Period Pieces

On Critique Circle over a month ago someone was writing a story set in 1988 and they wanted some details to help sell the time period.  Some people offered suggestions like big hair, cocaine, glitter pens, and a Wembley Stadium concert for Nelson Mandela.  I mentioned there were two Olympics and a presidential election in the US as well.  And the biggest movies that year were Rain Man, Big, Coming to America, Die Hard, etc.

The thing that occurred to me is when you're trying to do something like this you get details in two categories:

• Period specific details
• Year specific details

"Big hair" and "cocaine" are period specific as they apply to the 80s in general but not really a specific year.  Someone mentioned Dallas and a show like that also is period specific.  Now if you mention "Who shot JR?" that would be specific to a particular year.  Or if you say the premiere of Dallas then that would be whatever year but otherwise just mentioning that could be any of the range of years it was on the air.

Year specific is something specific to that year.  Like an election or Olympics.  Like if you have characters go to see a particular movie in the theater--presuming you say it's new.  In the Pulitzer-winning Independence Day, Richard Ford helps to set the time frame by having his narrator mention his son put a "Lick Bush" bumper sticker on his car.  Since the book came out in 1996 there was still only one Bush president so it was either 1988 or 1992.  Then he also mentioned Dukakis so if you're versed on election history you know it's 1988--and if you're not then you're not reading literary fiction.

I mentioned movies, which is something John Updike does in his Rabbit Angstrom novels.  In Rabbit Redux he and a girl go see 2001: A Space Odyssey, which tells you that it was 1968.  Two books later in Rabbit at Rest, he and his wife watch Working Girl and she's inspired to go into business.  That also tells you it's 1988, along with cocaine, AIDS, and Rabbit's car dealership being taken over by the Japanese.

In Where You Belong I looked up a football game between Iowa and Iowa State and mention that Iowa State won for the first time in a while, which was in 1976, the day Frost Devereaux was in a car wreck.  (Or maybe it was Iowa that won.  I don't remember right now and don't feel like looking it up.)

In a short story once I mentioned Watergate so people would know it was taking place around 1974.  If I just wanted it to be general 70s I could mention bell bottoms or disco or whatever.  It just depends on whether you want an exact setting or just a rough period.

About the same time as this discussion came up I was writing a historical set in 1960s Hollywood.  I didn't really nail time an exact time, though I figured the mid-60s or so.  I mentioned a lot of old stars like Cary Grant, Clark Gable, John Wayne, and so on.  And there was a mention of Elvis making movies so that also helps to isolate the time period.  It's just little things like that that can help the sharp reader figure out when it is.  Or I guess you can just say in the description or one of those Tom Clancy type things where it gives the exact time and date.

I prefer the lighter touch but some people need hit over the head with a hammer.