1. TheMyst7885

    TheMyst7885 Active Member

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    Creating a fictional setting during the 50's

    Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by TheMyst7885, Jan 14, 2020.

    A part of my story takes place during the 50's of a time of war during a real historical moment in history but the characters and setting are fictional. Would it be controversial if part of the story involved the Korean War? Or had the Hungarian Revolution taken place? Are these conflicts too much of an issue to be used in a story if given the time period in the 1950's?
     
  2. Homer Potvin

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

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    Naw, that's pretty esoteric. Though funnily enough, I wrote my thesis on the 1956 Hungarian uprising.
     
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  3. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    Why would they be controversial?

    M*A*S*H.
     
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  4. More

    More Active Member

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    I don't see it as a problem . In fact globally, war is taking place somewhere and has done so since the beginning of time . It is surprising that is not used in modern fiction more often . The fifties was a difficult period . With the clash of communism and capitalism , the Korean war and the beginning of the Vietnam war . The fall of colonialism with the war in Algeria ,against the French and the Mau Mau uprising , against the British , in Kenya . Or maybe the Cuban or Hungarian revolutions , to name just a few .
     
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  5. TheMyst7885

    TheMyst7885 Active Member

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    This would be an actual full story since I have a bunch of them I'm putting together for graphic novels. This particular one would take place in the 50's so I want to make sure there would be nothing controversial about it because from what I heard the Korean War wasn't such a good war to remember which is why I think it's not talked about much. The Hungarian Revolution might be a challenge too since this protagonist in this story is supposed to be a U.S WW2 veteran so I don't know which side he would be on, the Soviets or the Hungarian rebels? And whichever side he was on would be a tragic end due to this being a very depressing war due to the results that happened.

    Maybe I could just make up some secret CIA mission that involved the after math of the nazis in some hidden arctic? Or make it a space mission or nuclear test mission that was secretly being done and this protagonist was chosen for this project mission for his WW2 background and bravery?
     
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  6. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    What character viewpoint will you be using? An ordinary American suburban dweller, whose big concerns are going to work, mowing the lawn on weekends, etc? Or would it be a soldier? Or somebody with a family member who is a soldier who is off fighting in one of these conflicts? An adult? A child? A teenager? This will make a lot of difference as to what you include or leave out. Everybody's memory won't be of the same things.

    I was a child in the 1950s, growing up in a small town in the continental USA. I was born in 1949, so I was only 11 years old when the decade ended. I had very little knowledge of what was happening 'out there.' I remember seeing newsreels at school of Kruschchev banging his shoe on the table at the UN. And of course Castro was a big villain at the time as well. The Korean War was more or less over by the time I was old enough to know about it, although I do remember older cousins and neighbours coming home in uniform, etc. We were scared shitless of nuclear weapons and saw the USSR and its bloc of countries as The Big Enemy. Dwight D Eisenhower was the only president I'd known, and he seemed like all a president should be. Beyond that, we didn't really go.

    Life was roller skates, dolls, friends, bicycles, summers, Christmas, Disney movies ...the kinds of things childhood contained back then, if we were reasonably well-off and happy and small-town.

    The wake-up shock came after I started college in the 1960s, and began to realise the world was not what I'd always believed it was. These shocks have never stopped coming.
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2020
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  7. TheMyst7885

    TheMyst7885 Active Member

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    He's a U.S soldier, actually was a former U.S soldier and hero in WW2. He's now working as a soec ops agent doing missions for the CIA. He'd be in his late 20's to early 30's at this point in the mid early 50's, so say it took place in 1953.

    From the knowledge you've shared with me and what you knew about growing up at the time, maybe I could make it a secret mission no one knew about that involved stopping a nuclear space threat that involved the U.S and this CIA soldier against Castro, Khrushchev and the USSR which was being fought somewhere on the border line of China and USSR?
     
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  8. TheMyst7885

    TheMyst7885 Active Member

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    If I were to create a fictional war or mission setting in the 50's, what are some ideas I could make up? It could be like a secret mission the soldier hero was on that the public never knew about.
     
  9. KiraAnn

    KiraAnn Senior Member

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    In the early ‘50s? Science fiction, fantasy, action/adventure, what genre?

