Thread: Perfect reality regarding the law?

Just wondering what you all think of this...

In part of my story someone is trying to start a catering business of sorts, working out of their home. However, since I had the idea and began writing it I realized all the countless laws and regulations regarding doing this. (such as, non baked goods have to be produced in a "Commerical kitchen" whatever that means, plus a ton of inspection, licenses and paperwork). I've since been trying to do more research and it's completely overwhelmed me to the point I almost want to drop the idea (which at this point would mean writing the entire second half of my book over again and having to figure out a totally new idea, which I absolutely want to avoid).

I was just wondering, do you think it would annoy readers if I fudged some of the details of the legal aspects of all of this? It has absolutely no relevance to the story, and I'd guess the only people who would notice would be those who happened to have been in the home-based food production industry themselves, which likely isn't going to be many of my readers. I'm not saying I want to throw all legal aspects out the window, I may mention inspections and what not, I just can't possibly follow the law down to every last detail or it won't work within my storyline.

I doubt anyone is going to be like, "this wouldn't be legal in real life!" and then toss my book across the room in rage, but I'd be interested to hear opinions.

Working from the premise that many films/plays/television cop shows wouldn't get past the first 5 minutes if the innocent party had phoned the police straight away; and at least 3 films I have seen would never have been made if the participants ever remembered at critical times that they were in full possession of a mobile phone, I doubt anybody would give a toss as to whether your hero/heroine has the correct licenses to make strawberry jam in their back parlour.... I didn't ask to see Steve McQueen's driving licence in Bullet, or ask if he was licenced to ride a motorcycle in Germany.

Thank you, that was the sort of thing I was hoping you guys would say.

While I agree with Bloggsworth, I will also give kudos to anyone who can add that touch of realism to fix even a small hole in the story's reality. As long as you do so without distracting from the story.

Or you can have her call herself out on it when she realizes she may be breaking some laws... have her start to worry about it a little, and you'll raise the tension.

Bloggy is right. Go ahead. As long as you touch upon the legal stuff, readers won't miss the details. Trust me ... readers won't want the details!

Readers don't care about and usually don't want to read about things that aren't relevant to the plot. If you don't mention the legal aspects of operating a kitchen, they won't think about it. If you do, then just keep it tight and right, touching only on what needs to be addressed and nothing else.

Thanks! I was thinking all of this same stuff. I pretty much came to the realization after spending hours researching about health codes and licenses and feeling bored out of my mind.

I do think you should do as much of that research as you can. But yeah, you then have to decide how much or little to include or even allude to, and it might well be close to none of it.

That is not something I really think readers are gonna notice. But if you want to be realistic some states also have rules about running businesses out of your house at all. Washington State you must receive permission from all houses adjoining yours before you work out of your house and then you can only run certain types of businesses. But again just go ahead and keep it the way it is. I doubt anyone will notice.

Yeah I looked up the laws for the specific state the book is set in. It can be done, but it's complicated.

Make her a street vendor in Belize. No problem.

Uh yeah. That won't work. lol

It was all I could think of to avoid all the bureaucratic tangle of licenses, permits, certificates, and such.

Otherwise I think you can gloss over the details, as others have suggested, without the readers noticing.

If it was relevant to the story then you would probably need to know (like if a death occurs as a result of the cooking). But if its not relevant then don't worry. I am sure the legal requirements are longer than any normal novel and the reader would hate you for drawing their attention to it. I worked in catering once and apparently (in the UK) the chef or cook can be fined for causing food poisoning in a customer. Plus there is the coocked/non cooked food issue for fridges....the temperature of cooked foods and cold foods....blah blah.

It would be boring if you had to mention all this, and even more boring to learn it.

I've had this same problem... I have a scene in one of my stories where a guy goes back to his hometown of Chicago, to a house where he hasn't lived in fourteen years. I wanted there to be electricity in the house for the duration of his stay, but I thought it might appear extraneous to detail how he'd called the electric company a few day's before the arrival in order to get it turned back on in anticipation of his visit. I finally did add just a tiny blurb about how he was taken aback when he first arrives at the house when he finds the front porch light on, but then he recalls that he'd contacted Edison Electric a few days before. I couldn't help it -- I kept thinking that some nebbish out there would point out the "flaw" in the book if it ever got published.

In the same story there is also the issue of the guy having inherited that house when he was younger. I wanted the house to sit uninhabited for fourteen years, but then I went through this month-long period where I kept wondering about city abandoned building ordinances, property tax, property values going down in the surrounding neighborhood, etc. I finally just "glossed it over" a bit. I know that the same nebbish that I mentioned before might say, "Hey! The city would've repo'd the house, blah blah blah..." But I doubt any readers would want a long-winded explanation of the entire legal process of why the MC was allowed to keep the property when he didn't live there. And I know it's not a crutch, but I have seen movies and read books where things like this are just left up to the imagination of the viewer/reader if they are so inclined, so hopefully I'm okay in that regard.