The writer's suspension of disbelief

sunandshadow · May 13, 2007

I was thinking, recently, about why I have much more difficulty thinking of endings for fantasy novels than I have thinking of beginnings or middles for them. It occurred to me that the kind of endings I like are the ones which present some revelation about the way the worldbuilding works. This is kind of 'the point of the book', the thing the book teaches or argues in favor of. So it's easy for me to suspend my own disbelief for beginnings, which are basically 'what if's, but when it comes to endings, which are more like decisive statements of 'that's the way it is', well... somehow I can't bring myself to tell a story where the point is something about the magical nature of the universe which in real life I know to be false.

Anyone else have a similar problem? Or some tips about how you brainstorm a worldbuilding secret meaningful enough that revealing it makes a dramatic climax for a novel?

Kentuk · May 13, 2007

The magic of your universe should have no affect on your transending truth.

Oddsocks · May 14, 2007

I don't have this problem at all - in fact, I'm quite the opposite way. I must be really good at belief suspension, because having the 'the way it actually is' component be different from the way it is in our world is probably what I love most about fantasy as a genre. You get to make the world you work with any way you want, and so long as you stay within your own parameters, you can do anything.

As to tips - I suggest maybe making the metaphysical 'point' to your novel metaphorical, perhaps? That way, it can be as concrete as you like for the charcters' world, but for ours, it can still mean something - it's not entirely irrelevant to us even though it isn't a literal truth of our world.

Or, you could perhaps work with a more open ending (in this respect, anyway) - there's still something of this 'point' there for the reader to think about, but you aren't outright saying 'this is the way it is - isn't it amazing?' and letting the reader say 'ok, but what does that mean to me, here?' Let the reader make up their mind about whether 'it is' this way or not - realists might think it isn't and readers like me will probably assume it is, and everyone's happy.

But, I really don't have an issue with this, and I think fantasy readers in general will be open-minded about such things specifically because they're the kinds of people who choose to read a story about a different world with different rules.

Bufty · May 14, 2007

If one has a true beginning and middle, I don't appreciate where the problem lies because surely a true beginning and middle will automatically lead one to a true ending.

Or am I missing something?

Mustangpilot · May 14, 2007

I suspect the problem may be in not having an outline. I know if I get a "bright" idea and just start writing chapters I can get to a point where I loose sight of what the story is all about. I recently was forced to toss 3 chapters and start over because I was painting myself into a corner. If I first make an outline and rough out key chapters, then it forces me to write with a goal in mind.

I have one problem that I don't know what to do about or if it really is a problem. Many times a character or group of characters develope a life of their own and lead me off into the wild blue yonder. Anyone else find this happening to them?

TSByrne · May 14, 2007

I know exactly what you mean, sunandshadow. I used to struggle with this, and recently I came to the (somewhat ironic) conclusion that the thing to do was to make everything more fantastic, less believable, but to make it more metaphorical.

Less believable, more true, and everybody wins. Huge, evil dragons or fleets of starships as contemporary mythology, overblown representations of your own feelings. That's how I look at it now. It's all fairy tales, man, literally. Make it a true and worthy and human mythology like all the other "greats" do (whether they realize it or not).

That's the only kind of writing worth doing, I say. I don't give a fig about your (not you specifically, just hypothetically speaking here) nice little world where the good guys won because of the Kyber Crystal or some other silly macguffin. That's not the right way to do it at all.

Higgins · May 14, 2007

I agree

TSByrne said:
I know exactly what you mean, sunandshadow. I used to struggle with this, and recently I came to the (somewhat ironic) conclusion that the thing to do was to make everything more fantastic, less believable, but to make it more metaphorical.

Less believable, more true, and everybody wins. Huge, evil dragons or fleets of starships as contemporary mythology, overblown representations of your own feelings. That's how I look at it now. It's all fairy tales, man, literally. Make it a true and worthy and human mythology like all the other "greats" do (whether they realize it or not).

That's the only kind of writing worth doing, I say. I don't give a fig about your (not you specifically, just hypothetically speaking here) nice little world where the good guys won because of the Kyber Crystal or some other silly macguffin. That's not the right way to do it at all.

Macguffin says it all on this point. Any Macguffin suffices to keep the plot rolling, but the end has to give some sense to the Macguffin....like a chord that resolves all the dissonances that kept the tale from resting with any given harmonic aura. You can begin with a thunderous boom, but by the end the boom should have some resonance.

sunandshadow · May 14, 2007

Mustangpilot said:
I suspect the problem may be in not having an outline. I know if I get a "bright" idea and just start writing chapters I can get to a point where I loose sight of what the story is all about. I recently was forced to toss 3 chapters and start over because I was painting myself into a corner. If I first make an outline and rough out key chapters, then it forces me to write with a goal in mind.

