Novelist uses Wikipedia to help make up stuff

[thekohser]

Learn how Suzanne Fox writes novels about time periods and locations she doesn't know anything about, because she uses Wikipedia to fill in the gaps.

(She is so non-notable, she doesn't even have a Wikipedia biography.)

And she donates money to the Wikimedia Foundation, because she is just that gullible.

And we thought the Wikipediocracy blog was occasionally having to scrape the bottom of the barrel!

[Mancunium]

She also writes testimonials: linkhttp://buildbookbuzz.com/[/link]



You can buy remaindered copies of her book, Home Life: A Journey Through Rooms and Recollections, published in 1997, here: linkhttp://www.amazon.com/Home-Life-Journey ... 0684835177[/link]

Her website connects her with Heiser Pharmacy in York, Pennsylvania, so she may also be selling drugs: linkhttp://www.bookstrategy.com/Index2.html[/link]

[Poetlister]

She'd scarcely be the first person to write historical novels that are inaccurate. Does it matter? If they have literary merit, they will be enjoyable, and if they haven't they won't, regardless of the facts. And if she is making money and Wikipedia has helped her, while of course she has no legal requirement to thank them financially, I don't blame her for doing so. Still, you could send her an invite to join us.

[Ross McPherson]

She'd scarcely be the first person to write historical novels that are inaccurate. Does it matter? If they have literary merit, they will be enjoyable, and if they haven't they won't, regardless of the facts. And if she is making money and Wikipedia has helped her, while of course she has no legal requirement to thank them financially, I don't blame her for doing so. Still, you could send her an invite to join us.

Yes absolutely, novelists put literary pretensions and readability ahead of historical accuracy. It's the way fiction has always been done. Shakespeare's plays are just Elizabethans in historical costumes. Sophocles's characters are Athenians dressed as mythical heroes.

Wikipedia too is fiction and Wikipedians are just so-and-so dogsbodies getting about stage as experts. Wikipedia is a tragedy really. Or is it a comedy? Ask a clown or a lunatic prince of Denmark or a blind Oedipus for information and you are likely to get some disordered answers. Some of the characters there can be trusted. They have yet to realize they are in the wrong play.

[Ross McPherson]

I quote from the link

For Fox, who is now 59 years old, the process of writing a novel begins with an abstract idea of a scene she wants to describe. Then the details of the scene are filled in with descriptions from Wikipedia articles she has read. Fox defines this process as “taking ownership of that place and turning it back into an imaginary place.”

She could be talking about editing Wikipedia.

[Ross McPherson]

Using my real name, I have to be more reflective than Anon. So, time for a confession.

I am an aspiring writer and I have yet to get a single poem or novel published. In other words, I am even lower in the barrel than you are, Ms Fox. On the other hand, I was a Wikipedian for some years, so I think I can advise you about that much at least.

Treat every Wikipedia article as you would any supermarket product with a broken seal.

No be even more cautious than that. Every supermarket product carries a registered brand name. Nobody takes responsibility for a Wikipedia article.

But why should I pull my punches? Every supermarket product is manufactured by paid workers. Wikipedia articles are produced by unpaid volunteers, lured there by a dream then bullied and intimidated by colleagues who have established a pecking order. The dream is broken but many of these unfortunates are too psychologically vulnerable to struggle free. Think of Wikipedia as a hijacked charity, or a sheltered workshop for the vulnerable, now run by The Mob.

Your readers deserve better than that. Humanity deserves better than that.