Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

To me the word true means verifiably factual.

Unfortunately, that's not how the tag is defined by most authors. While it sounds like 4chan at least starts out with true events, many authors apply the "true" tag as a story motif. Thus if the story is written from a perspective of "This really happened [to this fictional character]", they label it as "true".

Talking about squicks, that's why I've quit reading "true" stories on SOL, because it's almost impossible to find an actual "true" story here. Instead, most are pure wish-fulfillment.

I've quit reading "true" stories on SOL, because it's almost impossible to find an actual "true" story here. Instead, most are pure wish-fulfillment.

https://storiesonline.net/s/13862/no-names-no-pack-drill

A true accounting, with some names hidden, of much of what my father did during his time in the Army during WW2

A true accounting, with some names hidden, of much of what my father did during his time in the Army during WW2

Sorry, I didn't mean to cast aspersions on either your father or your story, and I'm sure there are a few authentic 'true' stories, but I've read so many clearly Mary Sue/wish-fulfillment stories labeled as true, that I simply no longer trust the 'truthfulness' of the tag.

In your situation, Ernest, given the aversion to false 'true' stories, would be to relist the story without the tag, but mention in the story description that it's based on your father's life. I think that would get the story a wider reception. But then again, I doubt you've got to worry about people avoiding your stories because of one extra tag!

I wish Lazeez would clarify the tag (not that anyone ever reads tag explanations, anyway) so it clearly states whether it's EITHER "true" stories or 'True Confessions' type fictional stories.

Peter H. Salus' Geordie & Weena stories

One of his recent stories had the main character doing 30 or so kilometres per hour (kph) on a narrow dirt road in a remote area. Clearly he hasn't driven those roads, because narrow dirt and gravel roads are common rural Australia, and the average speed along them is 80 to 100 kph with the local often going much higher than that on roads they know which are far from town where the cops are few and far between.

I almost agree with CW who wrote

To me the word true means verifiably factual

Sorry, but that t'wern't me. I was responding to garymrssn, who made that assertion.

Those roads must be kept up a lot better than some rural roads in Brazil

They are a lot better than that - unless it's been raining heavily for a couple of weeks. This is a picture of a typical road near the area he's talking about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BourkeWilcanniaHWY.jpg

They're usually about three cars wide so semi-trailer trucks can pass each other, and are graded with some earth compacted to make them harder. Depending on where and how often they're used the area beside the road can be cleared for quite a bit or quite little, fencing beside many roads are optional extras.

As i find more pics I'll post links here.

This shows a typical rural road that's been surfaced with stone and bitumen at the edge of town in an area with better rainfall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hebel_QLD.JPG

and a less used forest type area:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomfield_Track

some more from some of the regions he mentions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OnBoreTrack.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GRRoad_WA.JPG

They are a lot better than that - unless it's been raining heavily for a couple of weeks. This is a picture of a typical road near the area he's talking about:

Those are the pictures writers of post-apocalyptic stories need to keep handy. Rather than roving motorcycle gangs roaring up abandoned highways, that's more likely what anyone would be facing—either that or roads so congested with ruined, rusting heaps, that the roads are entirely impassible.

I've driven on many Caribbean Islands, and while the roads aren't quite that bad, they're narrow, with drivers moving fast, and conditions often change on a dime!

Locals usually always drive faster on any road in their region except for the ones where speed traps are usually in place. They have the advantage of knowing and understanding the road conditions and performance capabilities. Something non-locals lack is the knowledge of local conditions so they tend to drive much more cautiously.

Just like driving faster over 'bad roads' makes the ride more stable, accelerating around a curve typically improves the traction and handling, actually making the curves safer at higher speeds. The locals, knowing this, will typically bank much harder, but non-locals deserve tickets for ignoring the local conditions, since they don't know what to expect. (Of course, part of the key is knowing which side of the curve the local speed trap is set up at!)

If the main character was unfamiliar with such road conditions (like my father) he would probably drive so slow. The author might even know that locals would drive much faster.

In the stories the main character is supposed to be from very rural Queensland and spends a lot of his time in such areas. Thus the MC should know how to handle the, but the author may not, based on what I can find out about him.

back to the "believable" true stories. Let's talk about coming of age stories (without do-over)
Would you enjoy the story more if some of the great coa stories would have been labeled "true" stories?
Like Ryan Sylander's "Looking through the lens", Don Lockwood's "Dance of a lifetime" or Penguintopia's "A well lived life"?

I think it's generally understood that ALL fiction is based, to a large degree, on either an author's personal experiences, or those he's familiar with. However, those are often interwoven in ways which make the story seem true, while nothing can be specifically tied to any single person (i.e. characters are more often composites of many different people).

As such, it's silly to label such stories as "true". If needed, like I suggested to Ernest, I'd add a line to the story description about where the story came from and leave it at that. Again, the SOL 'True' tag is more reminiscent of the old Penthouse Magazine articles, which were most often written by professional gay men, who had to perspective to write better porn than the horny guys lurking in their basements (no offense to horny men in their basements, but you get the point), it's simply a "writing style", not an accurate/honest tag about whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

The only True Story tag that I've ever seen that was credible was when Daghda Jim's daughter hacked into his account to notify readership of his death. Not saying there isn't another one out there but, like garymrssn, I equate true with verifiably factual.

Does that mean you flatly reject the many history books with dialogue (what's become known as 'dramatic history')?