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Stew
Aug 20, 2012 22:24:23 GMT -5
Post by Divides the Waters on Aug 20, 2012 22:24:23 GMT -5
Good points. I think that one of the reasons I don't focus much on what people eat is the same reason I don't focus much on how they go to the bathroom. Everyone needs to do both, but how much time do we need to take away from our stories to detail that fact?
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Stew
Aug 21, 2012 2:03:26 GMT -5
Post by metalikhan on Aug 21, 2012 2:03:26 GMT -5
I think whether characters are fed or not depends on how detailed the world-building is, especially if the world isn't our own. (LOL and I have to rescind part of my earlier comment about rarely using a dining scene in short stories -- took a look through several, and five of 'em have dining scenes.) But there's another reason for feeding characters. Some fairly intense scenes can happen at the dinner table, scenes which do, indeed, move the story forward and/or provide something critical to a character beyond nourishment. In Spider Dance, the enslaved MC begins to have a change of heart toward his owner because of a conversation during a meal with another slave. In Rim Garrison 2, the MC first realizes at the dinner table that his older brother is not just strict -- he's also capable of deadly cruelty. In Tools of the Trade, the MC walks in on an argument between her brother and a house guest at breakfast, and through the course of the meal, they realize they can't delay the battle against the evil that's appeared in the city where they live and they come up with a rough plan of how they'll tackle the problem. And so on. In each case, there's a lot more happening than the characters simply breaking bread (or supping stew ) together.
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Aug 21, 2012 2:25:35 GMT -5
Post by metalikhan on Aug 21, 2012 2:25:35 GMT -5
BTW, Dave, the word you were probably looking for is voilà, not viola. A viola is a musical instrument bigger than a violin; and it's also a genus of the violet family of flowers. Voilà is most often used in this country as an equivalent of Behold. It's a contraction of vois (see! look!) + là (there). Sorry -- had to say.
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Stew
Aug 21, 2012 9:32:42 GMT -5
Post by Kessie on Aug 21, 2012 9:32:42 GMT -5
Also, Dave, if you say that your fantastic cosmic extra-terrestrial dragons eat stew, I'm going to throw rotten tomatoes at you.
Metal: Food is comforting. I like feeding my characters after they've gone through an ordeal, because it helps them calm down and talk things out. In one scene (alas, it has been cut now), the gang drives off a big bad monster, then orders pizza. The scene's sequel transpires with them chowing down and discussing what the heck happened and what to do next.
(That's the fun thing about writing urban fantasy. My characters eat modern-day food. And since they're all teenagers, the junkier the food, the better.)
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Aug 22, 2012 21:04:26 GMT -5
Post by Divides the Waters on Aug 22, 2012 21:04:26 GMT -5
I fully agree that dinner times are more "intimate" moments for the character, which is why it's ultimately more about the people at the table than what's on it.
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Stew
Aug 23, 2012 14:05:05 GMT -5
Post by firestorm78583 on Aug 23, 2012 14:05:05 GMT -5
According to my wife, The Wheel of Time series sports such culinary delights as;
Cheese, chicken, potatoes, beans, dried meats and sausages, corn and tomatoes, though that is not what they call it in the book....
and stew.
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Stew
Aug 23, 2012 17:36:03 GMT -5
Post by Kessie on Aug 23, 2012 17:36:03 GMT -5
But how much stew in proportion to the other foods? :-D
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Aug 23, 2012 19:37:43 GMT -5
Post by firestorm78583 on Aug 23, 2012 19:37:43 GMT -5
Seeing as she asks for jerky and cheese when she reads the the series, I'm going with the other stuff I listed above.
Also, those items are what she led with when I asked her, not stew.
I've always seen stew as a throw-together meal. My dad would make beef stew, but to make it last a couple of days, he would add a couple of cans of stewed tomatoes every day. By the end of the week it was mostly tomatoes.
