The SLUSHPILE Blog

Lies don’t fly in writing. Not even in fiction. Maybe especially not even in fiction.

If you’re scratching your head at those statements, I can well understand it. The meaning of the word ‘fiction’, after all is seemingly contrary to truth. It’s considered the opposite of ‘fact’. So, how, then, can it possibly be honest?

The underpinning of Fiction Writing: The Writer must create a world where the Reader can easily “Suspend Disbelief”.

When a reader picks up a work of fiction, they’ve already made a small pact with the writer: okay, you tell me a made up story, and I’ll suspend disbelief–within reason. In other words, I’ll believe you for the sake of the story.

The words ‘within reason’ do not mean that you can not come up with some fantastic elements in your story and automatically lose your readers’ belief. In fact, some of the most honest tales have incredibly fantastic elements (such as the Narnia stories–we have a talking lion, for pete’s sake, and fauns and witches and other ‘out there’ elements).

What the reader finds unreasonable is the manipulation of elements by the writer in order to make his job of writing the story easier. Here’s a short list of examples:

• Miraculous rescues (without any prior build-up or foreshadowing).
  • If you’re going to write your character(s) into an impossibly difficult situation, you’re going to have to write them out of it or bring it to its logical conclusion. No cheating by bringing in a miraculous rescue without showing how this rescue may even be possible before hand.
• Miraculous changes of heart where we really don’t see any motivation for or work put into changing.
  • The main antagonist suddenly goes from being bad to good more as a convenience to the writer (see miraculous rescues above) than because it is a natural conclusion to the arc of the story.
• Incredible repeated coincidences.
  • Life does contain coincidences, sometimes some fairly bizarre ones (case in point: many years ago my husband and I were at a football stadium probably containing about 45,000 people with my brother and sister-in-law. Through the course of the evening, my sister-in-law’s jacket and binoculars were stolen. She looked up just in time to see the culprit leaving our seating area with them in his hands. My husband and brother quickly gave pursuit and caught the young thief out in the main concourse. Imagine my husband’s surprise when he recognized the young man as his boss’s nephew! Out of 45,000 people at that stadium, I’m certain my husband’s boss wishes his nephew had chosen someone else to steal from.). What the reader will not put up with are repeated incredible coincidences, which smack more of writer convenience than honest tale telling.
• Characters behaving in a way or speaking in a manner that is not true to their established character.
• Stupidity: when an answer to a problem or the solution to a mystery is obvious to everyone, but the character suddenly is too stupid to figure it out.

I’m sure there are many more examples I could give, but these are just the ones that came off the top of my head.

To summarize, writing honestly is to treat your reader with respect. Don’t get in the way of their willingly suspending disbelief by writing stuff that is beyond belief. This means that when you’re in a difficult situation in your story, you’re going to have to do the work and write your way out of it. No shortcuts. No fantastic coincidences, no miraculous rescues, just honest work. Maybe someone is going to die that you didn’t foresee dying. Maybe someone is not going to live happily-ever-after, after all.

Do not manipulate your characters or their actions. When you manipulate the story in any way, the reader feels as though they are being manipulated, and no one likes that. They also feel as though you, as the writer, think that they are too stupid to notice. They do notice. They don’t like it.

Mostly, you have to be honest with yourself. If you don’t believe it when you’re writing it, they’re not going to believe it when they’re reading it.