Category Archives: Craft & Skills

When Life is Larger than Life

Character Mary Pletsch The Writing Life Tropes & Archetypes No Comments

A writer friend of mine has cautioned me about borrowing storylines too faithfully from real life.  Her words of caution read as follows:  “Fiction has to make sense; reality doesn’t.”

If a story doesn’t hold together–if information is missing so that readers don’t understand why or how important events happened, if characters undergo situations without learning or growing or changing in any meaningful way, if the conclusion doesn’t leave readers with a sense of satisfaction–it’s considered a failure on behalf of the writer.  But these sort of things happen in real life all the time.

Readers who pick up a murder mystery story can rest assured that by the end of the book, they’re going to know whodunnit (and usually how and why).  Real life, on the other hand, is filled with examples of murders that were never solved, missing persons that were never found, and criminals who were never brought to justice.  These situations, while realistic (indeed, real), don’t make for satisfying murder mystery stories.

That’s not to say it’s impossible to write a successful story in which a mystery remains unsolved – I think of Minority Report, where the hero’s missing (and never found) child provides motivation for his decisions – but the plot of Minority Report is not centered on the missing son.

Another important factor to consider in fiction is suspension of disbelief.  If a character or plot point is too outrageous or implausible, it can shock readers out of the story.  It can make a serious story unintentionally humorous, ruining the tone and the mood, or it can leave the reader feeling frustrated and disappointed if they thought they were beginning one kind of story and ended up with another.  (No spoilers here, but I recently read a book which began as a realistic-seeming crime story and, in a daring move halfway through, a supernatural element was revealed.  I thought it was great, but afterwards I found mixed reviews, depending on the willingness of the readers to shelve their disbelief, accept the unexpected supernatural premise, and continue reading.)

So what do you do when your real-life example is so much larger than life that it stretches plausibility–even though it really happened?

Audie Murphy – the most decorated American soldier of the Second World War – later became an actor and played himself in a movie based on his autobiography, To Hell and Back.  Murphy himself was not the typical action-hero–he was shorter and skinnier than the archetypal figure–and though he filmed the movie as an adult, he fought when he was still a teenager.  Many of us are used to movies “based on a true story” containing gross exaggerations for dramatic effect.  In this cas,e though, comparison between historical accounts and the movie suggests that the film understated Murphy’s heroic deeds.  In a world where the usual formula is to overstate the fictional version to make a more dramatic story, To Hell and Back is an example of where real life has been toned down to make the story seem plausible to an audience unfamiliar with the actual history.

My writer friend, who is English, has been following with great amusement the saga of Rob Ford (the mayor of Toronto) over the past year.  From conflict of interest trials to admitted public intoxication and crack cocaine use, from lewd comments to investigation by police, and with videos of the mayor drunk, swearing and threatening people posted on Youtube, Mayor Ford is like a reality TV show playing out on the nightly news.  He’s real.  He’s all too real.  And he still intends to run for office again.

But my writer friend says, “You couldn’t make him up.”

You couldn’t make him up, because who would believe in him?  Who would believe that the mayor of a provincial capital would conduct himself in this fashion?  Try swapping Rob Ford for the leader in a military thriller or political drama.  How many readers would be able to suspend their disbelief?

Maybe you could get away with him in a screwball comedy or cheesy cartoon–the genres where viewers aren’t supposed to take anything seriously.

“But he’s real,” you say.  “It really happened.”

Now that it’s happened, while he’s still public knowledge, a writer could get away with a serious story involving a crackhead mayor.  Before the scandal broke–or in ten or twenty years when Ford is forgotten–not a chance.

Fiction is a craft.  By all means, borrow ideas or plot points or character concepts from real life, but be ready to revise them to suit the needs of the story.  In the end, the goal of fiction isn’t to provide an accurate historical account, but to tell a coherent and engaging story.  Sometimes that means simplifying events, adding explanations, and ramping up drama.  And sometimes…just sometimes…that means toning characters down, when real life is just too much “larger than life.”

