifference to cars does not make using a car name wrong. I'm indifferent to fashion, but I am smart enough to realize that if an author calls out a specific designer when describing a scene, there is probably a reason for it.
"She walked into the room wearing a floor length Vera Wang wedding gown" says something different than "She walked into the room wearing a floor length wedding gown." I don't really follow fashion, but I recognize in the context that the dress in the first sentence means the CHARACTER follows fashion and that it is important to her. It also implies in context that the dress probably cost more than a generic wedding dress. And this could all be terribly important if we know, for example, that the character struggles to pay her bills or has financial problems, because then, hmmmm, wonder who paid for that dress?
Someone who drives a Toyota Prius has different priorities than someone who drives a Ford F-150. You don't need to know the difference between a Honda Civic or a Honda Accord specifically but telling me someone drives a Honda Civic does say something about the person as opposed to, say, driving a Shelby Mustang.
Everyone has a pet peeve. But it is never wrong to provide good description in context, including brand names, if it helps the story.
Using a brand name need not preclude specific description. It can be part of a specific description.Your indifference to cars does not make using a car name wrong. I'm indifferent to fashion, but I am smart enough to realize that if an author calls out a specific designer when describing a scene, there is probably a reason for it.
"She walked into the room wearing a floor length Vera Wang wedding gown" says something different than "She walked into the room wearing a floor length wedding gown." I don't really follow fashion, but I recognize in the context that the dress in the first sentence means the CHARACTER follows fashion and that it is important to her. It also implies in context that the dress probably cost more than a generic wedding dress. And this could all be terribly important if we know, for example, that the character struggles to pay her bills or has financial problems, because then, hmmmm, wonder who paid for that dress?
Someone who drives a Toyota Prius has different priorities than someone who drives a Ford F-150. You don't need to know the difference between a Honda Civic or a Honda Accord specifically but telling me someone drives a Honda Civic does say something about the person as opposed to, say, driving a Shelby Mustang.
Everyone has a pet peeve. But it is never wrong to provide good description in context, including brand names, if it helps the story.
I didn't say it's wrong. I actually think it's lazy, if I'm being 100% honest.
"She walked into the room wearing a floor length Vera Wang wedding gown," is different than "She walked into the room wearing a floor length lace wedding gown painted with crystals," is different than "she walked into the room wearing a floor length wedding gown."
Pretty confident a crystal-covered wedding gown also costs more than average, but you didn't have to say Vera Wang to get that across. And I agree, it could be very important if someone paid for the dress. I'm heavily into fashion. I love fashion, and I would still be irked if someone said "Vera Wang" over describing the dress. Vera Wang still doesn't tell me much because it assumes all her dresses are the same price point which they aren't. One could be getting one of her more affordable dresses over one of her top of the line dresses.
Plus, if she's struggling to pay her bills, what if she found the dress used at a thrift store? One could describe the Vera Wang dress as frayed at the edges, missing stones, off-colored. Then it's easy to say she could afford it over a description of "crisp white" and "diamonds glistening in ballroom's light". Once you go as far to describe the physical appearance of the dress, the brand label is unnecessary.
Your indifference to cars does not make using a car name wrong. I'm indifferent to fashion, but I am smart enough to realize that if an author calls out a specific designer when describing a scene, there is probably a reason for it.
"She walked into the room wearing a floor length Vera Wang wedding gown" says something different than "She walked into the room wearing a floor length wedding gown." I don't really follow fashion, but I recognize in the context that the dress in the first sentence means the CHARACTER follows fashion and that it is important to her. It also implies in context that the dress probably cost more than a generic wedding dress. And this could all be terribly important if we know, for example, that the character struggles to pay her bills or has financial problems, because then, hmmmm, wonder who paid for that dress?
Someone who drives a Toyota Prius has different priorities than someone who drives a Ford F-150. You don't need to know the difference between a Honda Civic or a Honda Accord specifically but telling me someone drives a Honda Civic does say something about the person as opposed to, say, driving a Shelby Mustang.
Everyone has a pet peeve. But it is never wrong to provide good description in context, including brand names, if it helps the story.
I didn't say it's wrong. I actually think it's lazy, if I'm being 100% honest.
