Fiction and reality

More often than not, the birthday (and the birth year) of a character don’t have a great effect on a storyline, unless your novel spans 20 years and you’ve decided to use birthdays as an indication that time has passed. And in my case, add to the complexity of timelines and maintaining historical integrity.

Nonetheless, I have enjoyed the process of ensuring that it all makes sense and is believable.

As part of this process, I have drawn on my own experiences – as writers often do – and have come across a few realities, that if written down, may seem bizarre and not very believable at all:  one of my best friends married a guy with the same surname as the one I was born with. His birthday is a day before mine; recently I met someone who celebrates her birthday one day after mine, who shared a birthday with her grandfather – as did I; and I have known at least one couple who was born on exactly the same day, in the exact same hospital.

If I was to add some of these scenarios to one book, true to one character, how believable would these facts be?

If reality becomes more bizarre than fiction, what is considered realistic?

It would seem as though my own reality has been hindering my ability to sit down and actually write/edit fiction, without procrastination forcing me not to.  But circumstances will always change, i.e. day jobs, even when the deliciously inconceivable becomes a reality and writing becomes a large part of your day job.

Hopefully my novel won’t be that far behind.

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