![](\"http:\/\/www.dennisdanvers.com\/pictures\/tareyton.jpg\")
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I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been asked to read an unpublished novel set in the mid-50s and give the writer some feedback.\u00c2\u00a0 It has many, many virtues, but a minor recurring misstep that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s common enough to be worth sharing and commenting on.\u00c2\u00a0 The main character is a smoker.\u00c2\u00a0 His brand is Tareyton.\u00c2\u00a0 So instead of lighting up a cigarette, he lights a Tareyton.\u00c2\u00a0 He takes a Tareyton out of the pack and smokes it.\u00c2\u00a0 When that one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s burned, he has another Tareyton.\u00c2\u00a0 What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong with this?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this an authenticating detail placing us authentically inside the time period?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it like the Buick he drives and the Hudson he parks next to?\u00c2\u00a0 No, because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not how smokers, now or then, think.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t place us in the time period but outside the perspective character\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head into the author as docent.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of being in the fictional dream, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking at a diorama.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh look, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the pack of Tareytons.\u00c2\u00a0 If the character is thinking Tareyton, as in, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He was thinking of switching brands.\u00c2\u00a0 The Tareyton tasted like charcoal,\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd then it makes sense.\u00c2\u00a0 People argued brands; some brands had a rep.\u00c2\u00a0 Chainsmoking Luckies showed a certain suicidal gusto you couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t achieve with other brands.\u00c2\u00a0 Tareytons had the most obnoxious commercial\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d rather fight than switch.\u00c2\u00a0 But in the years I lit up first and put on glasses second, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thinking brand, only smoke. Cigarette brands have their place.\u00c2\u00a0 My mom smoked two brands, Parliaments and a revolving door of menthols.\u00c2\u00a0 She liked the Parliaments because of the recessed filter, while other brands supposedly irritated her lips.\u00c2\u00a0 About a third of her intake were menthol, which she fancied soothed her troubled lungs, but she could never find the one that pleased her like Parliaments.\u00c2\u00a0 She counted how many she smoked of each kind on hash-mark-filled pads.\u00c2\u00a0 But even she wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thinking brand name when she needed a smoke.\u00c2\u00a0 If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to be inside a time period or an alien universe either one, you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do so successfully without being inside your character\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head first.\u00c2\u00a0 And lungs, I suppose.\u00c2\u00a0 Then the world will follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been asked to read an unpublished novel set in the mid-50s and give the writer some feedback.\u00c2\u00a0 It has many, many virtues, but a minor recurring misstep that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s common enough to be worth sharing and commenting on.\u00c2\u00a0 The main … Continue reading