Sticking point
A few posts ago I talked about the need for realism in fantasy fiction and how I was looking stuff up to make sure I didn't make any bone-headed errors. Wikipedia has become my best friend.Anyway, in one scene the thoughts of my perpetually peckish heroine turn once again to food:
After two days of honey water and dried fruit, she'd happily eat a hedgehog, quills and all, with a side of roasted pine bark. Or maybe just a side of more hedgehog.Something about that didn't seem right. I suspected that unlike woodchucks and groundhogs, hedgehogs and porcupines weren't the same thing. It turns out, hedgehogs aren't found in North America, where the book takes place. So I had to change it to "porcupines." It turns out, nothing eats hedgehogs, anyway, but porcupines can be a source of meat if you're really careful.
Still, "hedgehog" sounds funnier. Hedgehogs themselves are funnier. You'd never see a porcupine in a Monty Python sketch.
I'll probably end up changing it to something entirely different, like "bucketful of dung beetles."
Oh wait, dung beetles live in Africa. Curses!
2 Comments:
Posted by:
Andrew at 8/09/2005 2:19 PM
Or maybe I do, after seeing that cartoon. I feel a strange craving coming on.
Posted by:
Jeri at 8/09/2005 5:11 PM
Post a Comment