Urgent Poll

[dr_pretentious]

I've been writing this novella about a professional astrologer for an insanely long time. My magnificent husband is giving me this weekend off from the kids so I can finish the manuscript, and I am so, so close. From the first, I've been trying to get the plot to line up in something like real time with the weeks in 2004 when the story happens. The effort has made my head explode.

Now I've discovered a major breakdown in the relationship between the story's chronology and the real-world astrological timing. It's a big screw-up, entirely my own error, and would probably add a couple of weeks, at least, to the time it takes me to finish the manuscript. I'm on the brink of throwing the ephemeris out the window and sticking with the sequence I've got. What kills me about that option is that it's possible to get the details right, and it's even possible for me to get the details right. I'm just not sure what the trade-offs would be in terms of time to completion or story logic if I do.

So, a poll:
[Poll #1849091]
Thanks, guys.

Comments

[violet-moon25.livejournal.com]

You know I love this story already and have been cheering you on for years. I'm so excited to hear you are this close. I can see why it is totally frustrating to hit an obstacle now.

I would take a middle of the road opinion on the astrological stuff. I have very casual knowledge of astrology and probably wouldn't notice the discrepancies. If I were to notice I might be bothered if you distorted the meanings of the various astrological phenomena. If would never be bothered to check against the real astrological calendar. Possibly some people might and you may have a number of Serious Pagan readers. What is the trade off for you in terms of time? Also, is it the kind of thing that would bug you forever if you don't just fix it now? I believe writer's group is tomorrow if you need more opinions but we will be at my parents' so David won't be there. I can give you a quick read and feedback anytime this week but we go on vacation in about 10 days. We will have internet on vacation so I could read stuff then too but the the packing and travel will take some time.

[kistha.livejournal.com]

I agree with Violet_Moon - The pagan aspects and your own internal cranky might make it worth doing.

[amushink.livejournal.com]

However, if you mess up medical stuff, I do and will roll my eyes and think less of you.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

That's why you're one of the first people I ask when I need to get a medical detail right. I rely on my friendly experts' crankiness to save me from the literary equivalent of going to a job interview with my shirt inside out.

[aberdeen.livejournal.com]

I think a great majority of people won't have the background knowledge to recognize if you're making shit up.

The people who would recognize it will probably be like the medical community about medical writing, the law enforcement community about law enforcement writing... etc. And my experience with those sorts of specialists is that some of them care a lot, and some of them don't care at all.

Personally, I think it's awesome cool when someone gets all the details right, but I'm not going to ding someone for fudging stuff, especially if it's necessary for the flow of the story.

[mindseas.livejournal.com]

I think it ultimately depends on why you're writing this story. If your main goal is to be free of it so you can get on to other things, then why worry about little details? If you think you might still care about the story in ten or twenty years, will the few days or weeks it takes now to get it right really be a big deal? Also, if the story remains in publication, or you gain a large audience, the little mistakes will eventually come to light and become known to all. Then again, maybe you don't care if that happens. Probably AC Doyle didn't care that details about horseracing were wrong in "Silver Blaze," but of course he didn't really care about Sherlock Holmes at all. He probably got the details right in his historical novels. And we all know that ERB got loads of stuff wrong in his Tarzan novels and Mars books, but they're still classics. But I wonder along with Violet Moon whether you could just fix the astrological details later.

[laradionne.livejournal.com]

I was oh, so tempted to vote the "just tell me the frikkin' story" option because my knowledge of the finer details of astrology is limited and I probably wouldn't notice, but then I realized that if you were making up fudgy details about tai chi or medical stuff, I'd probably take it amiss. So I went with the "it wouldn't affect me terribly" middle of the road vote. I'm going to guess, however, that you'll probably feel more virtuous in the long run if you fix the finicky stuff that you actually *can* fix before the story is printed.

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of what Rachel just said. I think she also voted as me, by mistake, but I haven't seen fit to change anything she chose.

Generally, I'm not an astrologer, and if you get the astrology 100% right, and get it certified by an expert, that'd be cool, but if you get it wrong I won't notice, and I think most people won't. I've seen any number of books or movies in which some expert or self-proclaimed expert announces that this aspect or that aspect was in error, and I don't think many people cared, unless the errors showed significant disrespect for another culture, the reader response was "So what?" or at worst, "Damn, but I love that story anyway." Heck, even major cultural appropriation didn't keep Avatar or Dances with Wolves from making massive amounts of money.

I did cut a scene out of "Over My Shoulder" (aka "Burning Tracks") because I'd realized I got the NYC subway system wrong, but I'm seriously thinking I may put it back in when I compile the stories into a book. My thought is:

IF mulling over the correct astrology gets gears turning in your world and makes elements of the story bounce off of each other in new and compelling ways,
AND when you tell Dan this weekend was helpful but you're still not done, a careful examination of his face reveals no desire to throw things,
THEN do the rewrite.
BUT...
UNLESS you can satisfy all of the conditions listed, then I would suggest that you leave the story as is, but add an afterword saying ...
EITHER that you apologize for the error in astrology, and spell out what the correct movements of the stars and planets would be for those concerned,
OR that followers of Ptolemaic astrology may find some of Ria's readings confusing, because she follows the Afikomeic tradition from Egypt, which is believed to have originated with Hatshepsut.