"She walked into the room wearing a floor length Vera Wang wedding gown," is different than "She walked into the room wearing a floor length lace wedding gown painted with crystals," is different than "she walked into the room wearing a floor length wedding gown."
Pretty confident a crystal-covered wedding gown also costs more than average, but you didn't have to say Vera Wang to get that across. And I agree, it could be very important if someone paid for the dress. I'm heavily into fashion. I love fashion, and I would still be irked if someone said "Vera Wang" over describing the dress. Vera Wang still doesn't tell me much because it assumes all her dresses are the same price point which they aren't. One could be getting one of her more affordable dresses over one of her top of the line dresses.
Plus, if she's struggling to pay her bills, what if she found the dress used at a thrift store? One could describe the Vera Wang dress as frayed at the edges, missing stones, off-colored. Then it's easy to say she could afford it over a description of "crisp white" and "diamonds glistening in ballroom's light". Once you go as far to describe the physical appearance of the dress, the brand label is unnecessary.
Context is helpful. What did the kindergartner do to get expelled on the first day? And are you sure the kid was expelled rather than suspended? (The bar is much lower for suspensions, and people often confuse the two things.)I don't see this as much in books, but as a former teacher, I often wince over how schools are portrayed in TV shows. The most common patterns that irk me are teachers getting fired on the principal's whim, or students getting expelled the same way. In both cases, there are processes involved, and particularly in the case of student expulsions, the offense has to be pretty serious. I guess it doesn't occur to directors that a technical adviser might be helpful in situations like that.
This is true and its not. I've seen a student expelled from school the first day of kindergarten. Literally the first day.
I have also seen teachers fired willy nilly to. Until a teacher is tenured in many places the principal can get rid of them at any time for any reason or no reason. Once you're tenured it's harder, but that protection is different in each state.
I agree that fact checking is important, but points of reference change from town to town, state to state, and even country to country.
As for the second part, I was thinking of tenured teachers, and while rights do vary, I don't think there very many states in which a tenured teacher can be fired with no due process. (Given the national teacher shortage, I also think it's now pretty uncommon even for untenured teachers to be fired "willy-nilly." The reality is that districts struggle just to find people with the right credentialing, and most reasonable principals would know they may not be able to find someone better and might possibly end up with someone worse. In the school where I used to teach, a teacher was "non-reelected," (the term for firing an untenured teacher without cause in California). Before the next school year began, she was rehired because the school was unable to find anyone equally well-qualified.
I was making a general point, and I'd certainly concede that one could find exceptions to it. But in general, it is more true than not, particularly with expulsions. It's hard for me to find stats that aren't focused on racial disparities in expulsion rates, but every reference I kind find in a quick search cites expulsion reasons (from various states) that focus on things like weapon possession, violence, and drug dealing. So if the kindergartner came in and started selling heroin or came in toting a rifle, then expulsion might have occurred. But keep in mind that the initial decision to expel is different from the actual expulsion. I can't find in a quick search any state that doesn't have an expulsion hearing, and I found at least one source that cites a constitutional right to such a hearing.
Anyway, if I were a technical consultant on a school-related movie or TV show, and the writers wanted to do something that seemed exceptional, I'd suggest that, at the very least, some kind of explanation, even if was brief, also found its way into the script. If the movie or series were filming in an identifiable state, I'd check state law on it. If not, I'd press for the explanation if something atypical was happening. If 49 states require an expulsion hearing and one doesn't, I don't think the audience will necessarily assume the story is taking place in the one state.
Anyway, I doubt directors and writers are actually thinking about exceptional cases. I think it's more likely that they make assumptions without checking them out.
Your indifference to cars does not make using a car name wrong. I'm indifferent to fashion, but I am smart enough to realize that if an author calls out a specific designer when describing a scene, there is probably a reason for it.
"She walked into the room wearing a floor length Vera Wang wedding gown" says something different than "She walked into the room wearing a floor length wedding gown." I don't really follow fashion, but I recognize in the context that the dress in the first sentence means the CHARACTER follows fashion and that it is important to her. It also implies in context that the dress probably cost more than a generic wedding dress. And this could all be terribly important if we know, for example, that the character struggles to pay her bills or has financial problems, because then, hmmmm, wonder who paid for that dress?
