In the television comedy series The Big Bang Theory (TBBT), there’s a scene where Sheldon the super-nerd (for whom the mildest, politest descriptor we could make is that he’s clearly on the spectrum) engages in a group activity which is actually pretty relevant to today’s epistle.
For those not in the know, TBBT was a comedy about four really bright nerds and social misfits (Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, Raj, and eventually their girlfriends/wives Penny, Amy, and Bernadette), all possessed of varying degrees of annoying/creepy personality traits, trying to negotiate their collective way through life situations they were --- again, politely --- completely and utterly unequipped to even recognize, much less successfully deal with. I could go on and on about their various quirks and failings, but that’s not really the subject of said today’s epistle. (Although I will quickly add that the show’s humour, while adequate and at times really amusing, is nowhere near as subtle or intelligent or well done as that of another television series, Frasier. Intelligent comedy is… on the decline, it seems. Sign o’ the times, I guess.)
The scene I referenced earlier takes place in the eleventh season, when Howard’s wife seems to have gone into labour. To pass the time while awaiting the expected result, the rest of the cast plays a game brought along by Sheldon. But not just any game like Monopoly or Clue, no, no, no. That’d be too absurdly simple. What Sheldon produces is a mammoth board wargame called The Campaign for North Africa (CNA), a game actually published --- in real life --- by a now-defunct company called Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI)
CNA covers the North African campaign during the Second World War, and when I say it’s mammoth, I’m neither kidding nor exaggerating. The rules are over 90 pages of close-set, miniature type, covering every aspect of warfare and logistics in precise, excruciating detail, right down to water consumption and evaporation in the unforgiving desert. There are 1800 die-cut counters depicting fighting units and all sorts of logistical information, played on five 22x34 maps. And it’s estimated a complete game can take around 1500 hours to play. (That’s 125 days if you played the game 12 hours each and every day.) It’s a game that would test the patience of a saint. As you’re probably beginning to understand, this is not a quick parlour game you bring over for a casual evening with your BFFs.
Here I must digress a little, providing today’s Tortured Soul Confession: as you can see from the picture above, I actually own a copy of CNA, one of over 100 SPI wargames I purchased back in the dark ages of my sordid youth. (I may have been something of a nerd myself. May have been. We neither confirm nor deny. And as always, we maintain credible deniability.) But to answer your incredulous questions: yes, I still have them. Yes, I’ve played many of them, mostly solitaire, a few even with live opponents. (They’re really not everybody’s cup of tea.) No, most of the games aren’t anywhere near the size or complexity of CNA. And an emphatic no… I’ve never played CNA. I bought it, admired it, set up the maps, glanced at the intimidating pile o’ paper that comprised the rules… and then it’s rested quietly on the shelf, lo, these many decades. (In fact, I never even punched the counters out of their cardboard sheets.) What’s that? You wonder why I never threw it away? Good pilgrim, he said, bristling and drawing himself indignantly up to his full height, clearly, thou dost not understand the Collector Mentality. Zounds! A pox on thee!
The question this lengthy setup poses is a simple one as far as writing goes: to what extent should writers go to embrace realism in their writing? How necessary is it?
The answer, for most of us, is we’re willing to compromise… in some cases, quite a lot, though while we don’t want to water things down to the level of Monopoly, by the same token, most don’t want to go down the CNA rabbit hole.
(By the way, we’re talking about realism here, not detail. Two totally different things.)
Case in point: one of my favourite video games of all time concerns a 19-year-old woman named Aloy. She’s the protagonist of Horizon Zero Dawn (HZD) and its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West (HFW). And like many other gamers, I’m impatiently awaiting the third game.
Aloy, who’s pretty handy with a bow and spear, doesn’t get into the scattered towns of her world very often. She spends pretty much most of her time in the wilds. And so the heavily romanticized picture we have of her is not very realistic. Moving through arid, desert-like terrain as she often does, I doubt she has the means to shower or bathe very often, so she likely smells to high heaven. Her long, thick mane of red hair won’t get washed frequently, even though I’d imagine such a mop would require lots and lots of shampoo, conditioner, and combing out by a personal stylist to look as good as it does. And I doubt she shaves her legs or armpits. Matter of fact, bet she doesn’t even carry a toothbrush or mouthwash.
Now, lest you’re muttering “sexist pig” into your beer right about now, let me set you straight and declare the same goes for Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings. Everything I’ve noted about Aloy also applies to him (perhaps not shaving his legs). The romantic notions, the softly focused images we have of both of them are wildly at variance with reality. And we rarely, if ever, see major characters performing the myriad mundane daily maintenance tasks which form such a major part of our lives… unless those mundane tasks are somehow integrally linked to major plot points.
