Inconvenient facts
Jul. 28th, 2004 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrIn the interest of story research, I went to the Aquatennial Milk Carton Races this past Sunday. I'd always planned to have Solveig be in a boat in the race, and I needed to work out some details. The idea was that because of some mishap, she ends up underwater, where a fish talks to her again.
I got to the race, and boy did I feel stupid when I saw the list of the rules. I'd figured there were lifeboats standing by, of course, and that was fine: I wanted her to get fished out of the water (so to speak) quickly. But of course they're going to make all the contestants wear lifejackets, which means that even if Solveig does end up in the water, she's going to bob right up like a cork, no fish-chats possible.
Of course, I'm the author, and I can decree some way around this. Um . . . she's on a part of the boat that's sticking out, and it breaks off, and the boat's going so fast that it goes over her, so she's under water under the boat for maybe 15 seconds. That's long enough. The trouble is, those boats are hardly speed demons. So I can come up with a work-around, but the problem is, it's going to bug me everytime I read the scene (it's been halfway written for a year now) because I'll know every time I read it of course it couldn't really work like that.
So . . . does this happen to you on stuff you write? You have to have something work a certain way, and you find out that no, technically it can't, so you pull out a lame work-around and hope nobody notices?
This is the sort of the thing, I imagine, which will bug me, the author, much more than any reader of the book. Milk carton boats have broken apart, and some have sunk, after all.
Click here, here, here and here for some pictures of other milk carton boats through the years.
[Note: and to add to my irritation, I still haven't figured out what the damn fish says to her in the first place.]
I got to the race, and boy did I feel stupid when I saw the list of the rules. I'd figured there were lifeboats standing by, of course, and that was fine: I wanted her to get fished out of the water (so to speak) quickly. But of course they're going to make all the contestants wear lifejackets, which means that even if Solveig does end up in the water, she's going to bob right up like a cork, no fish-chats possible.
Of course, I'm the author, and I can decree some way around this. Um . . . she's on a part of the boat that's sticking out, and it breaks off, and the boat's going so fast that it goes over her, so she's under water under the boat for maybe 15 seconds. That's long enough. The trouble is, those boats are hardly speed demons. So I can come up with a work-around, but the problem is, it's going to bug me everytime I read the scene (it's been halfway written for a year now) because I'll know every time I read it of course it couldn't really work like that.
So . . . does this happen to you on stuff you write? You have to have something work a certain way, and you find out that no, technically it can't, so you pull out a lame work-around and hope nobody notices?
This is the sort of the thing, I imagine, which will bug me, the author, much more than any reader of the book. Milk carton boats have broken apart, and some have sunk, after all.
Click here, here, here and here for some pictures of other milk carton boats through the years.
[Note: and to add to my irritation, I still haven't figured out what the damn fish says to her in the first place.]
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Geek answer syndrome...
Date: 2004-07-28 10:32 am (UTC)Not having enough character background to know where/how/who she borrowed/bought a life jacket from, but it'd be easy enough to borrow one that had a safety recall, maybe. The trick is to not use one of the failure-proof foam already inflated ones but use an older manual/automatic inflate one, where the bladder could have a hole, the co2 cartridge is empty, or the valve sticks just long enough...
http://www.boats.com/boat-articles/Safety+Gear-145/Inflatable+PFDs/12490.html
Hrmph. Automatics aren't usually approved. Still, a munally inflated one (borrowed?) meets the approved, and if you're not familiar with how to inflate it has a failure scenario that could work:
http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?PAGE=PROFRAME&PROD_ID=752763