Someone who drives a Toyota Prius has different priorities than someone who drives a Ford F-150. You don't need to know the difference between a Honda Civic or a Honda Accord specifically but telling me someone drives a Honda Civic does say something about the person as opposed to, say, driving a Shelby Mustang.
Everyone has a pet peeve. But it is never wrong to provide good description in context, including brand names, if it helps the story.
I didn't say it's wrong. I actually think it's lazy, if I'm being 100% honest.
"She walked into the room wearing a floor length Vera Wang wedding gown," is different than "She walked into the room wearing a floor length lace wedding gown painted with crystals," is different than "she walked into the room wearing a floor length wedding gown."
Pretty confident a crystal-covered wedding gown also costs more than average, but you didn't have to say Vera Wang to get that across. And I agree, it could be very important if someone paid for the dress. I'm heavily into fashion. I love fashion, and I would still be irked if someone said "Vera Wang" over describing the dress. Vera Wang still doesn't tell me much because it assumes all her dresses are the same price point which they aren't. One could be getting one of her more affordable dresses over one of her top of the line dresses.
Plus, if she's struggling to pay her bills, what if she found the dress used at a thrift store? One could describe the Vera Wang dress as frayed at the edges, missing stones, off-colored. Then it's easy to say she could afford it over a description of "crisp white" and "diamonds glistening in ballroom's light". Once you go as far to describe the physical appearance of the dress, the brand label is unnecessary.
I don't know that it's lazy, but rather I think using a brand name can convey various things to the reader. It could be a way of deepening the character without needing to go overboard with exposition, a form of shorthand. It can be part of an author's voice or lend characterization to the narrator who might come across with more specificity to the reader, deepening voice. Sometimes using brand names can further signify to a reader the genre or subgenre, telegraphs a style, or lets them know they're in the right hands or reading a thing with which they will resonate because it is material they tend to enjoy or it's a kind of treatment of certain material they tend to enjoy.
If I'm reading Bret Easton Ellis or Sophie Kinsella I think it'd be jarring not to see brand names, I think it lends something to their voice if not to their characters. It draws me into their worlds. If I'm reading some schlocky spy story because that's the experience I'm after, I imagine I would appreciate the flashy brand mentions. You can convey something similar to saying "Vera Wang" by further describing a gown in detail, but I don't want to get too wordy or purple, and Vera Wang pretty efficiently gets across what I'm after.
But a larger point could get lost in this digression, and that's the whole thing about being concrete. I think it's more evocative to the reader to say "thrift store" than just "store". That was more what I was getting at. You could say sedan instead of Cadillac, but even if you don't know cars Cadillac will, in most cases, evoke an image and paints a character a certain way.
Then there's the utility of the object itself which being specific can yield benefits, say in a chase scene where the vehicle's capabilities or nuances play a part. Same if you were hiding a body. There's a difference between needing to drop a corpse in the trunk of a Caddie and trying to hide a dead guy in a hatchback. One might convey the killer knows their craft, knows what tools they need, is competent. Another might convey they're a fool, or the story intrigues more because they're forced to make do with something of lesser utility. Possibilities abound.
More directly, I think my eyes would glaze over if the author wrote about the shape and size of a car or a trunk capacity as opposed to just conveying it directly by naming the make, model.
It's true many readers might not understand the distinctions in whatever subject areas, but I read plenty of books where I don't really understand the tech, or the subject matter but I appreciate that it's there because it does seem to add some authorial voice or authenticity to the story I'm reading. Mileage on this varies, of course.
Your indifference to cars does not make using a car name wrong. I'm indifferent to fashion, but I am smart enough to realize that if an author calls out a specific designer when describing a scene, there is probably a reason for it.
"She walked into the room wearing a floor length Vera Wang wedding gown" says something different than "She walked into the room wearing a floor length wedding gown." I don't really follow fashion, but I recognize in the context that the dress in the first sentence means the CHARACTER follows fashion and that it is important to her. It also implies in context that the dress probably cost more than a generic wedding dress. And this could all be terribly important if we know, for example, that the character struggles to pay her bills or has financial problems, because then, hmmmm, wonder who paid for that dress?
Someone who drives a Toyota Prius has different priorities than someone who drives a Ford F-150. You don't need to know the difference between a Honda Civic or a Honda Accord specifically but telling me someone drives a Honda Civic does say something about the person as opposed to, say, driving a Shelby Mustang.
