An old adage states that "Truth is stranger than fiction." And the old teacher in me says, "That is disgustingly trite. Stop it!"
Yes, the saying is a cliche, but banality aside, there is a validity there we need to talk about, especially as we finish our series on reality in fiction.
Thus far, we've explored the pitfalls of too close an adherence to authenticity—boredom, distraction, and outright abandonment of the material—and the areas of a story that demand Steven Colbert's element of "truthiness"—sound, reactions, and relationships. Today's installment explores the elements that are simply rife with possibilities for stretching credibility (rife in a good way): imagination, conflicts, and resolution.
First, be aware that stressing over a creative subject is not only destructive to the writing process; it is also totally unnecessary. To see why, look at the back pages of the newspapers/magazines and observe the barrage of bizarre reported there on a daily basis.
In an interview with 60 Minutes, prolific novelist Carl Hiaasen, author of Skinny Dip, Strip Tease, and assorted children's stories (strange man ...), credited the Miami Herald as a major inspiration for his novels.
For example, Skinny Dip involves a man throwing his wife off the back of a cruise ship only to have her land on a plastic-wrapped bale of marijuana, which saves her life. Far- fetched? If you live in Wyoming or any spot 300 yards inland from the Atlantic, of course, it would seem fanciful, if not totally impossible. Yet Hiaasen claims he read it in the Miami news. His 60 Minutes interviewer later confirmed the story.
However, ridiculous reality is not limited to the fringe life of Florida.
It's everywhere!
One may not want to believe what is found there, and that's all right. Most "normal" people are reticent to enter the realm of the ridiculous; however, it is important to know that readers are often more adventurous than writers. Note the success of Yann Martel's Life of Pi. Few rational human beings would conceive of a shipwreck survivor adrift on the Pacific Ocean sharing a lifeboat with a hungry Bengal tiger. Martel did, however, tapping into his readers' need to believe. The book became one of the most successful of the decade.
It wasn't the first either. If you're not convinced that preposterous succeeds, note Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull, L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and C.S. Lewis's Perelandra.
As contrived as the concepts of these books were, they all found an audience. How did they do it? By stretching reality.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull describes the search for spiritual perfection through the everyday physical and societal struggles, failures and successes of a BIRD!
Baum turns his Populist political philosophy into a children's story, transforming the turn-of-the-century industrial worker with no heart into the Tin Man, the Robber Barons of the coastal states into the Bad Witches of the East and West, and perennial Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan into the Cowardly Lion. (I have more. Ask me sometime.)
Lewis retells the familiar Bible stories of creation and salvation by transporting good/evil earthlings to Venus to prevent/ensure the Fall of Man on that planet.
In each case, the author blends the familiar with the fantastical, permitting the reader to flee everyday existence to a magical yet authentic world apparently created just for him/her.
In this new world, new conflicts naturally arise from the settings and premise. How does the writer go about making them "real"? By paying attention to detail in the settings, plot, AND characters. With clarity applied to these elements, inventive conflicts arise naturally that in real life would be considered absurd. It is this natural absurdity that hooks and retains the readers' attention.
After guiding the reader through the fictional verities of the plot and climax, the resolution, to be credible, requires the greatest stretch of imagination and the strongest attachment to reality at the same time. The best ending need not be the expected nor the unanticipated, but should result in the reader reacting, "Of course! That's the way it has to be.”
A couple examples:
Despite the clunky travelogue nature of a great deal of Dan Brown's Inferno, the ending is uniquely successful. After a number of chases, misdirections, and world-threatening chaos, the reader positively needs a solution to the conflict, but never suspects the one that actually occurs. Even though the resolution is not suspected, it is ultimately satisfying which is strange in that neither the protagonists nor the antagonists win. In fact, in the final analysis, the reader isn’t even sure who were the protagonists and who were the antagonists. (I’m purposefully vague here to avoid an ever-annoying spoiler alert.)
A more classic example of the Huh?-Wow! ending comes in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. The climax and resolution occur so fast, they are a one-two punch to the gut, eliciting a shocked gasp and frantic blubbering search through the last chapter trying to discover what the reader missed. Nobody I know has LIKED the ending to this book, but after re-examining the story, everybody reluctantly admits it is the correct one, as well as the perfect expression of the overriding theme of true friendship.
Which brings us to the moral of our three-part odyssey into fictional reality. I propose the lessons are threefold: 1) Be real. 2) Stretch your creative muscles, and 3) ... uh ... Eat your vegetables?
I'm getting forgetful and lazy in my old age. I know that wasn't really one of the lessons. It's what my wife has been telling me all week as we work on our Weight Watchers diet. Sorry.
Yes, dear. I'm listening. I'll be right there.
It all comes back to the Greek ideal of balance. Balance in fiction. Balance in reality. Balance in eating habits.
Remember, no matter how fanciful a story's premise, the audience also needs to empathize with its characters and their lives. With that in mind, a writer must be careful. The readers' desire for authenticity does not override the craving for a good story and the hunger for diversion.
That is t0 say, keep it real ... but not too real. Naturally That would be absurd.
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