accuracy or what can bog the writing down
I think the key is consistency. I’m not a SEAL and I’m not an FBI agent, and even with years of research, I’m still going to get some details wrong….I believe that as a fiction writer my job is to entertain. Thus, I’m always walking a tight rope between accuracy and entertainment.
-Suzanne Brockmann
Sometimes, I think that we, as writers, think too much. Reason too much. This could never happen, we think. Should never happen. Not in the real world. And we might research and get stuck and try to write ourselves out of holes and we cross that line between writing fiction and trying to write what would happen in real life.
But we’re not writing non-fiction. And while accuracy - or non-accuracy - can pull readers out of story because of factual inconsistancies (and even then, you’ve got to remember that accuracy is so relative in many, many cases that you’re never going to please everyone) you’ve got to remember that people are reading your stories for the emotional satisfaction, not the facts.
For example, I’ve read some posts that complain about the way heroes and heroines act - mainly the big one seems to be that the heroine acts like she can take on the world and not listen to the experts even though she has no experience in saving anyone ever. But really, danger and adreneline can make people act in ways they’ve never acted before, so I tend to disagree. It’s the whole, I’d do anything to save my family, thing, and I think it’s pretty real.
This is coming from someone who will go downstairs by herself if she hears a noise. It’s instinct and I don’t stop to think - I just go.
And really, if everyone in fiction behaved rationally and realistically, I might not ever read again.
Reminds me of what Stephen King says in On Writing when he discusses the success behind Grisham’s The Firm:
Audiences also enjoyed the lawyer’s resourceful efforts to extricate himself from his dilemma. It might not be the way most people would behave, and the deus ex machina clanks pretty steadily in the last fifty pages, but it is the way most of us would like to behave. And wouldn’t we also like to have a deus ex machina in our lives?
*heads to yellow pages to buy self a deus ex machina*
Oh, and I’m doing the prize this week for the Sven challenge. I’ve got tons of books, including the War of Art and Sun Signs for Writers, a black and red notebook that’s awesome for journaling in and other fun stuff.
Don’t forget to go over and let Sven know how you did for the week! And I’ll draw the winner from this weeks list of challengers!
Steph T
August 12th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Stephanie,
This is great and you are, in my opinion, right on the mark. I am going to keep this out so I can reread it as I am working on my current WIP. Thanks for posting it.
Barbara
August 12th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Great advice, Stephanie. I too am printing this and putting it in my “Collection of Writer’s Wisdom”.
August 12th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
This is a great post. I’ve been guilty of too much reasoning, and not enough writing. I have a friend who I sometimes bounce ideas off of. Unfortunately, I’ve talked some of those ideas to death while questioning believability, and he’ll tell me, “You’re thinking too much again. Just write.”
August 13th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Great post!! I definitely needed to hear this. It is hard enough to write without looking over your shoulder all the time!! I think we read because we want to know that humans are capable of things that defy reality when life calls for it. The heroes in what we read often call out to the heroes in ourselves. Great reminder of that!
August 13th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I get this! I really ‘get’ this!
time to stop stop thinking, can’t won’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t and just
WRITE.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I really enjoyed this post. I loved this part,
“And really, if everyone in fiction behaved rationally and realistically, I might not ever read again.”
I think maybe I’ve been too bogged down lately in “is this realistic?” when perhaps I should be thinking “is this still entertaining enough for the reader to continue suspending disbelief?”
Thanks for the food for thought.
August 19th, 2007 at 11:24 am
The creative writing professor I had in college made us write a short story which we had to read in class. I wrote about a guy and his dog from the dog’s standpoint. When I read it in class, I got all the laughs I’d been hoping for; but one guy said, ‘you really can’t write about a thinking dog’. The professor said, ‘he just did’.