A Happy Medium

[NaokoSmith]

Sherlock Holmes was a writer? Bet those are some wild stories.

No-o-o! Sherlock Holmes wrote that monograph on different kinds of tobacco ash. Not a bit wild, since tobacco is a domesticated plant.

 

[sr71plt]

No-o-o! Sherlock Holmes wrote that monograph on different kinds of tobacco ash. Not a bit wild, since tobacco is a domesticated plant.

He fooled you, didn't he? That was opium, doll, not tobacco.

But then he fooled JBJ into thinking he was a writer too. Clever man, that.

 

[patientlee]

I know that I don't care to read anything I can find in my own bedroom. If I'm going to take the time to read a story, I want to experience something different from my own life through the characters. That being said, I also prefer to stay within the realm of what might actually be able to happen.

I am willing, however, to check my conception of "what might actually be able to happen" at the door if it's the right kind of story.

 

[SecondCircle]

Dunno bout Holmes, but one thing I find interesting about plausibility, fantasy, fiction, realism, etc, is that usually, in a story that starts with realistic characters and settings, everyday scenarios or ones that our mind is ready to accept... there's a line that we cross that takes us from one world to the other.

In a simpler sentence that's less of a run on, we reach a point where everything has been "realistic" or "plausible" and something shifts the story to "fantasy".

For most here at Lit, this happens when that supermodel walks in on her two friends and says "can I join?" or something like that. Or when the steamy sex starts. The fantasy kicks in, and sometimes its simple and easy to believe that it could happen, where at other times its a twenty man gang bang on one sex hungry college girl.

But the good writers are the ones who can camouflage that turning point to where you'll never notice it. You are reading bout an office girl, seeing her everyday stress, going along with it... and then either Bam! She's blowing her boss to keep her job, or the new temp charms her into lunch and more.

Basically at some point we make the switch between the real and the fantasy and its up to us as writers to sneak that by fluidly to make for a good, realistic, plausible, memorable fantasy. It's that one critical shift where the "suspension of disbelief" happens, and we cannot let the reader take so much notice that they stop reading, or focus on that odd change in the story where something just got nutty.

Is this the most difficult task we must conquer? Tying a black rope to a white one and making them appear grey?

 

[NaokoSmith]

In a simpler sentence that's less of a run on, we reach a point where everything has been "realistic" or "plausible" and something shifts the story to "fantasy".
...
Is this the most difficult task we must conquer? Tying a black rope to a white one and making them appear grey?

I think sometimes it's even about saying: No, that grey rope is made up of a black and white one. It's about taking the reader on a journey of some kind.

I write some werewolf stories which are the reverse of moving from realism to fantasy. They start with a bunch of people who turn into wolves, cuz that is the in sexy thing for a lot of people (for reasons which I won't go on about here). Then I make them much more realistic. In effect, I'm disentangling the werewolf genre rope, whispering alongside my story: When you read a werewolf story, you're looking for these elements, you are trying to think through issues about these themes which the werewolf genre explores. Let me set them out a little more clearly so you can consider them.

(LOL, Pilot, you know it was about tobacco ash. Holmes injected the opium and wrote about cigars.)