lagilman | Monday Morning, and a poll

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Monday Morning, and a poll

Spent Sunday afternoon hidden in a downtown bar with a bunch of fellow Giants fans, some early-arriving Jets fans, a few random Redskin fans, and a bunch of very rowdy and enthusiastic Detroit fans who got very very quiet as the game ended. Sorry, guys. But I was rooting against you just because your fight song was so damn annoying. For those of you who don't follow such things -- yeah, the Giants won (41-13).

Mass transit to/from the game: $4
A steak-and-eggs brunch and two pints of Bass -- $35
Being carded by the bouncer: priceless.
Being hit on by a 20-something Jets fan: hysterical.

But now it is Monday, the weekend has been rolled up and put to rest, and I'm back to the desk. And I've realized that trying to balance what the Story needs with the Actual Process of wine-making is making me second-guess the readership for Vineart War. The history/geography/politics/religion I have no trouble messing with -- readers understand second world/sidestep fantasy as not-quite-but-like. But how will people respond to something less malleable -- a scientific process, after all -- as being not-quite-but-like? Especially if they too are fans of the process and the results?

EtA: I'm not (hopefully) talking an infodump, but the details of the process as an ongoing thread within the books)

So, to reduce my headache, I'm actually asking the readership (or you guys, anyway):
[Poll #1259845]

In a different Universe, for those who don't want to wait for their news, there was an update to The Cosa Nostradamus OnLine over the weekend...

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Though really, a lot depends on the *quality* of the info-dump - how it's handled, whether it flows well with everything else going on. Also, if the difference is integral to the world (as opposed to randomly dropped in to make things Different) it'll definitely go down better.

That'll be 2 bits, please. ;-)

I needed multiple choices for #1! I am both a writer AND a non-drinker! :)

are you sure that's allowed?

Lightning has not yet struck me down! :)

obviously it's our responsibility to pick up the slack for you. *nods emphatically* Yep, that's it.

*hand over heart* In fact, that's exactly why I don't drink. I'm only thinking of my friends! :)

I'm going to be "weird" in saying that I like pertinent info dumps where I learn something new. You know, pertaining to plot etc etc

(I used to read tech manuals for fun...)

My dad's big on wine, has been so as long as I can remember. I'm a non-drinker, but I know bits and bits. Can't reel them off the top of my head, though.

But I do enjoy watching programmes such as Oz & James's Big Wine Adventure. Two Brits - one "wine ponce", and the other who just likes drinking - are in California in this series. Been to Sonoma, Napa...

Anyway, if you can track that TV show down, it's good fun. But I like James May, and I originally know him from Top Gear...

Have a lovely day! :-)

I'd say leave the details vague in areas where you can't be accurate. If it's something where the inaccurate detail is crucial to the story, author's notes cover a world of sins. ;)

Edited 2008-09-15 11:28 (UTC)

I'd say leave the details vague in areas where you can't be accurate.

Except it's not quite working that way -- some of the details that are essential to the worldbuilding are Not As They Are Here (because their winemaking is not actually our wine-for-drinking-making)

And that's avoiding entirely the question of 14th century winemaking process being vastly different from that which most drinkers today know from programs and winery tours! I can see there may indeed have to be an Author's Notes at the back. Damn.

Well, does *anybody* there make wine just for drinking? Or is beer the only alternative? There could be two modes of winemaking or something and you could mention the differences.

As to it being a 14th-century analogue - well, in that case, I can't imagine why anybody would *expect* it to be the same as modern methods!

*looks at rather detailed and multi-layered worldbuilding notes, then at 80,000 words of draft already written, covering two continents and four different cultures. head implodes*

*goes back into cave and refuses to come out*

:winces: Uh-oh ...

This is beginning to sound like a crisis of confidence, so I'll be blunt: You've already written a successful series in which electricity = magic, and many many readers are perfectly happy to along with that. Why are you worried they won't go along with wine = magic, and in a semi-foreign setting to boot?

Because most laypeople accept electricity the way they do magic, anyway?

(more seriously: I knew exactly how much I could use and how much I could skirt, setting the Retrievers stories in a contemporary setting. Writing something where I'm creating the entire universe (religion, politics, magic) out of different cloth is... well, different.

Also, epic fantasy readers are tough.)

Hmm. Maybe this will help? It happens that I know *exactly* how electricity works. In fact, I was the first girl in my high school to take electronics classes, and I can still rewire stuff and swap out a busted outlet.

And I had *no* problem going along with your electricity = magic notion.

Reading fiction is all about willing suspension of disbelief, after all; and if a reader's not willing to suspend that disbelief - they probably weren't really *your* reader, anyway.

