Writing Blog Number 2

20241018 Utilising Present Day News In Stories

Utilising Present Day News In Stories

So, you see a great story in a newspaper, on the news, on a news site, and think, That would make for a great story! What do you do?
         Well, duh - you write the story!
         Okay, it's not that simple. You have several approaches available to you, so let's look at them.

1) Writing The Story
First, you can write the story. Now, if it's a non-fiction retelling, you do you, but this is about fiction. So, we are talking a fictionalised account.
         If it is the actual story and you are recounting it, you need to have your facts right. You cannot make up facts. You might be able to get away with making up conversations, maybe add some extra characters, but if you are simply retelling a story in your own words as a work of fiction, despite it being fiction, the court system has proved you need to have your facts right or you could be sued.
         This does happen, though, and there are a lot of stories out there written with a real event as the story basis. Some things to be aware of, though:
* just telling the story is journalism, even creative non-fiction; you need to have a twist on it;
* you need to be a fast writer, because otherwise it will be dated; &
* writing about the main players involved can be fraught with legal danger.
         But it is worth considering.

2) Basing On The Story
The most common thing to do is to base your story on the actual story. What happened can be the same, but certain large details are changed - especially the people involved or the time it occurred - and so it is no longer the actual event/story, but something adjacent and with enough of the original story there that readers understand where it is coming from.
         This is really common in science fiction, by the way. However, because it has allusions to a real world event, it can become dated as well.
         You do still need to be aware of everything about including real people in it ("20240526 Using Real People In Fiction" ).

3) Using The Story As A Scaffold
This is when the story beats follow the event, but everything else is changed. This is the safest and the most common way to go. You know what happened, so use that to base a story on with completely different characters, setting and timeframe. It also means that, if well-written, it won't date the story.
         Given my druthers, this is the way I'd go.

4) A Jump-Off For An Alternate History
This what alternate history is: "20240912 Alternate History" .
         In this case, you use the events of the story as they happened, making sure you keep to the facts... until you have a deviation, which sets up an alternate history world. You need to be very careful with living people portrayals, as is the case all the time, but once it becomes alternate and there is a degree of speculation, courts have been a little kinder to these works. Because you are deviating, as well, there is less likely to be a dating of the tale.

How does this work in practice?
Let's look at all four of the above, and use the January 6 2021 attacks.
1) A journalist watching the Jan 6 attacks and wondering what has happened to the USA.
2) In 2017, Trump didn't win and there were attacks on the Capital at his subtle instigation.
3) In 2004 in El Paso, Texas, John Smith didn't become mayor, and he convinced his supporters to storm the town hall.
4) In 2021, the attackers took the building, and Trump used his supporters to hold the entire country to ransom, forming a dictatorship in the process.
         This is simplistic (and all have been written, which is why I used them as examples), but shows how one real-world story can influence the writing of some works of fiction.

Extra
I have collected weird newspaper articles and stories for nigh on 40 years (I actually started in 1984), and have 36 scrapbooks filled with them. They have resulted in maybe half a dozen stories and exactly 0 published works. So, while this does seem something that could help, and is something I persist in, I have to say, for me it does not work as well as I had hoped as a teenager.
         Still, you might have greater success than me. And i reckon it is definitely worth considering.
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