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Stew
Aug 24, 2012 20:59:57 GMT -5
Post by newburydave on Aug 24, 2012 20:59:57 GMT -5
I haven't decided what my dragons eat totally, their biochemistry is quite different than humans. In one of my story cycles they aren't able to digest the near grain that they traded advanced tech for with a sentient race that was part plant and part animal. they needed animal protien in order to get anything out of it and the last of the animals had been slaughtered during the previous eleven months of thier odyssey in an unexplored region of our galaxy. (They were a refugee fleet with several million souls aboard. The ships were cobbled up from the remains of the evacuation fleet from the fall of Fist Atlantis.) The near grain just gave them gas, which was difficult since they were cramed in wing to shoulder in the surviving warships and cargo haulers that escaped from the Gaian and Abyssian fleets back in the Sol system. There was a prehistoric fruit (actually found by archeologists, resembling an upside down grapefruit) which many of the creation scientists beleve that most of the Saurians ate as a staple of their diet. I've named it Kelewit fruit in my story world. It was rather woody and tough, (hence the big teeth) but it contained all the nutrients (whole proteins yet) which the Dragons needed to survive and thrive. Kind of a perfect Dragon mana kind of stuff. They preferred that but could live on meat if they couldn't get it. They were kind of dragged into being omnivorous by hanging around with Mankind for so long. ;D They would have eaten stew if that was all there was but the nutrients would have been so watered down that they would have barely subsisted. They did need to eat their natural enemies on Mars, the Winged Kracken which tried to prey on their Aerie nesting places, the high end protein gave them the ability to secrete the high energy hypergolic enzymes that made up their dragon fire. The Dames especially, since their Damefire was much hotter than the typical dragon Bullfire of the males. ========== Viola / voila' , yeah, I don't speak french (that's what I get for trying to look smart), but I really think my point is germane. Stew is poor people food and in all the canonical fantasy that I've read, all the heroes/heroines have started out poor, living on hardscrabble because of the depredations of the evil magical beings who oppress their worlds. Now you guys write stuff that's....well, over the edge. So if you want your magical beings to get their "Juice" from Fritos, Dr. Pepper and Pizza, go for it. As for me I think my magical beings (if I write any) will get their "Juice" from Hot Wings (Mango Habenero specifically) and Espresso. Soup on beloved Sibs SGD dave
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Aug 25, 2012 13:48:17 GMT -5
Post by beckyminor on Aug 25, 2012 13:48:17 GMT -5
I got in trouble (sort of) with David Farland when he was critting my novel for using venison stew. He was like, "Gah. Everyone always eats stew. There are a lot of other, more interesting medieval foods. Find them." (OK, he was nicer than that, but that was the bottom line.) So I used more items like pottage, sausages, barley bread, and the like. Root veggies are fairly common, but fruits and true veggies are a treat, only enjoyed out of season if the characters went to the trouble to "put them up" during the summer.
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Aug 25, 2012 20:14:33 GMT -5
Post by Kessie on Aug 25, 2012 20:14:33 GMT -5
Dave: The lady who wrote Inkheart has a dragon book where the dragons eat moonlight. Well, they don't eat it, they sort of drink it in through their skins. I've read others where dragons eat gold and gems, or have to at least have it around for various health-related reasons.
I always wondered if there was extinct kinds of fruits from the antediluvian world. Now I'll have to go research this. I always theorized that there was some kind of food staple that went extinct in the Flood or God wouldn't have let humans officially eat meat.
Becky: Wow, you got a crit from Dave Farland? That's one of my pipe dreams someday, when I can afford it. :-) He handpicked people like J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer to be bestsellers. So far in Curse Bearer, I haven't had any gripes about their food. No stew in sight!
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Aug 26, 2012 12:14:31 GMT -5
Post by beckyminor on Aug 26, 2012 12:14:31 GMT -5
Yeah, the crit was from a tuition-based workshop I went to Utah for. I think it was the single best use of budget I've committed to writing, to be honest. A week of doing nothing but workshopping my book and writing without distractions was an incredible luxury.
Dave give us all an excellent, real world perspective on what makes books work in the market, and I hope I was able to apply his concepts well. And yeah, he has mentored or hobnobbed with a lot of important writers, so he's an excellent resource, not to mention generous with his knowledge.
Glad to hear the menu in Curse Bearer is passing muster. (I was really tempted to write "mustard there.)
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Aug 27, 2012 15:10:14 GMT -5
Post by myrthman on Aug 27, 2012 15:10:14 GMT -5
In my space opera adaptation of Jonah, the MC is swallowed by a giant starfish (yeah, STARfish). After being rescued by sentient beings (who also serve as the "big fish"), he is served a meal including "some newly acquired fare. What do you think?" asks his host. Whether I'll reveal in-story or not that he's eating the STARfish, I haven't decided. More to the point of this thread, the meal serves mainly as a backdrop for dialogue between the MC and the ship's captain. Many details are wrapped up; others are unraveled. That's my take on all in-story meals; however, I know there are speculative tales where the food plays a more integral role. I know some authors even put out supplemental cookbooks so their fans can eat what their favorite characters eat. Here's one example, based on the Chronicles of Sten by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch: www.acole.com/novels/sten/recipe.html (not actual recipes but close enough). EDIT: I did just notice that one of the Emperor's recipes is a stew. I guess even sci-fi can't get away from this trope!
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Aug 27, 2012 20:08:17 GMT -5
Post by firestorm78583 on Aug 27, 2012 20:08:17 GMT -5
Hey Myrth, At least it isn't menudo, then it would be tripe.
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Stew
Aug 27, 2012 21:37:31 GMT -5
Post by myrthman on Aug 27, 2012 21:37:31 GMT -5
m(
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