jueves, 15 de noviembre de 2018

A writing pet peeve of mine

Like any reader, there are things in stories (not just books, I am currently musing animated tv shows) that I find to be annoying.

Today, I am going to write a small excerpt about something that always annoys me about some shows: screwing up winter and summer.

But... what about Game of Thrones? That tv show doesn't count because it purposely states it's based in a strange magical world where winter and summer can last for several years at unpredictable intervals. I am personally unsure how this strange seasonal structure works. Either perhaps the world is flat and the sun bounces farther away, or the world has a very elliptical orbit.

But, let's get back to my main pet peeve case in point.

If you have ever traveled from the North to Southern hemisphere as I have, you will soon realize the seasons are reversed. I went to Chile on two occasions during October-November and enjoyed the country during their Spring.

Also, the closer you get to the poles, the days & nights will suffer from a starker contrast. Guatemala is closer to the Equator than Mexico, and therefore, while they still enjoy some variance of weather during the differing seasons, the hours that last each day show far less variation than Mexico. Pretty much, their people are used to seeing the sun come up around 6 am and setting at 6 pm all year round.

If you travel to the other side of the world, the hours will be vastly warped. The only hours of the day where it seemed sensible to chat with loved ones when I visited Japan and China was either very early in the morning, or between 8-11 pm Asia's local Time.

When writing a book, it doesn't take much brain power to keep these little writing tidbits into the equation. It would be just as dumb to state the sun sets at midnight in Quito Ecuador, as it would be dumb to state the sun is shining brightly in a village close to the polar circle during the respective hemisphere's Winter Festival.

Yes, I'm looking at you, Korra's hometown in the new Avatar series!


In the best of cases, shouldn't the daylight hours of her city lasted just 1-2 hours during the Winter Solstice?

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