Well sort of - it's not that I don't make an outline, it's that when I go to make an outline I can't think of a satisfactory idea for the ending to put in that outline.

sunandshadow · May 14, 2007

TSByrne said:
I know exactly what you mean, sunandshadow. I used to struggle with this, and recently I came to the (somewhat ironic) conclusion that the thing to do was to make everything more fantastic, less believable, but to make it more metaphorical.

Less believable, more true, and everybody wins. Huge, evil dragons or fleets of starships as contemporary mythology, overblown representations of your own feelings.

Okay, how do you figure out what feelings or mythical moral you want your ending to represent? If I start writing to explore some question or doubt that I have, wouldn't I have to have an answer or resolve to present at the end? But if the question or doubt bothers me enough to write about it, I'm not likely to be able to just decide on an answer.

I'm into myth analysis and identifying how modern fiction follows the same patterns, so I do know what you mean by contemporary mythology, but I don't want to tell the same story lots of people have told before, I think it's not worth writing if I don't have a unique or at least uncommon point to make, some little nugget of wisdom my readers can take with them.

sunandshadow · May 14, 2007

Bufty said:
If one has a true beginning and middle, I don't appreciate where the problem lies because surely a true beginning and middle will automatically lead one to a true ending.

Or am I missing something?

It would be so nice if it worked that way. But that just doesn't naturally happen for me.

I mean I know vaguely, that I want a clever twist to suddenly resolve all the problems, the villain to be either converted to a good guy or neutralized so he can't do any more bad, and the hero and heroine to be truly in love and live happily ever after. But I generally have a total lack of ideas as to what specifically that clever twist might be, or how I could convince the villain to quit being a villain without being totally cheesy, or how the hero and heroine can decisively defeat what's been threatening them and thereby demonstrate that they are a great team who will be safe from future trouble now that they have gotten their act together and decided to work together and trust each other...

AzBobby · May 14, 2007

sunandshadow said:
So it's easy for me to suspend my own disbelief for beginnings, which are basically 'what if's, but when it comes to endings, which are more like decisive statements of 'that's the way it is', well... somehow I can't bring myself to tell a story where the point is something about the magical nature of the universe which in real life I know to be false.

Are you sure you're writing about stuff you care about?

I think Sokal was helpful in bringing up the MacGuffin -- sometimes called the item the characters consider most important but which the audience considers least important. We care about Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint surviving the chase over Mount Rushmore, but we really don't give a damn about the spool of microfilm the bad guys are willing to kill for. It's just an excuse to throw Grant and Saint together.

Only my opinion, but I'm having trouble imagining reading about a fantasy world, and really caring about its makeup for its own sake. This has never happened. Reading about how discoveries about their world affect the characters involved, on the other hand, sounds familiar. The more authentic the characters' experience seems, the more likely it is to parallel (at least metaphorically or satirically) concepts you know not to be false in real human experience.

sunandshadow · May 14, 2007

AzBobby said:
Are you sure you're writing about stuff you care about?

I think Sokal was helpful in bringing up the MacGuffin -- sometimes called the item the characters consider most important but which the audience considers least important. We care about Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint surviving the chase over Mount Rushmore, but we really don't give a damn about the spool of microfilm the bad guys are willing to kill for. It's just an excuse to throw Grant and Saint together.

Only my opinion, but I'm having trouble imagining reading about a fantasy world, and really caring about its makeup for its own sake. This has never happened. Reading about how discoveries about their world affect the characters involved, on the other hand, sounds familiar. The more authentic the characters' experience seems, the more likely it is to parallel (at least metaphorically or satirically) concepts you know not to be false in real human experience.

I fairly often read about a bit of fsf worldbuilding I care about for its own sake. For example, say dragons were almost extinct but at the end of the book the race is being reborn. Or, in the midst of a society which is prudish and prejudiced the hero and heroine have just founded a new clan or university or commune which will be a haven for misfits. Or the hero, who has been lonely and bitter because the universe has seemed like an awful place to him, discovers that secretly there is some magical law of soul-gravity which draws everyone to their soulmate at the proper time. Or human life is angsty because as a species we are in the middle of evolving to a new stage, and at the end of the story we get a glimpse of how the new humanity will be more content and in harmony with the universe.

So what I care about (besides romance) is being reassured that there is justice and the world is a place worth living in or at least in the process of becoming a better place.

Higgins · May 15, 2007

HMMMM not the world but its meaning

sunandshadow said:
I fairly often read about a bit of fsf worldbuilding I care about for its own sake. For example, say dragons were almost extinct but at the end of the book the race is being reborn. Or, in the midst of a society which is prudish and prejudiced the hero and heroine have just founded a new clan or university or commune which will be a haven for misfits. Or the hero, who has been lonely and bitter because the universe has seemed like an awful place to him, discovers that secretly there is some magical law of soul-gravity which draws everyone to their soulmate at the proper time. Or human life is angsty because as a species we are in the middle of evolving to a new stage, and at the end of the story we get a glimpse of how the new humanity will be more content and in harmony with the universe.