I used to tell my students, in a wide variety of contexts, that there always needs to be balance. Too much of one extreme or the other is not a good thing. So it is with writing and the realism we put into it.
For those not in the know, TBBT was a comedy about four really bright nerds and social misfits (Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, Raj, and eventually their girlfriends/wives Penny, Amy, and Bernadette), all possessed of varying degrees of annoying/creepy personality traits, trying to negotiate their collective way through life situations they were --- again, politely --- completely and utterly unequipped to even recognize, much less successfully deal with. I could go on and on about their various quirks and failings, but that’s not really the subject of said today’s epistle. (Although I will quickly add that the show’s humour, while adequate and at times really amusing, is nowhere near as subtle or intelligent or well done as that of another television series, Frasier. Intelligent comedy is… on the decline, it seems. Sign o’ the times, I guess.)
The scene I referenced earlier takes place in the eleventh season, when Howard’s wife seems to have gone into labour. To pass the time while awaiting the expected result, the rest of the cast plays a game brought along by Sheldon. But not just any game like Monopoly or Clue, no, no, no. That’d be too absurdly simple. What Sheldon produces is a mammoth board wargame called The Campaign for North Africa (CNA), a game actually published --- in real life --- by a now-defunct company called Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI)
CNA covers the North African campaign during the Second World War, and when I say it’s mammoth, I’m neither kidding nor exaggerating. The rules are over 90 pages of close-set, miniature type, covering every aspect of warfare and logistics in precise, excruciating detail, right down to water consumption and evaporation in the unforgiving desert. There are 1800 die-cut counters depicting fighting units and all sorts of logistical information, played on five 22x34 maps. And it’s estimated a complete game can take around 1500 hours to play. (That’s 125 days if you played the game 12 hours each and every day.) It’s a game that would test the patience of a saint. As you’re probably beginning to understand, this is not a quick parlour game you bring over for a casual evening with your BFFs.
Here I must digress a little, providing today’s Tortured Soul Confession: as you can see from the picture above, I actually own a copy of CNA, one of over 100 SPI wargames I purchased back in the dark ages of my sordid youth. (I may have been something of a nerd myself. May have been. We neither confirm nor deny. And as always, we maintain credible deniability.) But to answer your incredulous questions: yes, I still have them. Yes, I’ve played many of them, mostly solitaire, a few even with live opponents. (They’re really not everybody’s cup of tea.) No, most of the games aren’t anywhere near the size or complexity of CNA. And an emphatic no… I’ve never played CNA. I bought it, admired it, set up the maps, glanced at the intimidating pile o’ paper that comprised the rules… and then it’s rested quietly on the shelf, lo, these many decades. (In fact, I never even punched the counters out of their cardboard sheets.) What’s that? You wonder why I never threw it away? Good pilgrim, he said, bristling and drawing himself indignantly up to his full height, clearly, thou dost not understand the Collector Mentality. Zounds! A pox on thee!
The question this lengthy setup poses is a simple one as far as writing goes: to what extent should writers go to embrace realism in their writing? How necessary is it?
The answer, for most of us, is we’re willing to compromise… in some cases, quite a lot, though while we don’t want to water things down to the level of Monopoly, by the same token, most don’t want to go down the CNA rabbit hole.
(By the way, we’re talking about realism here, not detail. Two totally different things.)
Case in point: one of my favourite video games of all time concerns a 19-year-old woman named Aloy. She’s the protagonist of Horizon Zero Dawn (HZD) and its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West (HFW). And like many other gamers, I’m impatiently awaiting the third game.
Aloy, who’s pretty handy with a bow and spear, doesn’t get into the scattered towns of her world very often. She spends pretty much most of her time in the wilds. And so the heavily romanticized picture we have of her is not very realistic. Moving through arid, desert-like terrain as she often does, I doubt she has the means to shower or bathe very often, so she likely smells to high heaven. Her long, thick mane of red hair won’t get washed frequently, even though I’d imagine such a mop would require lots and lots of shampoo, conditioner, and combing out by a personal stylist to look as good as it does. And I doubt she shaves her legs or armpits. Matter of fact, bet she doesn’t even carry a toothbrush or mouthwash.
Now, lest you’re muttering “sexist pig” into your beer right about now, let me set you straight and declare the same goes for Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings. Everything I’ve noted about Aloy also applies to him (perhaps not shaving his legs). The romantic notions, the softly focused images we have of both of them are wildly at variance with reality. And we rarely, if ever, see major characters performing the myriad mundane daily maintenance tasks which form such a major part of our lives… unless those mundane tasks are somehow integrally linked to major plot points.
I used to tell my students, in a wide variety of contexts, that there always needs to be balance. Too much of one extreme or the other is not a good thing. So it is with writing and the realism we put into it.
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