You've already explored the SCA resources for medieval techniques, haven't you? You may want to contact the head of your local SCA Brewer's and Vintner's Guild (http://www.panix.com/~ekbrew/) to see if she can help you out a bit.

Actually, that's what the trip to Burgundy was about -- direct to the source, as it were. I got to clamber over 14th century winepresses, handle historically-accurate amphorae, and tug at period-style plows, etc.

If the infodump is presented as a part of the worldbuilding, it should work. As long as you don't put in something that is outright *wrong* (as in, you'd end up with vinegar or vodka instead if you did it that way here), you should be able to get away with it.

There's a mystery series built around winemaking and the California wine country, and many of the fans really enjoy the details.

Author's Notes are fun.

I'm one of that weird minority that enjoyed the infodumps in Moby Dick . . .

Voted for "be thrown out of the story" with the proviso that you have to give me reason not to be.

Voted for "be thrown out of the story" with the proviso that you have to give me reason not to be.

Except that I don't know what level you'll be thrown out at [is it the timing of the harvest? The description of the fields? (what most people think of as "traditional" plantings are actually a fairly modern invention caused by something that doesn't happen in this world) The fact that the wines undergo a slightly different process of crush and fermentation? Or the description of technical/chemical aspects that are accurate to 14th century winemaking but not 20th or 21st century?]

*head implodes, author whimpers*

Edited 2008-09-15 12:29 (UTC)

Oh woe! Author whimpers!

Different timing or planting system probably wouldn't hit the ejection button. The technical or chemical aspects might. "Wait -- don't yeast cells die when they hit that level of alcohol?"

Wait -- don't yeast cells die when they hit that level of alcohol?"

*snicker* I'm staying as far away from the chemistry as I can. Advantage of setting it in a pre-Pasteur society....

Sounds like a plan. The timing and planting questions wouldn't bother me so much because a lot of agriculture is culture. "Plant plotdevice bulbs in the dark of the moon."

Lots of folks my parents knew, when I was growing up, made their own wine--all different sorts--and often gave my father homemade wine as a present at Christmas time; he was a rural mail carrier. I was interested enough in it to learn how it's done.

and if you really do e-mail me to tell me where I got it wrong, I'm going to remind you that it's the author's right and indeed responsibility to make fact serve fiction, and not the other way around. :-P

This will NOT deter me from e-mailing you. :)

you're just begging to be made a beta-reader, aren't you?

::chuckle::

Not necessarily . . .

I love reading books about other people's neepery, even (or especially) if it's neepery I don't happen to share. In my country, we call that a learning experience.

So, uh, yeah, wine fiction would be cool, if the wine neepery were well integrated into the narrative. Which I know you would do, but I'm just sayin'.

My knowledge of wine-making is somewhat higher than "they grow grapes and squeeze them, right?" but only because, in one of our books, the protagonist is apprenticed to a wine-maker and so I importuned the owner of Winter Harbor Winery to give me a tour and teach me some chemistry. All of which was fascinating, but very little of which ultimately made it into the book.

It's 9:28 in the morning, I'm still on my first cup of coffee, and I am now craving the blueberry wine from our local natural foods store.

As far as reading something which "doesn't match" it depends on how it's set up. If it comes out of left field, if the rest of the novel is "this world," except for the wine making then yes it would throw me, but if there are other differences, then wine would just be another thing.

I like novels where I "learn" something. In an "other-world" novel, I don't need as much details, because I do tend to assume they're different from the "real" details. Depending on how it's handled, I like it if the author takes the time to make that distinction (if appropriate) clear, because it adds to my understanding of the world: "Fermentation here was very similar to the Old Ways on Earth, except the nygeeons prevented contamination issues, of course, and the lack of gravity created issues for removing fermentation gasses.."

As you know, Bob, like

mizkit I'm both a writer and a nondrinker. But to further complicate things, I've also been a winemaker (and taught winemaking for a couple years). So, I'm not your typical reader.

However, since my wife is going to be reading this books, I have little doubt that she'll be pestering me with questions of an oenological nature before all is said and done.

(Re my answer to the last, which wasn't "Tell you in comments")

Yeah, it's unfair, but even in a fantasy novel my first reaction to a mostly-congruent-with-real-world wine making that suddenly had something like, "And then she added nitro-glycerin to improve the fermenting process" would be to go, "What the EHLL?!?!?!?"

I'm not logical that way. :)

Just don't do what Rita Maue Brown did in Sour Puss and you'll be fine. She did a HUGE info dump about wine making and it was horrid!

That should read: Rita Mae Brown

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Monday Morning, and a poll

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Knowledge of wine making

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I just want to add

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