Everyone has a pet peeve. But it is never wrong to provide good description in context, including brand names, if it helps the story.
I didn't say it's wrong. I actually think it's lazy, if I'm being 100% honest.
"She walked into the room wearing a floor length Vera Wang wedding gown," is different than "She walked into the room wearing a floor length lace wedding gown painted with crystals," is different than "she walked into the room wearing a floor length wedding gown."
Pretty confident a crystal-covered wedding gown also costs more than average, but you didn't have to say Vera Wang to get that across. And I agree, it could be very important if someone paid for the dress. I'm heavily into fashion. I love fashion, and I would still be irked if someone said "Vera Wang" over describing the dress. Vera Wang still doesn't tell me much because it assumes all her dresses are the same price point which they aren't. One could be getting one of her more affordable dresses over one of her top of the line dresses.
Plus, if she's struggling to pay her bills, what if she found the dress used at a thrift store? One could describe the Vera Wang dress as frayed at the edges, missing stones, off-colored. Then it's easy to say she could afford it over a description of "crisp white" and "diamonds glistening in ballroom's light". Once you go as far to describe the physical appearance of the dress, the brand label is unnecessary.
I don't know that it's lazy, but rather I think using a brand name can convey various things to the reader. It could be a way of deepening the character without needing to go overboard with exposition, a form of shorthand. It can be part of an author's voice or lend characterization to the narrator who might come across with more specificity to the reader, deepening voice. Sometimes using brand names can further signify to a reader the genre or subgenre, telegraphs a style, or lets them know they're in the right hands or reading a thing with which they will resonate because it is material they tend to enjoy or it's a kind of treatment of certain material they tend to enjoy.
If I'm reading Bret Easton Ellis or Sophie Kinsella I think it'd be jarring not to see brand names, I think it lends something to their voice if not to their characters. It draws me into their worlds. If I'm reading some schlocky spy story because that's the experience I'm after, I imagine I would appreciate the flashy brand mentions. You can convey something similar to saying "Vera Wang" by further describing a gown in detail, but I don't want to get too wordy or purple, and Vera Wang pretty efficiently gets across what I'm after.
But a larger point could get lost in this digression, and that's the whole thing about being concrete. I think it's more evocative to the reader to say "thrift store" than just "store". That was more what I was getting at. You could say sedan instead of Cadillac, but even if you don't know cars Cadillac will, in most cases, evoke an image and paints a character a certain way.
Then there's the utility of the object itself which being specific can yield benefits, say in a chase scene where the vehicle's capabilities or nuances play a part. Same if you were hiding a body. There's a difference between needing to drop a corpse in the trunk of a Caddie and trying to hide a dead guy in a hatchback. One might convey the killer knows their craft, knows what tools they need, is competent. Another might convey they're a fool, or the story intrigues more because they're forced to make do with something of lesser utility. Possibilities abound.
More directly, I think my eyes would glaze over if the author wrote about the shape and size of a car or a trunk capacity as opposed to just conveying it directly by naming the make, model.
It's true many readers might not understand the distinctions in whatever subject areas, but I read plenty of books where I don't really understand the tech, or the subject matter but I appreciate that it's there because it does seem to add some authorial voice or authenticity to the story I'm reading. Mileage on this varies, of course.
I agree. Personally I worry about legal issues involved.
It was funny I read a book and they totally messed up the visualizations by using brands for cars. The author had the MC being uber rich like multi million dollar house, but they are driving cheapy economy cars. Each time the author used the brand name of the car all the way down to the model. They weren't trying to make the person out to be miserly with their money which would have been the assumption. They just acted like this economy car was an ultra lux brand which was completely confusing in the book.
I agree. Personally I worry about legal issues involved.It always pays to be cautious, but this is an issue that has been much discussed, and, as far as I can tell, the same conclusion is always reached: It's OK to use trademarked names in fiction as long as you follow certain simple guidelines. A quick Google search produces a lot of hits. Here is an example: http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2010/12/can-i-mention-brand-name-products-in-my.html (http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2010/12/can-i-mention-brand-name-products-in-my.html)
I agree. Personally I worry about legal issues involved.It always pays to be cautious, but this is an issue that has been much discussed, and, as far as I can tell, the same conclusion is always reached: It's OK to use trademarked names in fiction as long as you follow certain simple guidelines. A quick Google search produces a lot of hits. Here is an example: http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2010/12/can-i-mention-brand-name-products-in-my.html (http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2010/12/can-i-mention-brand-name-products-in-my.html)
The four basic principles involved are fairly easy to remember, particularly the most important one--if you need to speak disparagingly of a brand for plot purposes, create a fictional one. Do not use a real one. (Strangely enough, people are seldom sued for saying good things about a company or product.)
