"...I must judge her on is her ability to realistically
portray police
procedure, and, in that respect she comes a cropper."
This surprised me because my enjoyment of Shannon, or any
writer, doesn't
rest so wholly on getting the details right. For instance, I
could care
less as to whether Ellroy's LA or Willeford's Miami is
precisely accurate.
I accept these places and what is in them as a fictional
world, just as I
would a science fiction world. As long as the world seems
generally
accurate, I look for realism in probability of behavior and
event within
the given world. After that, I'm interested in the style, the
way (as
Chandler once observed to ES Gardner) good sentences or
dialogue can slide
the reader right past the improbabilities.
BUT, having said that, I recognize in JD's comment, a
tendency in readers
who specialize; we tend to want "reality" in our novels. We
prize writers
who do their research, and get the names, ranks, and
geography right.
Mystery/HB fans are most exacting in this regard. Hence the
occasional
attacks on writers who insert characters who, in the mind of
the reader,
wouldn't exist in "reality," or the recent query about how
many of us come
to reading hard-boiled fiction with real hard-boiled
experiences. [The aim
of the query, I take it, was to examine our credentials.]
Also, the
comparison of writers' experiences with their fictions, with
some favoring
the writers with experience (Hammett), some favoring writers
who seem to
create a greater part of their fictions (Chandler), some
declaring it
doesn't matter.
So where do rare-avians line up on the "Reality"/"Realism"
axis? [Defining
the first extreme as setting up a standard of factualness,
verifiable
details as the main thing; the second as raising plot or
character
probability higher in the scheme of things, over accuracy in
the details.]
Do you have to "trust" the accuracy of the world before you
can enter it,
or do you look first for something in the story
elements?
Apologies for the length. Hoping we can start some new
threads, since our
old ones seem frayed or singed.
Bill Hagen
<billha@ionet.net>
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