Stillness – How Shall I Write Thee?

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Reflection Self-Awareness 1 Comment

Good fiction is life with all the boring bits taken out, not with all the hardship taken out.
Caro Clarke

Those ‘boring bits’ in life can be the most meaningful times yet it’s almost impossible to incorporate them into a story and hold a reader’s attention.

As writers, we are tasked to evoke emotion, to bring meaning through theme, to explore economic, political and social environments. Writing books and blogs tell us we need to delve deep into our characters to understand what formed his value systems, what motivates him and what he fears. Doing this creates characters in conflict and provenance for change.

In real life, change can come from moments of contemplation. During those moments we reflect, digest, and come to understand ourselves. It can be our impetus to change. Most often, I have found the deeper meaning in my life during the ‘boring bits’ like meditating or paying full attention to what I am doing like washing dishes or going for a walk. So how as a writer can I add these ‘boring bits’ in a meaningful way to my genre fiction? Where are those moments of stillness and contemplation in a novel, wherein a character takes time to contemplate and understand and is then compelled to act or change? How can we write it and still move the story along?

The act of reading requires active participation of the reader to turn pages or flick them across a screen. Interpretation, thought and emotion abound, thus the mind is never really still. There must be some way to bring a sense of stillness or contemplation to the page. How do we capture that moment when one contemplates a wonder of nature – a soaring bird, a beaver with a branch in its mouth, silently swimming past your still canoe, a gecko sunning itself or a cotton ball cloud morphing into a unicorn?

English Romantic Era writer William Wordsworth (1770-1850) captured such contemplations in poems and so masterfully conveyed his feelings that the reader is transported to the moment. Wordsworth’s simple moments became a contemplation of his life thereby revealing his emotions and what he values. His poem, To the Cuckoo is an excellent example of this:

TO THE CUCKOO
O blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessèd Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place;
That is fit home for Thee!

Although writing styles and language have changed, perhaps we can still learn something from writers like Wordsworth. Stillness begets contemplation which begets understanding of character or a change in thought. This can be a call to action or a justification not to act.

So maybe, just maybe, there is a way to capture stillness or contemplation in a way so that it isn’t a ‘boring bit’ or elusive like the butterfly.

How do you capture stillness or contemplation in your stories?

Life vs Story

Balancing Acts Craft & Skills Frank Morin Reflection No Comments

Great SunsetWe’ve seen some incredible stories this month. I know I’ve enjoyed them.

Reading through the posts so far this month, I’ve been left wondering why real life is often so much stranger than fiction. Fiction is make believe, but it has its limits. They’re not the same limits set in our physical world or we’d never accept things like time travel, hobbits, and big magic. Yet those wonderful figments of our imagination are believed and embraced while some events that transpire in real life are rejected as ‘unbelievable’.

Why is that?

In fiction I can have purple unicorns or good fairies or soul-sucking demons and readers will clamor for more. But I cannot have serendipitous coincidences, unexpected miracles, or meaningless tragedy without risking the breakdown of credibility.

As authors it’s a critical element to understand. If we get it wrong, we knock our readers out of the story and they dismiss us as hacks. If we get it right, we suck people into our worlds and spin tales of wonder that can enchant for a lifetime.

First, it’s a matter of setup.

We define our worlds and transport the readers into them. We can set any boundaries we want, and sometimes we set some pretty wild ones.

I developed a story with my kids once that included a completely random magic system. We had a blast with that one because no one had any idea what might come next. It included assault rainbow ponies, fajita blaster go-karts, fifty foot pits of jell-o, and much more. And since we had defined it as a random chance based experience, all of that was believable.

The catch is, once we define the boundaries of a story, we cannot cross them. Once we build a world within those boundaries, everything that happens must be ‘believable’ within the context of that world.

So why are things that happen in everyday life not ‘believable’ in fiction worlds?

That’s the second piece to the puzzle. Life is not story.

Real life is unpredictable, chaotic, and often downright unfair. We don’t know what’s going to happen, and no matter how skilled or prepared or determined the protagonist of our lives might thing we are, there’s no guarantee we’ll win the day, get the girl, or live happily ever after.

