A post by another writer (Hilary Davidson) on another blog, Mystery Fanfare (http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/) run by mystery expert and chocoholic Janet Rudolph, started me thinking about a dilemma I’ve faced a few times in my own fiction writing. If one sets an imaginary crime scene in a real place that’s smaller and more specific than, say, Grand Central Station or Chinatown, is one inviting a nasty letter to the publisher or worse?

I love the atmosphere, the architecture, and the allure of  The Metropolitan Club in Manhattan, and what an address: 1 East 60^th Street! I’ve helped put on dinners there, and have been a guest on several occasions, and it’s pretty snazzy. But when I set part of my second Danielle O’Rourke mystery in New York and included a major scene at a private club, I hesitated to be out front and identify the space by its real name. For one thing, I took a few small liberties with the décor and the way the catering systems operate. For another, I made a couple of comments that might offend the real staff.

Now that the book is out with editors, all of whom work in Manhattan and probably recognize the Club, I’m thinking I was a wimp. After all, every author includes a reminder of the difference between fact and fiction in her acknowledgements.

I also fictionalized a whole country in this book, THE KING’S JAR. My reasoning is a little broader but my core question is the same. The country I name had to have a historical possibility not quite realizable in one current country within the context of the story, so I had to shift a few geographical boundaries. And, because I once directed an organization that still works in the country whose somewhat twisty and corrupt politics served as the model for my fiction, I didn’t want to take even the remote chance of offending someone in that government who might remember my association and think I was representing the views of my former employer. Unrealistic, even conceited to think that a current person of power whose native language isn’t English might read and draw false conclusions? Absolutely. But not impossible.

So the question remains: Should an author sacrifice verisimilitude to give herself greater fictional freedom? Is it necessary, if one wants to avoid complaints, push back or even, god forbid, litigation?

Late posting today because I just installed a familiar word processing program after struggling in what felt like hand to hand combat with a different one that came with my new computer. Funny how we get used to something, even if it’s not perfect, and don’t want to change.

Inertia, clinging to the status quo, resisting change – it’s part of human nature, but also part of the physics of the universe. Change, they say, is the only constant, and that’s true. But every action causes a reaction aimed back toward stasis. It’s such an elegant condition of a dynamic field, be it the movement of water or the behavior of the villain in a piece of crime fiction. I love the idea that my thinking mind seeks out the same principles in writing fiction that I experience unconsciously in the world around me, that mystery writers are dancing the same dance of the universe!

Right now, I’m putting Danielle O’Rourke, the protagonist in my mystery series, in the toughest spot I can imagine for this moment in the story, and I’m not yet sure how she’s going to get out of it. I decided to ramp up the danger at the climax of this third book, to shake up the status quo of her life to an extent she hasn’t experienced yet. Her dilemma is making me uneasy because it has upset the rhythm of her story, taken her further away from her center of gravity than I have taken her before. I actually waffled in the first draft, sending her back to safety sooner. But I realized I was giving in to an easy solution, one that would give her – and me – too much comfort too soon.

Spoiler alert: Yes, I’ll give her a way out, even if, at the end, it’s not quite the status quo she returns to. But I am paying attention to my own thought processes, laughing at the way my individual writerly instincts mirror basic physics, and enjoying a chance to riff on it with readers and writers this Friday morning, using my familiar word processing program and the comfort it gives me.

I’m convinced I was unpopular in junior high school, but then, everyone thinks they were the laughingstock of their classmates during those traumatic years. I can’t recall the face of that snotty girl who cut me while walking to the cafeteria with the self-possessed clique or that sneering boy who made a joke about my bra size (too small to measure in the seventh grade). But the feeling of humiliation and rejection? It’s right there, waiting to be called up at the first hint of a fresh insult to the fragile teenage ego hiding deep inside my older shell.

Being ignored is just as bad as the active slur when you’re hanging around the edges of the party. I know I’m not the only person who survived being fourteen with internal cuts and bleeding, so I’m asking. Have we wandered into a new and sparkly version of the school cafeteria by setting ourselves up on Facebook?

The popular kids – er, people – post a witty comment and within hours have twenty or thirty giggling, admiring friends’ responses trailing down the page. The posts about heroic kittens, puppies, or dolphins attract crowds of well-wishers eager to be seen – read, actually -  in the company of sweet people who always think of others. The most-likely-to-succeeds who have, in fact, succeeded, attract followers who want to rub shoulders with them, hoping a little luster winds up on their page

Let’s not leave out the serious kids, either, the ones who study the news analyses, take up unpopular causes, and do their real homework every night. Sometimes, they get pushed around right on the computer screen. Do we come to their aid, or slouch away?

Mark Zuckerberg knew this viscerally, and set Facebook up so we could all chase popularity in a new structure. It’s a kind of genius – tapping into old patterns and dreams that still affect us. What can I say that will encourage responses? How many comments pushes me to a Top News space? Will Facebookers shun me if I admit I didn’t have a date Saturday night? Am I a failure in the social world of Facebook if I have fewer than 500 friends?

Thinking of it this way is a conceit that was explored in the tasty film, “The Social Network,” where Harvard came across a lot more like my junior high school than I could have imagined. All I can say is I cultivated an air of detachment at age fourteen that makes me smile today as I flip Facebook open and check for new messages. Some things never change.

From the depths of New Computer Hell comes a muffled cry. “Help…someone, please help.” Yes, that weak voice is mine. Much as I hate to admit it, the new, intuitive, upgraded, plug ‘n play technology has me hyperventilating. Will I ever be able to print a document again? Will the manuscript I slaved over and sent to the editor be recognized on her computer?

The earnest twenty-something guy in the signature blue tee shirt promised it would be simple, no problemo. With a few swishes of the demo mouse, he showed me how easy set-up, installs and upgrades for my existing software and peripherals would be. No need for a lot of new software and accessories. And if I had trouble? Well, they were there for me – any time, really. Don’t be shy. There’s no dumb question. Just make an appointment online and come in.

Except that I’m finding it hard to get online for some reason. That little spinning icon just keepings spinning like the indifferent world. If I bring in the computer, I’m guessing they’ll say they can’t help unless I also bring in everything else that I want to use with it. And even if I brought the computer, the printer, the scanner, the stylus, and the wireless gizmo in with me – in a shopping cart, a veritable bag lady trailing electrical cords and packing materials – I’m guessing what I’d hear are variants of what I’m reading in the fine print: software incompatibility. Upgrades needed. Upgrades not available for your snazzy new OS.

I believe the people who invent, program, and sell this wonderful new stuff – it IS easy, for them. But technology has never been my forte and, in college, mathematical logic, the underpinning of computer programming and, therefore, how to understand how they work, was the only class I ever took for pass-fail (I passed, but it wasn’t pretty).

So here I sit, keying this blog post, wondering if it will ever live online, wondering how long I should struggle before I call the high priced computer consultant who talks to me soothingly, deals with everything, and tells me gently there are no dumb questions.

Oh yes, there are. “Why did I think I needed a beautiful new computer in the first place?”