Thank you for that. I was going to have the victim shot in the chest, but maybe the shooter should aim somewhere where he'd be sure to hit a major blood vessel. He was using the Derringer mostly because it was easy to conceal until he got close to his victim.Now I'm getting nervous. In my WIP I have someone being shot with a Derringer pistol. I know the years they were manufactured match my book's time frame and that they only held one shot (unless you had the double barrelled type) and that the range was poker-table length. I've seen photos so I can describe it (or them, as they were usually sold in pairs). Anything else?
Biggest thing with derringers is that the round carried very little energy and was tiny. Nobody should be slumping over dead from a derringer shot. If you got a major blood vessel, you could get your guy to bleed out in several minutes. Eye socket and throat are probably quick stops, but anything else usually means the victim is going to die of infection three days later. A thick wad of paper or too many layers of clothing can and will stop the old ones. They were a weapon of last resort.
maybe the shooter should aim somewhere where he'd be sure to hit a major blood vessel. He was using the Derringer mostly because it was easy to conceal until he got close to his victim.
Thank you for that. I was going to have the victim shot in the chest, but maybe the shooter should aim somewhere where he'd be sure to hit a major blood vessel. He was using the Derringer mostly because it was easy to conceal until he got close to his victim.Now I'm getting nervous. In my WIP I have someone being shot with a Derringer pistol. I know the years they were manufactured match my book's time frame and that they only held one shot (unless you had the double barrelled type) and that the range was poker-table length. I've seen photos so I can describe it (or them, as they were usually sold in pairs). Anything else?
Biggest thing with derringers is that the round carried very little energy and was tiny. Nobody should be slumping over dead from a derringer shot. If you got a major blood vessel, you could get your guy to bleed out in several minutes. Eye socket and throat are probably quick stops, but anything else usually means the victim is going to die of infection three days later. A thick wad of paper or too many layers of clothing can and will stop the old ones. They were a weapon of last resort.
Gotcha. One gory, gasping, throat-clutching, choking scene coming up.Thank you for that. I was going to have the victim shot in the chest, but maybe the shooter should aim somewhere where he'd be sure to hit a major blood vessel. He was using the Derringer mostly because it was easy to conceal until he got close to his victim.Now I'm getting nervous. In my WIP I have someone being shot with a Derringer pistol. I know the years they were manufactured match my book's time frame and that they only held one shot (unless you had the double barrelled type) and that the range was poker-table length. I've seen photos so I can describe it (or them, as they were usually sold in pairs). Anything else?
Biggest thing with derringers is that the round carried very little energy and was tiny. Nobody should be slumping over dead from a derringer shot. If you got a major blood vessel, you could get your guy to bleed out in several minutes. Eye socket and throat are probably quick stops, but anything else usually means the victim is going to die of infection three days later. A thick wad of paper or too many layers of clothing can and will stop the old ones. They were a weapon of last resort.
Go with throat. Great gasping gory death scene as guy chokes to death on his own blood. Always a good time to write those...
Don't get anything wrong about guns. A beta reader told me that few people had heard of an Italian pistol I mentioned, so I did a blanket replacement with Glock. Big mistake. I mentioned the safety and got jumped on in at least one review and several e-mails. Glocks don't have safeties. I knew that, but I didn't pay attention to what I had changed. Gun people are protective of their domain.
ask him how quick he could change the mag in an SKS, both of which were common weapons in that altercation.
ask him how quick he could change the mag in an SKS, both of which were common weapons in that altercation.
:littleclap
The SKS seems to have taken over from the Lee-Enfield as the archetypal Canadian rifle; pretty much every gun store here has a bunch of SKSs for sale. Mostly because you can buy a rifle and 1500 rounds of ammo for about $600 and it's legal for deer-hunting in a pinch.