A great example for me of the difference is the emotional balance of characters verses the emotional roller-coaster that is life. In a book we don’t like to see characters cry, even though in real life that is a very natural occurrence. We like our protagonists to be level-headed, calm, and kind all of the time, even though many people who should be adults regularly act like spoiled brats or worse.

Third, and most importantly, stories are entertainment. Reality is life.

We escape the stresses and challenges of reality through fiction and therefore it cannot be as unsatisfying as life often is. Authors take readers on an emotional journey that can drag them through the deepest abyss and transport them to the highest levels of heaven, but in the end we need to leave them feeling satisfied or fulfilled. If we don’t, then we’ve failed in our mission.

Life has to be lived, but Story needs to be enjoyed.

The $80 Million Bank Heist (you’ve probably never heard of)

Jace Killan Storyline The Writing Life No Comments

I’m a sucker for a good bank heist flick and I enjoy crime drama television, though I started to notice that many shows reflect similar stories to those in the news. After Bernie Madoff, a number of series had an episode about a billionaire hedge fund guy screwing over an everyday Joe in some sort of investment scheme. There have been other examples where these series use popular and current news in their episodes like a kidnapping, a missing spouse, a serial killer, and so on.

I enjoy reading and watching fiction that is based in reality. I like it when a story takes me to the uncomfortable edge of “what if”.

And so I keep a look out for those fantastical stories that only reality can tell, vested in irony and karmic justice, or those dramatic tragedies superseded by the ultimate protagonist. Reality is awesome and I’m grateful to be a part of it. But sometimes it can be too strange to be believable.

BanditsI love heist films like Ocean’s 11 or Bandits; Inside Man was awesome. Maybe it’s because I can imagine just for a moment, the “what if.” Not that I’d ever rob a bank, but what if I tried, could I get away with it?

I was asked to spend a couple years researching and helping with a case involving an $80 million dollar bank robbery. Yes, million and that figure alone puts the story into my NOT very realistic category.

Well it wasn’t one bank; it was actually more than two dozen banks. Believable now? What if I were to tell you that this bank heist didn’t involve guns or hostages? It didn’t involve get away vehicles or hideouts or even a crew of specialized talent. Boring?

It was one guy that exploited a connection. From what I could tell, the “robberies” happened from 2002 through 2009 when he was eventually arrested by the FBI.

To make the story even more unbelievable, the banks wired him the funds. You see, they thought they were participating in loans made to a billionaire and other landowners.

As an example, one gentleman borrowed from our bank-robbing friend, roughly $6 million using some property in Hawaii as collateral. The heist involved oversubscribing the loan, meaning that this bandit reached out to four different banks to subscribe the loan that he had made to the land owner, indicating that each bank would be in first position (and of course he failed to disclose that three other banks would be just as involved and just as clueless to his scheme). The four banks wired some twenty four million combined unaware that this same individual had transacted with many other banks on many other properties in the same manner. He used some of the funds to make payments on older fraudulent loans so that he could keep the Ponzi scheme going.

He lived large for a number of years and I imagine that there are still some funds yet to be accounted for. I’m sure he’ll be watched closely when he’s released, but the writer in me wonders if there isn’t a closing twist in this tale involving a cache of money on a private island somewhere. What if?

I’ve read numbers as low as $60 million and as high as $135 million, but the court documents and FBI seemed to settle on $79.9 million. What’s a few million among friends?

At the end of it all, he was sentenced to 72 months in prison, I believe half of which was due to not claiming some of the monies on his income taxes that he transferred to his personal accounts. You don’t want to mess with the IRS. They expected their piece of the heist totaling more than $500,000.

I find it interesting that a man who robs a bank of $5,000 could easily spend a couple decades behind bars while someone that defrauds institutions of $80 million might serve just a couple years with good behavior assuming he pays taxes on the money he’s embezzled.

So I’ve thought about writing the tale but it seems to be stranger than fiction.