Making it Personal Makes it Real · 9:19pm May 6th, 2014
Part of my Writing from an Actor's Perspective series. First part here.
'Realism' is a funny word. Scientifically, we all live in the same world with exactly one set of rules of how it all ultimately plays out, but everyone still manages to come up with a variety of contradictory views regarding the same subject matter. Literature is the same way, but worse: half the time, we're discussing the 'reality' of things that do not even exist!
The question an actor faces every time they go on stage is: how do I play the part if the reality of the story is uncertain? This isn't about the physics: every actor is naturally under the laws of physics surrounding the stage until the special effects department says otherwise. But how do we react truthfully to the sudden entrance of a gaggle of rampaging Xyphelux from the planet Nekpunio? We've never seen them before, and we have no experience with the real thing, so there's no gut instincts there to help. Do we run screaming? How loud are we screaming -- is this a mere bad day or THE! WORST! POSSIBLE! THING!? Do we instead stand our ground? How do we feel about that -- do we stand shaking but brave, or roll our eyes and wait to get flomped?
Authors face a similar situation all the time. We have created imaginary circumstances beyond what we've ever experienced before and have to have our characters react to them in a believable way. Our job is made more difficult because we have only the words to consider. We don't have another person there reading the lines out loud for reference, nor do we have a props department to give us an idea of what things physically look like. This is why seeing a movie and reading a book are two different things: life looks different than it reads.
So how do we overcome this problem? The secret lies in developing a personal stake in your scenes. Actors call this developing an 'as if' statement. Let's say that you've got a scene that is giving you a hard time. You've already taken time to clarify what everyone's essential action is, so you're clear on what everyone should be doing, but the how hasn't been working out. It's time to develop a personal stake in the action.
As if statements are simple to make. Just complete this sentence: <Character name> is <essential action>ing AS IF <your evocative personal parallel here>. The goal is to use your imagination to come up with circumstances in your life SIMILAR TO (but not exactly like) the circumstances you are trying to portray. Take our rampaging Xyphelux. I might liken them to my hypothetical huge but happy Newfoundland named Stack: herd of big fluffy dogs is going to tackle the crap out of me and make me inconveniently slobbery, but not going to kill me. I hope. Alternatively, they could be actively hostile, so maybe a better parallel would be a posse of the big kids on the playground who are going to pummel me without mercy.
If you can find a clear, evocative, parallel in your life and use it to get yourself invested in the action as you are writing it, then it becomes easier to picture the circumstances of the scene in your head. Consequently, you have a tool to dig deeper into the action and generate off-the-cuff ideas. For instance, if these things are like my dog, the characters might distract them with a treat. If the characters being caught is inconvenient but not terrifying, there might be room for some witty, annoyed, quips as they run.
Note that this is a PARALLEL. If you choose an 'as if' that is EXACTLY the same thing as what the character is doing, then you might as well just be drawing on your personal experience. Also, 'as if' statements are an imaginative tool only. The point isn't to write a scene that could happen in your life and then change the names. It's just supposed to help you get your head around how you might go about portraying the imaginary circumstances you want to write about. Finally, the more evocative your 'as if,' the more effective this strategy will be for getting your ideas flowing. A boring, routine 'as-if' makes for a boring, routine scene.
An 'as if' is good enough for actors, who have props and other people to play off of, but as authors, we have nothing but our words and our experience. We can profit by extending this concept of 'as if' further. The idea is to take the imaginary circumstances that we have come up with and figure out a parallel that we could concoct in real life. You might never even see a real battle-ax, but if you want to get your head around fighting with one, you may try to make a stand-in. Get a broomstick, put a weight on the end, and maybe a broad cardboard head to complete it, and then swing it around to see how it feels. It's no replacement for real experience, but it can give you some appreciation for how it actually feels to use the weapon, which uses a different part of your brain than the bits that absorb online research. Still do research (in fact, do it first), but if you can figure out some way to have a hands-on experience with things that are like what you are writing about, you can give another perspective to your writing.
Next up, we get beyond the concept of 'motivation' and instead ask "What are you fighting for?"
Thanks for reading! Questions? Comments? Concerns? Leave a comment!
*looks at title*
*looks at vast majority of clopfics*
MAKE IT REALISTIC! Geeze!
...
I should make a blog entry on THAT topic... once...
~Twi
Leaving a comment because you asked for one at the end.
oh, I guess I will add in, nice post too.
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Lip service counts though, right?
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In relation to what Twi was talking about...
Anyway... On with the comment!
Some of this can be taken care of with simile and metaphor, I think. But relying too much on it, and not only using it like salt or pepper, leaves a story looking like the author used a "Like is to like as Else is to ____" paper instead of a thesaurus. Or used both.
Also, the reading of books by those who know about such things can help give you finer details on what you may be missing.
Jim Butcher, for example, is a martial artist. I tend to think back to his books when I'm thinking about a fight scene.
Ian Douglas is an ex-navy corpsman. I think back to his books when I want to think about injuries in the context of fighting or fighting in general and military (modern) ideals.
Judith Tarr wrote a pretty good series that I think back to when I want to think about romance and fantastical historical fiction.
Lynn Flewelling wrote an interesting trilogy about finding your place in the world and growing up outside of your right place. I'm actually drawing on this a bit for Fluttershy's backstory.
Etc, etc...
While this, I think, can also give an idea of how to turn those real world experiences into fiction - by seeing how others have done the same thing - you make an excellent point that there are some things for which there are no direct analogues in our world. How do you portray the use and effect of magic? How do you portray the feel of a solid cloud under a character's hooves?
Although the cloud one could be a particularly crusty snowbank: some give to it, but if you push hard enough, you'll break through. I actually like that one. I may use it.
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Going over what I wrote again, I'm starting to think I wandered completely from the context in which this is supposed to be used. I guess I find it more fun to write about worldbuilding examples than interpersonal relationships
In my acting materials, 'as if' statements are almost always used to help us familiarize ourselves with interpersonal situations we are unfamiliar with. For instance, going strictly from the book:
The literal action: a husband screaming for his wife to come home to him.
The essential action: to beg a loved one's forgiveness.
Now consider that few of us here are married, but we might want to write about a married man in these circumstances. The reality is distant, so we use an 'as if' statement to bridge the gap:
The character is begging a loved one's forgiveness AS IF he had broken his mother's prized heirloom, she had thrown him out of the house, and to get back in he must beg her forgiveness.
Notice how this example writer may never have had a love to lose, but most of us have a home we depend on and could conceivably picture losing. Better yet, when I picture losing my home, I could definitely see myself begging for it back almost primally, which is close to how I see a caring husband begging his wife to come back to him. The needed attitude for the scene is found by going through an entirely different experience that is closer to our lives.
Returning to the topic of worldbuilding, I certainly can't knock doing your research. However, I do think that an author taking the time to develop an emotional stake in their world has made a worthwhile investment. Research the mechanics thoroughly, then try to find analogs to make the characters' situations real to you on a personal level.
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The more and more I blog, the more I think I may be in a boat going the other direction. But, maybe that's just me wandering on about shipping again.
Now you're talking my language. Abstraction. Using an abstract idea - pain, regret, sorrow, and applying that to other scenarios where that kind of emotion is called for. You're talking about taking abstracted emotions, actions, and realities and applying them elsewhere.
I'm afraid I don't have a craft book to point at for that bit of knowledge. But here's a Wikipedia article that explains the concept and where I got it from: Abstraction
But, in general, the more layers of abstraction that you have to pull the emotion through, the less useful it will be to the context you're trying to use it for. Dilution of meaning, I suppose.
Edit: This may be a better link: Abstraction
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In a way, I suppose, although that article is about abstraction of function: taking things from specific, detailed, implementations to more generic, detail-less, implementations. Here, we aren't trying to abstract a general concept from a specific instance, but rather understanding one specific instance by reference to another specific instance. Choosing the proper details in your as if is very important. It is dead without them.
An as-if statement is at most one level of abstraction, dilution shouldn't be too much of a problem. Furthermore, as this is a tool for getting your head around the scene and can be used multiple times for the same action, it is possible to make one as if statement, try it out, figure out what worked, and then fish for another statement that might make an even better fit. By iteration, you can build up a fuller and fuller idea of the specific circumstances of the actual scene you wanted to write about.
Basically, abstraction is taking a stop sign and tracing the octagon. 'As if' is like starting with an outline of your imaginary circumstances and coloring it with a collage of magazine cutouts that add up to what you want.
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I had something written here... then realized that i was going off on a tangent... I'm tired. I'll think about it later.
Good points, though. Abstraction of function is not quite the same as abstraction of ideas or ideals. Ugn. Brain foggy.
Toodles.