So i'm making head way on planning out my book but I need to make a choice before I start. I thought the basis of this story up a good few years ago now at the height of the refugee crisis in syria. Obviously the crisis has moved on and by the time this book is written it will have moved on further. I need a refugee crisis to make it work but I feel a little funny about writing about something in the past. The alternative is to create a new conflict and a new crisis but I dont want to create a flimsy unrealistic scenrio but I dont want to get bogged down in creating a fictional scenario that is nothing more than background to the main story. At the moment Ii'm writing scenes that dont require the background to be mentioned, but I want to move forward. What would people prefer ? a could have been or a could be story?
My personal preference would be to make a fictional scenario that, in your story, has happened. You don't need too much detail. As long as the important points are made clear, using mostly lines of dialogue, you'll be fine. 'I made my way through the arduous security routine. It had been like this since ..., and only seemed to be getting stricter.'
I use past tense writing for my stories regardless of when the story takes place, so it wouldn't matter to me. Past tense writing has a present tense feel if done correctly. If you're worried about the story having a different outcome from what happened, or the event has been forgotten, you can always call the story a dramatization if someone asks. An engaging story carries you along as it happens, regardless of when it takes place.
It wouldn't matter to me. The one thing I would say is - if you need a refugee crisis, create a refugee crisis. Anything can be real and believable. It's your world, make it so.
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. Are you debating between putting the refugee situation in the past, or having it in the story? Or are you debating whether to use a real life event in your story?
Just because the Syrian refugee crisis is the most current, does not make it the only one in history. It won't matter if it takes place on Easter Island, or on Kepler-7b. Reason for leaving can be anywhere from war, weather extremes, mass bombardment from asteroids, escaping a dying star, or the local populace is sick and tired of all the damned tourists that pollute their space. Plenty of options to pick from. Doesn't matter what we think, as we have not read it. Your fist step is to write the story, and then get some feedback on it. Good luck and have fun displacing people.
Real life event, but obviously it in the past rather than current (yes its still going on but not to the same extent, which would be a crucial part of the story).
David Poyer does an excellent job of creating a collage of actual events but sequenced in such a way that you cannot pinpoint the year. In one of the first of his books that I read, "The Return of Phylo T. McGiffin" the setting was at the Naval Academy, sometime between 1968 and 1972. I should know because I entered in 1966 and graduated in 1970. And he does, too, as he graduated in '71. Just when I thought it was one year, something else intruded, like middies marching to class, which ended I think in '65. In his Dan Lenson naval fiction series, like "Passage" there are actual events, like the Mariel boatlift of the 1970s, but mixed in with other things out of sequence, again to the point that one cannot say what year it was. "Tipping Point" dealt with an Indian-Pakistan war, almost lifted from the actual 1999 war, but then this one went nuclear and brought China into the mix. The next in the series, "Onslaught", continues that war, but now focused on the "9 dash line" right out of today's headlines. And again other events were woven in, like 9/11, but out of sequence. What he does is create a credible, fictional past based on real events, intentionally blurred.
I see, so your story is based on the Syrian Refugee crisis? I think it doesn't matter that it's still ongoing in real life. If what you're writing is fiction then you can put your own twist on it and bring it to its own conclusion. Unless you want to write an exact story about Syria, then I don't think whether it's finished or not matters, since you're writing your own story.
