1. Keongxi

    Keongxi Member

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    How do you adapt to the Covid situation in your writing?

    Discussion in 'General Writing' started by Keongxi, May 27, 2022.

    When trying to write novels, short stories or even movie scripts, how do you adapt to the Covid situation in your writings? It must be frustrating to have to describe every single character both major and minor, as wearing a protective mask. Or do you simply set the story to take place before 2019? Do you play safe by placing the setting in, let's say 2015 since making the story take place any more in the past like the 90s will require a lot of research into that era?
     
  2. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Skip it. Noooobody wants to read about Covid.
     
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  3. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    I would never include Covid in my story unless I was to lambast and roast the last two years and the absolute anarchy they've bred.

    My WIP was started before Covid and unfortunately because it takes place in Hollywood I've had to constantly tweak it seeing how scandals, movements, new rules and woke goofiness are really putting the tarnish on ole tinseltown. Their art is changing and I'm trying to keep up by addressing it.

    Plus on just a level of art, describing people mumbling through masks, unable to read facial expressions. People saying - "What was that?" and refusing to lean closer would overshadow whatever else your story was about. It might even lead to unintended laughs if your characters are tracking down a serial killer and stop to put on a mask before the final confrontation.
     
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  4. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Where I live almost nobody wears a mask anymore. It isn't required most places, and even where there are signs on the door most people don't wear them. At least for now things are back to something like normal (until the shortages hit). But then I wouldn't care to set a story in a time when there are cell phones, so mine tend to take place in a world that's like ours was a few decades ago.
     
  5. Kstaraga

    Kstaraga Active Member

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    I avoid it like the plague...COVID will never enter into my writing in any way, shape, or form. It brings back a lot of awful memories for me so I'd rather avoid it. No matter what time my story takes place, I avoid this.

    I don't think I'm alone on this, either. There have been some websites that have asked authors, "No COVID related submissions please!" from time to time.
     
  6. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, it might be the first thing in the history of the universe that nobody wants to read about. The difference between that and other horrible events (like the Holocaust) is that literally everyone already saw the real thing.
     
  7. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    it features in my Croc PI series as sort of setting - in book 1 hes a patrol officer during lockdown (written while i was a patrol officer during lock down) but its not a big part of the books , just the occasional mention like when he has a vaccination certificate to fly, or when he mentions that facemasks make it easier to disguise your identity and like that
     
  8. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, I could see using it as a mild anesthetic, or a quick-nod timestamp. Which at this point--at least in my neck of the woods--is really all it is. Nobody really talks about it anymore unless they're making fun of it. Or bemoaning the complete destruction of the labor pool and supply chain.

    I've had more than a few people tell me I should write a book about how the pandemic destroyed the restaurant industry, but I'd rather chew broken glass.
     
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  9. Set2Stun

    Set2Stun Rejection Collector Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    I made reference to it once in my new novel, which takes place in the near future. Here's the only mention I made:

    "It was late in the winter when the incident occurred. (Character) was off that day; she had come down with something and was at home. Probably just the latest COVID strain. No one was even testing for it anymore."
     
  10. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    I ignore it, but I haven't yet written anything set in the period from 2020 to 2022.
     
  11. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    I wasn't sure how I felt about this when covid first came out, but pretty much everything I've written and had published since then deals with covid in some way.
     
  12. Robert Musil

    Robert Musil Comparativist Contributor

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    Whenever COVID's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "Where's COVID?"
     
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  13. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I've got one book that starts

    "People say 2020 was the worst year on record, some shit about a virus. Personally though I'd say that 2043 sucked a lot of cock..."

    He goes on to talk about how he was born in 2020, as a consequence of his parents not having anything better to do in lockdown and so forth
     
  14. Thomas Larmore

    Thomas Larmore Senior Member

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    When COVID started in early 2020, I started writing a story set in summer. I figured by summer 2022 COVID would be mostly resolved, so I set in that year. If I went back to the story, I'd probably eliminate that reference to 2022, nobody's going to need that kind of information in the years to come if the story is read.
     
  15. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    It would never even occur to me, to include it in anything I wrote. Why would I?
     
  16. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    the same reason people include references to storms, 9/11 and so on - because it's very unrealistic to set a book after them with no mention of them having occured... if your book takes place during 2020 how come the characters don't experience lock down , arent having to wear masks in shops etc
     
  17. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    Because as Homer says, no one’s interested in all that bollocks. Unless the pandemic plays a key role in your story, skip it. And why would you need to set it specifically during the pandemic? If your story is set in present day, then Covid is already a thing of the past anyway.
     
  18. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    The 60 odd k people (in the uk) with covid currently might disagree, but that aside its like asking why you mention what the character drives, what he wears, the places he goes.. if you don't have any real world detail you may as well set all your stories in a fantasy land
     
  19. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    So by that logic I have to constantly refer to cancer or the common cold?
     
  20. harlequin-writes

    harlequin-writes Member

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    I feel it's one of those things that would clearly stamp a date on the work, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your intentions, I guess. If a book is to really get into our current time period and represent it as authentically as possible, then this is all a major part of it. Like a time capsule (imagine opening that in 100 years and a cloud of covid comes out? Silly, I know). On the flip side, I've written stuff and years later come back to it and cultural references were already outdated and stuck out. I know that Covid is considerably more than a current trend, but who knows what people will remember of it in 10-20 years time? Especially for younger readers who were too young (or not born) to remember all this first hand.

    I chuckle, as in my day job, one of the psych screeners I use has an item that refers to 'sharing toys and CDs'. I have to explain to kids what CDs are. Every time.
     
  21. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Well you don't have to refer to them constantly, but they are things that happen to people... i presume your characters don't live in a white room on a fluffy cloud where nothing ever happens
     
  22. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    This conversation has become very silly. I don’t know what point you’re making anymore, and what’s more I’m not sure you do.
     
  23. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    My point - which ought to be clear - is that things happen to people...in the real world real things happen to people... they get cancer, they get colds, they catch covid, they buy fuel for £2 a litre... most stories have some context so yeah absolutely mention cold, cancer, covid whatever... you don't have to go on about any of them constantly, but if you're going to pretend they don't exist, maybe don't set the story in present day.

    Equally if you set the book in 1919 Spanish flu would be a thing, if it was happening in the 1350s you might expect some reference to the Black plague
     
  24. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    So how many novels have you read, exactly, that mention these things? When was the last time a character went for a shit/piss in a novel you read (I’m sure you’ll come up with one for the sake of this argument). When was the last time a character sneezed, coughed, farted?

    Of course these things happen but story telling is about eliminating the mundane. COVID is mundane and unless your story is about the pandemic, it can be skipped over and no one will give a shit.
     
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  25. evild4ve

    evild4ve Critique is stranger than fiction Supporter Contributor

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    I drafted a WIP at the start of Covid which has:- a 10k chapter of cabin fever; lots of wet market imagery; and there's a plague at the end. The plague is an expected punchline if the reader has picked up the thread.

    Covid has turned out very differently to how it looked back then. There aren't any direct/contemporary references - it was more about drawing a parallel between woke literature and a locked-down house - but I've delayed redrafting it so that the weirder preoccupations of the early months (my own and the media's) can be smoothed out. I hope I can keep some of the paranoia and claustrophobia.
     
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