Things that are common in real life but might be daft in a book?

[Quoth]

Inspired by https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=338102

People in real life might have the same name, but it can be awkward in a novel. Tony and Mary are really common among older people here. Michael is common, one small office I knew had three. Not even Mike, Mick and Michael, but all Michael.
Also common are people here with the same pronounced name but spelled differently. English teachers take off marks for that.
Síle, Sheela, Sheelagh, Sheila. Shaun, Meabh, Meabhdh, Meave etc.

Also Politics? Could you even make up antics of UK Government & Monarchy?

I'm sure you all can remember real things that would seem crazy in a book?

[Sirtel]

In real life there have been many incredible coincidences and events that would seem just unbelievable in fiction, unless it's James Bond or a superhero movie. Like a person getting hit by lightning more than once and surviving, people surviving three or more shipwrecks or plane crashes in their life and so on.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

In real life there have been many incredible coincidences and events that would seem just unbelievable in fiction, unless it's James Bond or a superhero movie. Like a person getting hit by lightning more than once and surviving, people surviving three or more shipwrecks or plane crashes in their life and so on.

It could happen in fiction. But there would be some supernatural guiding hand

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Inspired by https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=338102

People in real life might have the same name, but it can be awkward in a novel. Tony and Mary are really common among older people here. Michael is common, one small office I knew had three. Not even Mike, Mick and Michael, but all Michael.
Also common are people here with the same pronounced name but spelled differently. English teachers take off marks for that.
Síle, Sheela, Sheelagh, Sheila. Shaun, Meabh, Meabhdh, Meave etc.

Also Politics? Could you even make up antics of UK Government & Monarchy?

I'm sure you all can remember real things that would seem crazy in a book?

I know what you mean about the common names. IRL I'm in a group that has three people with the same first name - we have to refer to them using both their first and last names.

[Sirtel]

People constantly forgetting the simplest things, sometimes several times per day. In fiction it would seem pretty far-fetched, yet it happens in real life all the time (speaking from experience here, and my family has similar experiences, so it's not just me getting early-onset dementia).

I'm always amazed by the excellent memory of most fictional characters.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

People constantly forgetting the simplest things, sometimes several times per day ...
I'm always amazed by the excellent memory of most fictional characters.

Detective stuff. In real life hardly anyone remembers anything. It would spoil classic detective stories.

[Quoth]

I just remembered, I read this this morning:
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ages-radio-mic

This is bonkers, because in the edit you can find ways of working around poor pictures, but there’s next to nothing you can do if the sound’s no good. Kids – and grownups too – often show me wonderful little films they’ve made using their phones, but the poor sound always lets them down. You see the same thing on news video, often caught in high quality on bystanders’ phones, but the sound is a mess. The revolution will be televised, all right; we’ll see what’s going on clearly, crisply and sharply, but hear nothing of it very clearly at all.

Tangentially relates to the topic? But everyone I know complains about poor dialogue sound on newer movies and TV programs.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Detective stuff. In real life hardly anyone remembers anything. It would spoil classic detective stories.

I just re-watched an episode of Supernatural yesterday, where four teenagers found a hanged girl in an abandoned house. All four described the girl differently (black hair, red hair, blond hair etc). Now that's realistic.

Spoiler:

(afterwards it was revealed the hanged girl was a prank and not a real corpse).

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

In real life there have been many incredible coincidences and events that would seem just unbelievable in fiction, unless it's James Bond or a superhero movie. Like a person getting hit by lightning more than once and surviving, people surviving three or more shipwrecks or plane crashes in their life and so on.

There is a girl buried in the same graveyard as my father's family. She was killed in a lightning strike and her grave has been struck three times. The last time it happened they did not repair it.
Apache

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Apache

There is a girl buried in the same graveyard as my father's family. She was killed in a lightning strike and her grave has been struck three times. The last time it happened they did not repair it.
Apache

That's really creepy...

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

That's really creepy...

Tell me about it. She is a couple of plots over from the Family section. This cemetery is out in the middle of nowhere. The graves go back to the civil war or older. Some of the stones are illegible.
Apache

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Inspired by https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=338102


Also Politics? Could you even make up antics of UK Government & Monarchy?

I've read many historical fiction novels that are about the English monarchy or various lords and their antics have been ongoing for quite some time.

[Dazrin]

Some of the amazing coincidences that seem to happen in real life would seem like deus ex machina in a book.

We see stories about people seeing their future spouse in the background of a picture from when they are 5 on a trip to Disneyplace or who go overseas for the first time and run into a friend from school. If these were put in a book, they'd be seen as cheating by the author to get around whatever problem is happening.

Matt Parker (Stand-Up Maths on Youtube) has a good bit about this from a talk at the Royal Institution: https://youtu.be/6JwEYamjXpA?t=2820

Or, as Mark Twain put it:

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. ― Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

[gweeks]

How many times a day do you go into a bathroom? Unless it's needed to push the plot along for some reason you aren't going to write about hundreds of mundane activities like that.

Greg

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by gweeks

How many times a day do you go into a bathroom? Unless it's needed to push the plot along for some reason you aren't going to write about hundreds of mundane activities like that.

Greg

Yeah. Fictional people seem to be able to hide somewhere for a day or several without having to relieve themselves. And the women in fiction never have their periods either, not when it would interfere with the plot.