A Thought About Accuracy
Last night was Date Night. We took in Marvel’s latest contribution to the world of popcorn munching entertainment: Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Someone died (won’t tell you who) and they tried to revive that person in a hospital.
Cardiac arrest is my least favourite plot device because they always get it wrong.
When all the lines on the monitor goes flat, it doesn’t mean that it’s time to grab the panels and yell, “Clear!”. Artistic licence notwithstanding (let me interject that if I have a cardiac arrest, I would expect a team to work on me for at least forty-five minutes before they throw in the towel. I know movie makers don’t have that luxury)… where was I?
Artistic licence notwithstanding, there is a fundamental principal in Advance Cardiac Life Support that is often over-looked in movies/TV which is VERY easily remedied. In order to shock a person’s heart, there has to be an electric signal passing through their heart. During a code, resuscitators look for a “shockable rhythm” called V-Tach (ventricular tachycardia). And it’s not a flat line.
A flat line means that some ding dong tripped on a wire and the monitor is disconnected.
How do movie makers fix this? Film using a teaching monitor that can display all the rhythms including the WIGGLY line that means there isn’t any electrical activity in the heart.
At least, in Captain America, they did the double check for a pulse before getting out the electricity.
So, what does this have to do with writing my fiction? Everything!
The universe of my world is earth. Fictional, yes, but authentic in feel. This means that when I follow my protagonist, the details of her world should be correct.
I conceived the Queen’s Viper in December 2013 and wrote four chapters. Now I’m tearing them apart and redesigning the plot line. In doing this, I found a big error.
One scene takes place on Queen Elizabeth’s barge during the Jubilee flotilla. I’d switched the names of the lead and last Royal boat. Yikes! Big screw up.
Similarly, when brainstorming, I thought I could involve the Great Fire of London in the historical component of my story (after all, who hasn’t written a cause for the Great Fire?). A simple Google search informed me that it happens decades after my historical component ends. Unless I’m going to write about a time travelling supernatural character (who isn’t Dr. Who), then it’s best I make sure to put in the right chronology.
I’m feeling very accomplished today. At 5:45 a.m. I got up and by 6 I had my nose buried in Nina Munteanu‘s guidebook “The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now!”. She’s the author of Darwin’s Paradox. She’s also the person whose enthusiasm really encouraged me to expand my plot beyond a stand alone book. And I feel like it is the right thing to do.
Today’s productivity included, an hour with Nina, brainstorming the plot, discovering another character, accurate research and rough chapter number three containing 2200 words. I’m leaving myself space to fill in some details and edit without overwhelming the total volume of the chapter. I roughed out chapter two yesterday, again with about 2300 word count.