Tom: Aw, too bad Anti-Christmas isn’t real. Sounds like fun (for a vampire, anyway).

Adam: I think it really helps convey the passage of time when you depict the changing seasons.

Tom: It’s funny–WICKED GAME takes place (subtly so) in 2007, and there’s a pivotal scene on July 4th. When that real life day came around, it poured rain. I decided to ignore it (especially since the book was already in rewrites).

I only just started thinking about holidays. I haven’t thought about days of the week at all. So much to do…

I am rather obsessive about everything falling on the right day of the week/date, too. Even of the reader doesn’t know what they are. But in some novels the day of the week is important.

I love your example of the background sporting events to round out the world and make it feel real. And hey, if the Rays could go to the World Series, why not the Royals?

::shakes fist::

Damn you for sticking that in my head!

My first novel–my trunk novel, and hopefully my only complete trunker–was set in in a spacer society. There were passing references to festivals that don’t exist on Earth of today–both festivals the spacers came together to celebrate, to facilitate courtship and genetic diversity, and the meaningless festivals of those silly dirtsiders. But I didn’t really mention seasons. I’m not sure if there was a single scene that was planetside.

Another novel I began but them realized I didn’t have the skills yet to carry off was set in a very vast spacefaring but planetary based conglomerate of civilizations. I put a lot of time into developing the cultures of three or four different species, including holidays and seasons and stuff. I can’t say yet how well I wove it in, because that novel is still in my future.

The novel I’m getting ready to start shopping around is a contemporary fantasy. I made the entirely arbitrary choice to begin the events of the novel on April 4, though I never stated the date. The calendar was just for my personal use. So I have brisk days and occasional unseasonably warm days, and, eventually, rainy days. I also have, in the background, baseball season underway, but still early enough that every fan is optimistic. Well, except for Royals fans, anyway, but my book’s not about masochists. I’d say the book just as easily could have been set at any other time of year, though the baseball is something two of my characters bond over. But it could have just as easily been football or Star Wars conventions, neh? But having made that choice, the season becomes important insofar as there are frequent references to what’s going on. I just wanted there to be a sense that the story takes place in a larger world, and that that world is a realistic one. I did tend to let the weather on the day I began writing a scene (though not the temperature) be reflected in the weather in the scene. I couldn’t think of any reason not to, and it insured that I didn’t, say, set my story in a modern America where it never *rains*.

I don’t think it’s [necessarily] cheesy to have Christmas or the Fourth of July or something be a significant event in the lives of your characters. I’m going to guess that a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself what your motives are. If it’s, “My character is Christian, and so Easter would be meaningful to her. She would go to church, and she would think about the choices she’s made lately, and so forth,” then I think that’s perfectly legitimate. If it’s, “I’d like to get more people to realize that Easter is actually a far more important holiday than Christmas is; maybe my book can be a vehicle for good,” . . . that way lies cheesiness.

IMO, of course.