Sure, I'm writing a sci-fi romance with superheroes. Anyone reading it is going to suspend their disbelief somewhat, or they'll be rolling their eyes through the whole thing. Or throwing the book at the wall. But despite the fantastical characters and extreme situations in my book, events and reactions and solutions have to make sense.
I do that mostly by putting myself in my main character's shoes. If I were a mid-twenties woman with giant bat-like wings who found out that she was a result of a government experiment...how would I react to discovering there were others like me? How would I react to being "outed" on national television? How would I react if a really hot guy started paying romantic attention to me, despite my unflattering daytime disguise? I take my reactions and colour them through my main character's eyes, using bits of her personality that maybe are a little foreign to me. That's how they become real.
Actions and reactions and solutions to issues have to have the same ring of truth. If they don't, it grates on me. The last few chapters of TOPAZ, for example, started setting off my lack-of-logic alarms. It's not that the events were so out there they were implausible. In fact, a beta reader mentioned that she didn't see a problem as she was reading it, not until I specifically asked her about it. Then she agreed that yes...there was an issue. When you're caught up in the story and invested in the characters, you are willing to overlook some problems with logic. But I don't want to write a book that after you finish you say, "That was really good. Except...wait a minute...that last part didn't make sense." I'd rather write a book where you leave off that second sentence.
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TOPAZ status: I've rolled it back seven chapters to Chapter 28 and I'm trying a different direction for the climax of the book. We'll see how it goes. I'm hoping it will alleviate the logic issues I mentioned above AND provide a more satisfying character arc for Jason.
5 comments:
I've always felt that fiction, any kind of fiction, must stem from a root of truth.
There's no such thing as coincedence in fiction, everything has to be explained logically otherwise the reader won't believe it. Coincidence exists in real life but it can't exist in fiction.
You're story sounds really fun, by the way. A woman with wings who's a government experiment. I can relate to that.
Jai
LOL, Jai. Are you hiding something from us? Giant wings, perhaps? :)
During a workshop I recently attended on pace and plotting, the presenter (Eve Silver, who was absolutely AWESOME) mentioned that you should not mistake coincidence for plot. However, you can turn coincidence into plot by coming up with a logical explanation for it.
I will attest that that is harder than it sounds, though, which is one of the reasons I've rolled TOPAZ back a few chapters to try to avoid that situation.
Kudos to you for tackling such a huge task (backtracking seven chapters and rewriting? wow).
Ack. I know. Part of me is screaming, "What the HELL are you doing?"
Another part is telling that first part to breathe normally because it's the right thing to do.
I'm not scrapping what I had--I never scrap anything--because it wasn't bad, just not as good as it could be. The biggest problem is that I was using a similar situation to one that had happened earlier in the book, so it felt like a (minor) repetition. The rewrite should fix that. But if I don't like it, I can go back to my first ending instead.
The joys of being a pantser. :)
Jenn, I've been hiding my role as a government experiment. The evil universal healthcare system in Great Britain kept me alive so that I could take over the world. Mwuhahahahahahaha!
Jai
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