So if you want to sell your book in Canada, don't have the character swapping magazines in his SKS, unless it's one of the modified ones. And then you should probably have them try three times to get it in because it keeps getting stuck on something.
The SKS seems to have taken over from the Lee-Enfield
Well, that's $600 Canadian, not $600 US, so the markup is less than it looks :).
I think the ammo crates are Mao-era Chinese army surplus. You'd have to buy something more lethal if you wanted to legally shoot a deer, but the surplus stuff would be fine for practice.
The SKS seems to have taken over from the Lee-Enfield
The Enfield .303 British is not to be underestimated. We learned about them at Arta Plage; they're the go-to in the Danakil for smugglers and traders. You can take a 500-meter potshot and disappear into the ravines before the echoes disappear, and it's too damned hot for anyone to chase you.
On fact-checking, I highly recommend La Legion's Desert Warfare Center if you really want to dial in your "hero crossing a desert wasteland" scenes. I learned a lot. :dance:
If you worked with and/or trained with La Legion, my hat is off to you, they're some of the toughest SOB's I've ever met.
Gee, and all I'm worried about right now is how to address the illegitimate daughter of a prince in medieval times. :shrug
Gee, and all I'm worried about right now is how to address the illegitimate daughter of a prince in medieval times. :shrug
"Your Royal Bastardessness?" Just spitballing, here.
As an aside, as of last week the 'mini' round version of Kalashnikov will be phased out, everything will go back to Sov 7.62 in both lengths. Troops hated the 'toys' and at first opportunity went back to 7.62.
What do you mean by "mini" round? Are you referring to the 5.45?
Thank you. My unit had the good fortune to work with 13e DBLE in the Horn of Africa. Batsh*t-crazy, fun-loving guys, yet professional death personified. There's a lot of their esprit de corps and general personae in the knights I wrote into my books.
I went on to attend Aguerrissement Zone Desertique at CAIDD, which ranks as the absolute hardest thing I've ever done.
And let's not forget 'it's just a scratch,' Yes, it may just be a scratch, but in a medieval society it can easy get infected and lead to your arm being cut off to save your life, if the amputation doesn't kill you anyway.You mean like this? grint
My WIP is about drug dealers using delivery drones. Apparently I bought into the myth that pizza houses were doing the same and had references to it in the narrative. Then common sense kicked in. Too many potential problems: safety, regulation, traffic, noise. A quick search verified what I'd suspected. If I hadn't had that rare moment of common sense, I'd have perpetuated an urban legend as fact in a story of fiction that's supposed to be believable.
Gee, and all I'm worried about right now is how to address the illegitimate daughter of a prince in medieval times. :shrugIllegitimate children of royalty were sometimes given titles of nobility (and perhaps also legitimized, though usually with a provision excluding them from the succession). For example, Henry Fitzroy, illegitimate son of Henry VIII, became duke of Richmond and Somerset. Robert Fitzroy, illegitimate son of Henry I, became the first earl of Gloucester. (It appears Fitzroy is sort of the royal English equivalent of Snow in George R. R. Martin's work.)
Gee, and all I'm worried about right now is how to address the illegitimate daughter of a prince in medieval times. :shrugIllegitimate children of royalty were sometimes given titles of nobility (and perhaps also legitimized, though usually with a provision excluding them from the succession). For example, Henry Fitzroy, illegitimate son of Henry VIII, became duke of Richmond and Somerset. Robert Fitzroy, illegitimate son of Henry I, became the first earl of Gloucester. (It appears Fitzroy is sort of the royal English equivalent of Snow in George R. R. Martin's work.)
Other cultures may have operated differently, but it's probably not hard to find historical examples is you're using a particular historical culture.
I wish I'd gotten more weapons training in the Air Force. It's the downfall of serving in peacetime, I guess. They handed me an M-16 and a nail, pointed me at the target, and let me go. I think I'd gotten a day of theoretical stuff, and then it was shoot some stuff, and now strip, clean and reassemble, double-time!I'm glad you weren't one of the occupants I moved into a quarter they didn't like when I worked as an RAF housing officer.
I'm no marksman (unlike my father), but if I'm pointing a gun at you, end of life discussions should have already taken place, 'cause you ain't gettin' back up again.