Reality: A Huck of a Mess

Old grudges die hard.

Last week's tirade against Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises proves the adage. Portraying reality is tricky business and sure to incite strong responses. Such perilous territory should not dissuade the journey, however. Reality in fiction definitely has its place.

In fact, it has at least three places: the sounds of the story, the characters' reactions, and the relationships in your story.

Sounds

Earlier in this blog's history, we examined the use of realistic dialect and how it influenced the impact of Huckleberry Finn. I said that dialect can enhance the dialogue's authenticity, which is a good thing. 

While a conversation's authenticity is important, realize that the sound of the dialogue is what makes it genuine and unique, not the use of exact words. It was not simply the words that Huck heard as a covert listener that generated excitement and fear during his adventures with the runaway slave Jim. The totality of sounds—tone, emotion, accent, and volume—practically put us on the raft with Huck and Jim. We not only hear what he hears; we feel what he feels. The verisimilitude Twain created with sound proves far more effective than had he simply recounted the words.

It is the portrayal of conversation at which writers today fail the most often. Somebody somewhere told them that to make conversations accurate all they need do is relate the conversations you hear in real life.

Those somebodies somewhere are human ferrets—weaselly little animals who like to play with your mind and actions. 

The problem with "relating conversations you hear in real life" is the vast majority of modern-day conversations are pointless and boring, filled with incomprehensible slang, jargon, and throwaway words of which even they don't know the meanings. 

For example, ask a teenager who comes home after curfew where he's been, he will usually answer, "I was just hanging out with friends." Maybe I'm an over-concerned parent, but I really don't want to think of my child "hanging out" in public, especially with the indecent exposure laws being what they are. It would be far better to say, "I was with Bob and Oscar planning the philosophical takeover of Rwanda." It would at least make you sound intelligent.

The important thing about the characters in your fiction is to use them to tell a story. Stories have conflict, action, and resolution. It is difficult to depict this with the aimless discourse one hears at the local McDonald's, on ESPN interviews, or during the audience-less speeches on CSPAN. It is far better to replace all the cliches, slang, and throwaway words with intelligible sentences that can advance your plot. For example, instead of saying, "She was, like, all up in my face and goes, 'Outta my way, #@*%!' So I laid the smack-down on her åßß!", perhaps it would be better to say something like, "She was highly perturbed with me and attempted to push her way past me, at which point I became violent and paddled her buttocks with a badminton racket." 

All right, that would be a mistake. Although the correction uses "nicer" language, it lacks the important qualities that the former has: its passion, its enthusiasm, its reality. The key is to maintain those elements without allowing the words to cover them up. The way around that is to keep the conversations short and pointed rather than letting the likes and the she goeses induce the reader to bang his book against writer's forehead.

Remember, you don't create passion, enthusiasm, and reality just by using the common words used in dialogue. You need to capture the energy and the fervor of the characters as well if you want to capture the reality of the scene. In other words, capture the sound of reality. It is that sound which will reach your audience and advance your plot.

Reactions

A second area where reality is essential is in creating characters. The important aspect about building authentic characters is not deciding whether they are people you like, people you dislike, or even if they are people at all. The most essential trait to develop is how they react to any given situation. That is what they do with the complications you throw in their way to intensify the conflict. It is their reactions that make them memorable.

What readers like about Huck Finn is not simply his cunning, his bravery, or ability to talk himself out of virtually every situation. It is his uncomplicated and unflinching humanity he relies on in complicated situations.

As resourceful as he is, Huck is a vulnerable, compassionate character. He thinks. He feels. As a result, so does the reader. Through Huck's reactions, we share his confusion over the ethical dilemma of aiding a runaway slave escape. Through Huck's reactions, we empathize with his frustration with authority when a judge orders him to stay with his abusive father. Through Huck's reactions and despite our own spiritual beliefs, we cheer when he consciously risks hell-fire and damnation rather than hurt his friend Jim.

While Huck's actions may be far-fetched and illogical, his reactions to people, situations, and values are real and engaging.

Relationships

One could go off into an analysis of Huck's relationships, but you will appreciate the novel more if you discover them for yourself. I urge you to read or reread and marvel in Twian's depiction of real and engaging relationships, but let's use a more modern example to prove the importance of reality in relationships. Something newer than the 19th Century. (English teachers DO read newer material. I promise.)

Like the 21st Century.

Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys takes fantasy, mangles the reader's concept of life and death, and thoroughly convinces him/her that even in the spirit world, people are people. How? By making the relationship between spirit-human siblings genuine. Even though everything else in the novel is beyond our experience, the relationship between the two brothers is common to our everyday life.

Two brothers, sons of the trickstaer-god Anansi, live with one foot in the human world and other in the world of spiritual legend. While the conflict between the two is at once fantastical and hilarious, the reader latches onto their familial bond, cheering for both even though they are clearly protagonist and antagonist. These are brothers with an authentic love-hate relationship with which anybody with siblings can immediately empathize. 

The conflict may be unreal, but the relationship is authentic. It draws the characters closer.  The conflict becomes secondary and the reader is glad.

In summary, reality has its place in every story, particularly in the sounds, the reactions, and the relationships. When used well, reality can illuminate and inspire. When overused or misdirected, it can frustrate and anger.

Choose to put reality in its proper places, and everybody will be happier.

Happy is good. Happy destroys grudges ... like the one against the overuse of reality in ...

We'l save that for next time. Stay tuned.