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, that last suggestion (aka, "then go to the French book, for I have it not") could be done in-story instead of an afterword--write some late-19th-century crank into the books on the shelves at the store, and then whenever the story demands that you go with your errors instead of conventional astrology, simply observe what the traditional reading would be, and go on to say that Ria is following the post-Copernican astrologer thus-and-such instead. Can't you just see her doing that?

[criada.livejournal.com]

I like this idea, because astrology really can be such an arbitrary thing. (It bugs the hell out of me that the real world planet/constellation alignments don't equate to the ephemeris.) Hell, for me, that would add to the realism. (I believe in a certain amount of effectiveness regarding astrology and magic and psychology, I just don't think there's an actual physical effect of planets on us.)

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Clever, crafty man! I like this idea a lot.

I wouldn't be sufficiently informed to notice errors in astrology. You want to know how to make sure your massage table's the right height? I'm your woman.

In my family, it is impossible to watch a tv show or film that involves computers, police procedures, ambulances, clerical and secretarial work, domestic chores, massage, mythology, veganism, small children being well-behaved, the armed forces, or gardening without howls of protest and derisive laughter. As has been noticed, people forgive a lot when it comes to things they're unfamiliar with, and very little when it comes to things they just know don't work like that. I doubt most people will be familiar enough with the minutiae of astrology to notice errors.

[temporus.livejournal.com]

Can you live with yourself if you get the details wrong? Because if you can't, then all our opinions kind of go out the window.

Otherwise, the question becomes can you tell with a few hours worth of work, whether getting the details break the story in such a way that you can't still tell the story you wanted to tell, or not. If you can't, you have to then ask yourself, can you still tell a good story, and is the new version a story you want to tell. If the answer to any of those becomes no, you can't do what you wanted, and you don't like where it takes the story, and that's not a story you want to tell, then you have to decide is it more important to tell the story you want or be right with your details.

As to the details, are we talking the kind of thing where in a medieval recreation group someone would have to take a magnifying glass to the fabric and sit and count all the threads per inch and say: no way could they have had cloth with that high a thread count! Or is it something that would be noticed using the 10' rule, like someone wearing sneakers over their hose. If it's the latter, I couldn't live with that if I knew better. If it's the former, I'd sacrifice that myself, if I knew it meant I got exactly the story I wanted to the audience. The number of people willing to count threads and who would even know what is acceptable is relatively low. In the middle will be a harder call, and each of us will figure out where we draw the line.

Good luck, I hope you figure out what you need to keep going to completion.

[jasminewind.livejournal.com]

Here's what I think:

If you are going to talk about astrological things, you should be correct in the sense that things should move in a way that is possible for them to move, be in a way that is possible for them to be. They should be technically correct. HOWEVER, it is, to me, beyond the realm of necessary for an astrological chart of our world at that time to line up perfectly with the astrological chart of that world at that time. After all, your character is living in a world where there are ghosts negotiate labor conditions, amazing civilizations build radios out of light and song and astral dogs protect ancestral homes from ancient egyptian con men. This is not my world, it is theirs and it is okay with me if the astrology is not the same. : )

Mostly, though, I just want to *read* the story!!!!

[showingup.livejournal.com]

This is not my world, it is theirs

NICE! In which case, slight "errors" become subtle clues to the otherness of the story's universe.

[puckmls.livejournal.com]

If you make the astrology plausible, that works for me. If your astrologer-character gives interpretations of planetary positions and aspects that are not correct, that does NOT work for me. So, make up any chart you want, but make sure it's explained properly. Does that make sense?

Can't wait to read your story! Go you!

[wombats.livejournal.com]

It depends upon the depth of the error. If it's a nit, the casual reader won't be notice and if pointed out to them, probably wouldn't care. A person that's an expert would probably be pleased to have "outsmarted" the author and read the story with a bit of smugness. There will be the few that get their undies in a knot and will blow a fuse, oh well... If it's bigger than a nit, then you run the risk of having a broader audience begin to question the story line, thinking it's now contrived just to fit the whim of the author. You might lose them on that level. If you can cover it over with some sort of mini-sideplot, as Thunderpigeon suggests, assuming the problem can be made plausible, it might well amuse those that know and those that don't won't be the wiser. And lastly, if it bugs YOU, there's no hope but to re-write it, just as temporus suggests. As that many attributed quote goes, "If I don't practice for three days, the audience knows. If I don't practice for two days, the orchestra knows. If I don't practice for one day, I know!"

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

Please don't have two new moons a week apart.

I wouldn't be able to spot a problem in the astrology, and I won't look things up in an ephemeris or almanac; but I would notice errors in astronomy if they were blatant enough.