So what I care about (besides romance) is being reassured that there is justice and the world is a place worth living in or at least in the process of becoming a better place.

Those would be nice endings, but do they resolve enough elements? IT would be soothing if there is a natural law of soul gravity...but what generates it and why? How do the tidally locked get separated? What generates the correspondences? There is always more to wonder about. You just have to pick a level where it works for resolving your story.

TSByrne · May 16, 2007

sunandshadow said:
Okay, how do you figure out what feelings or mythical moral you want your ending to represent? If I start writing to explore some question or doubt that I have, wouldn't I have to have an answer or resolve to present at the end? But if the question or doubt bothers me enough to write about it, I'm not likely to be able to just decide on an answer.

You sit down and you think about it. Then, if you still can't figure it out, write your own confusion into the book, too.

Nobody ever said that a fantasy novel had to be neatly wrapped up in the end, with evil vanquished and everybody living happily ever after. Have a ragged partial victory of your inner demons (turned into outer demons and dragons or whatever) if you like, one that leaves piles of corpses behind and no promise of peace in the future.

Or not. If you want a mega happy ending then figure one out.

Blushing Apple · May 17, 2007

I am curious about what in your world that is a theme for you is false in the real world. Maybe you could go from there, examining that very aspect, and find a resolution.

Tachyon · May 17, 2007

Myth analysis is great.

If you haven't already, look into the monomyth. It provides a nice general framework for adventure. I like it because it focuses on one thing, the hero, rather than the entire world. Before you decide what you're saying about everything in life, just deal with the fate of your hero. Does the hero live or die? How does his or her experiences change him or her by the end of the novel? What does the hero get out of it?

Although striving to make a unique or uncommon point is good, don't forget that the way in which you present a point, no matter how common, is also important. We keep telling the same stories over, as you noted. How those stories are told is what makes them great. Just look at Shakespeare, who pioneered the remake industry: most of his plays were adapted from existing stories. Yet we remember and study Shakespeare because he was so good at telling the story.

sunandshadow · May 18, 2007

Blushing Apple said:
I am curious about what in your world that is a theme for you is false in the real world. Maybe you could go from there, examining that very aspect, and find a resolution.

Justice is probably the most obvious one. I don't believe the real world is inherently just, but I want to create a fictional world that is just.

sunandshadow · May 18, 2007

Tachyon said:
Myth analysis is great. If you haven't already, look into the monomyth. It provides a nice general framework for adventure. I like it because it focuses on one thing, the hero, rather than the entire world. Before you decide what you're saying about everything in life, just deal with the fate of your hero. Does the hero live or die? How does his or her experiences change him or her by the end of the novel? What does the hero get out of it?

Although striving to make a unique or uncommon point is good, don't forget that the way in which you present a point, no matter how common, is also important. We keep telling the same stories over, as you noted. How those stories are told is what makes them great. Just look at Shakespeare, who pioneered the remake industry: most of his plays were adapted from existing stories. Yet we remember and study Shakespeare because he was so good at telling the story.

Guh the monomyth. I can't really use that with the stuff I write because I don't write about heroes, or quests, or monsters. I write romantic comedies with several equally important main characters.

Tachyon · May 18, 2007

sunandshadow said:
I write romantic comedies with several equally important main characters.

Then how does each character change?

Reminds me a bit of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Strong ensemble cast, romantic comedy, universe that doesn't necessarily correspond to our own. Douglas Adams just ignored anything that got in the way of the story. Of course he took comedy to the rather extreme end of the spectrum.

An inherently just world, eh? What makes it inherently just? Is there a force that actually balances the "scales" of justice? Is it karmic?

Usually I begin by shattering my world and hoping that, as I attempt to pick up the pieces, some sort of solution to the main conflict emerges. I also keep on writing, because the act of writing will give me good ideas. I'll suddenly see a connection that I missed before and realize I can do something interesting with a character or twist the plot in a new direction. If it doesn't work out, I still have several gigabytes of memory before I have to worry about getting another hard drive.

sunandshadow · May 19, 2007

Generally each character has a fear to overcome, and a nonconstructive behavior they developed because of that fear that they have to change to a constructive behavior. Also since each character has a different strength and weaknesses, they become stronger by teaming up, such that the pair or group can overcome the problems that plagued the individuals.

The justice is kind of the basis of magic when I write fantasy - it's not quite Karma, closer to a collective unconscious or manifest destiny or gaia force which nudges everyone toward survival, reproduction, evolution.

The writer's suspension of disbelief

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

Kentuk

I want to write what I want to write

Oddsocks

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

Mustangpilot

TSByrne

Higgins

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

AzBobby

Ought to be writing instead

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

Higgins

TSByrne

Blushing Apple

Tachyon

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

Tachyon

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal