A common piece of advice for fiction writers is, "Write what you know." Fairly obvious, right? But it always surprises me how complicated it can get due to what the audience expects. One of my favorite websites to browse is tvtropes.org. One of the tropes they explore, titled "Reality is Unrealistic," is all about this. It's when a writer researchers a topic so he can portray it realistically in his story, but it falls flat because the audience has been conditioned to expect something else. One of the most common examples is how people react when they get shot. In the movies they go flying backwards. To get this effect in real life, you'd have to shoot someone with an elephant gun. Pistols, even magnums, just don't have enough power. Even most rifles and the vaunted shotguns won't knock a human target off his feet. Christopher Lee once demonstrated on a movie set how someone reacts when they get shot, and he knew from his combat experience in World War II. The crew laughed at his demonstration as unrealistic. Most people who get shot either drop where they are or run away, but thanks to action movies showing shooting victims flying across rooms with enough force to go crashing through plate glass windows, audiences seeing such a thing think it's unrealistic.
I've encountered this in my own writing. In creating a villain, I researched serial killers and sexual predators. Based on what I learned, I created my villain, but people found his actions ridiculously over-the-top... but all I did was repeat what actual killers have done. To make the story more believable, I actually had to make it less realistic. This also comes into play regarding life experiences in addition to research. In the soon-to-be-published Lords of Illusion, I have a guard captain who is a rather poor guard captain. One beta reader questioned how realistic this was. I based the character on many people I encountered when I was in the navy. A hard lesson I learned in that experience was that while some men advanced in ranks because they were good at their jobs, a lot of them were hopelessly incompetent but advanced, anyway, because while they sucked at their jobs, they were absolute masters of knowing which asses to kiss and which backs to stab. Thus, they advanced in the ranks. This also happens a good bit in civilian jobs, especially the corporate world. A reviewer for The Eighth Hell remarked that some of the antagonists' motives appeared to be nothing but petty jealousy. While true, it left me scratching my head and thinking, "Well, yes. Haven't you ever encountered petty, jealous people?" Another thing I learned in military service was that some people will make your life miserable simply because they can. Maybe this person doesn't even have any rank over you, but he controls something you need, and you did something to piss him off. You have no idea what you did, but every time you need the resource he controls, he denies it for whatever excuse while allowing everyone else access. If you suddenly start drawing double watches, rest assured you've pissed off whoever controls who stands watch when. The same is true in civilian jobs. You'd be surprised how often human motives are petty and trivial. The majority of murders are not the result of grand conspiracies or intricate plots. Most of them happen because someone pissed someone else off, and a lot of times it's for something petty, like a $5 gambling debt from a street corner game of dice. As an introvert, I'm continually amazed at how often and effectively sitting quietly and minding my own business seems to offend people. Someone had to point out to me what the problem was - by minding my own business, I was ignoring them. Thus, I didn't affirm someone's "superiority." I made zero effort to suck up. I didn't fawn over them enough. So I base some of these antagonists on those I've encountered in my own life, and I know plenty of others have encountered similar people, too, and I'm left wondering if the reviewer has somehow managed to go his entire life without ever having to deal with such people. The main human antagonist in The Eighth Hell had a previous clash with Aleena and his career had been on a downward trajectory ever since. He blamed her for it rather than take responsibility himself. I think this is a pretty realistic - hell, common - motive. His minion is a brash young mercenary who gladly does whatever his master commands him to do, very gung-ho, boolah-boolah, and all that crap; if you took the exuberance of a puppy, put it in the body of a tweny-something year old man, mixed in the testosterone and aggression of a school of bull sharks, this is the guy you'd end up with. As a man dealing with other men, I have encountered this type of guy from childhood on. Most guys have - all of you guys who had to deal with the kid who took playground football games waaaaaaayyyy too seriously when you were boys, please raise your hands. Yeah, a lot of them stay that way as adults. The reviewer also seemed to think The Eighth Hell was some sort of feminist tract; it isn't, I was just trying to tell a good sword and sorcery adventure and I happen to be very fond of strong female protagonists. He thought "invincible" (his word) female protagonists + male antagonists = feminist polemic. In fact, the male protagonists that supported Aleena and Baezha outnumbered the male antagonists who did not support them. Admitedly, one of those male protagonists was sexist, but underneath all that he was a good man who truly respected Aleena and Baezha. Yes, some guys treated the protagonists poorly. I am neither beautiful nor a woman, but expecting beautiful women to be brainless tarts and/or sluts is a common stereotype (big, athletic guys are dumb jocks, etc.), and we all encounter stereotypes; as an introverted male, the one I encounter is people assuming I'm weak because I'm quiet. Aleena and Baezha are beautiful women making their way in a rough-and-tumble career where beauty is not a qualification, so to make things authentic, I have some people treat them like they're too pretty for their jobs or trying to get by on their looks. Again, I was trying to realistically portray people, and real people are sometimes victims of stereotyping. As for "invincible," yes, they're very capable and yes, they win, but I always make sure they get put through the wringer to keep things interesting and realistic. If not for her enchanted armor, Aleena would've been the first one killed when they landed on the Shingora. By the time they leave the island, her enchanted armor is dented, battered, and pierced while she is sporting numerous injuries, Baezha is in a coma, and both of them are severely psychologically traumatized. Of course, I'm going to write my stories as I see fit. I'm open to constructive criticism - the beta reader I mentioned earlier pointed out many things I took to heart and revised my story accordingly - but sometimes people criticize something and I honestly don't see what they're talking about. I will continue my efforts to portray people and things as realistically as I can. |
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