    Just google for events of the year you want it to be in. Say, pick any of the early 50s. There could be an event between Israel and the Islamic nations around it. Or between the new republics of India and Pakistan. Or involved in the scenarios of Shah Reza Pahlavi in Iran.
     
  10. TheMyst7885

    TheMyst7885 Active Member

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    Science fiction and fantasy mainly but it has action in it. Like a graphic novel style.

    So say I had a secret mission in the early 50's that this American soldier/CIA agent went on during some secret Indo-Pakistani conflict and met a female agent lover of British-Indian or Pakistani descent. Would this be controversial?
     
  11. KiraAnn

    KiraAnn Senior Member

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    Depends, I suppose, on whether the lover is to be brought back and where in the US they are brought.

    There is a line I remember from a 60’s western starring James Garner, spoken by a woman with a child fathered by an Apache man (paraphrasing): No one cares if a white man takes an Indian to bed, as long as he leaves her behind.

    That’s not my opinion, btw, just as I remember, that pretty much sums up the prevailing attitudes of those times. There were several movies in that time period dealing with that subject. Some were more controversial than others and that controversy was also very regional.

    Not that I remember those times - I’m at a delicate age :D
     
  12. TheMyst7885

    TheMyst7885 Active Member

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    Hmmm ..well I was thinking of having the lover come home with him to the US where they'd raise their child. I'm still uncertain if this will make readers skeptical on this or not.

    Or I could just have him been sent to a secret mission in Iran fighting against Iranian soldiers in the uprising of the cold war where he met an Iranian female agent?
     
  13. KiraAnn

    KiraAnn Senior Member

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    Eh. I have to apologize - I was thinking Pahlavi took the throne after WWII but it was during the early years of the war.

    He was actually a very pro-US monarch.

    Could still have been some very covert operation involving the Soviet Union since they did border each other. Or something involving Afghanistan or Pakistan.

    As for bring home an Iranian wife, I don’t think that would be totally out of consideration. Unless you intend to write about their acceptance issues - quite probable to be some - place them in a major city along either coast or in the Midwest, maybe Kansas City or Denver.
     
  14. TheMyst7885

    TheMyst7885 Active Member

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    Oh you're right about Pahlavi.

    Maybe I could have the early 50's story take place during the Iranian coup d'e'tat. But that might not set well cause that was the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh who was highly respected by the Iranian people and might not set so well showing him and his supporters as the bad guys. And I don't think the Soviets were involved in Iran at the time.

    Perhaps I should make a fictional setting involving the American soldier and CIA in early 50's Pakistan involving a covert mission against the Soviet Union doing something over there? I could say he met a Pakistani woman and brought her home to the US Dover or Midwest becoming an American citizen and their child would grow into the US military as an agent?
     
  15. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    Vietnam. The Vietnam War started in 1955, but the US had been supporting the French since 1946 in fighting the Viet Minh. And the Viet Minh received funding from the Soviets, as well as the Chinese.
     
  16. TheMyst7885

    TheMyst7885 Active Member

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    True. Vietnam was just starting out to becoming a major event. But that seems to have progressed more into the early 60's, especially with Soviets and Chinese involvement.

    What about if I had an arctic mission in the 50's involving US, Britain and the Soviet Union?
     
  17. KiraAnn

    KiraAnn Senior Member

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    I suggest you enhance your google-fu for the region and year you want this to be placed. And like the more successful spy novelists, you do not have to base it on a real event. Improvise, adapt and succeed.
     
  18. TheMyst7885

    TheMyst7885 Active Member

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    Okay I will. Hey! I found some interesting info on early days of the cold war tensions and communist fears spreading from Soviet Union to the border of Norway right after WW2. Perhaps I can have an early 50's setting with a made up secret mission there that the US spy was on in helping stopping the Soviets from taking over that border and territory?

    The other idea I like is having this US spy on a secret mission within the Indo-Pakistani conflict which began in 1947. So it could be plausible he was on a secret mission in the 50's dealing with the rise of the Soviets and communism in that territory at the time.

    Which of the two ideas seems the most potentially interesting?

    Edit: I think I'm going to go with his secret mission being in Norway-Russia border in the early 50's. It should fit the time and setting during those years.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2020

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