I’ve been writing a work of fiction for a long time. Without delving too much into details, I have gotten to something of a quandary: Having to choose between being realistic/plausible, and being interesting/entertaining.
The realistic choice (depicting a certain nation as the villain of the novel) would make more sense and be more believable, but it would be rather predictable and expected.
The interesting choice (depicting a certain terrorist organization as the villain of the novel) would be more entertaining and thought-provoking, but as a matter of plausibility it would be much more far-fetched, since this terrorist organization would not have the same resources that this nation does, and so it’s harder to believe that they could pull off the same villainous feats that a country could.
(Both the country and terrorist organization in question exist in real life.)
From a reader perspective, would you rather read something that’s entertaining, but also makes you think, “Naw, that’s a bit too far-fetched,” or something more believable and plausible, but “Oh, this country being depicted as the villain again? We’ve read this too many times?”
Entertain me, definitely! The real world sometimes doesn’t seem believable or plausible, but if that’s what I wanted, it’s probably where I would start, not fiction.
Of course, the goal is to figure out a way it can be both entertaining and plausible.
Make your villain the terrorist organization, but they have a sympathizer in some national government that can get them limited, but otherwise unattainable, resources.
Real world example: Pakistan. There appear to be elements within the Pakistan government or military that sympathize with the more hardcore islamist ideologies, but not enough to actually defect to them outright.
Speaking for myself: entertaining. I like the Honor Harrington novels, which are absolutely packed with cliché’s, tropes, and cheese. But the stories usually stay consistent within the Honorverses’ own “rules”.
Similarly, for movies, I can overlook minor plot holes, and poor special effects if the characters and the story is interesting & entertaining.
Thanks, good advice - although another complication I didn’t mention was that within a year or two, this terrorist organization might not exist in real life, which would also strain reader credulity.
If we’re talking fiction of the ‘political-action-thriller’ variety, then interesting/entertaining should carry the day (so long as it isn’t too absurd).
Entertaining is more important than verisimilitude. You could theoretically lose as readers the 100 experts who care about the finer points that you are mischaracterizing but few else will know or care. Even most of those potential readers would at least hate-read your book just to complain; however, no one will read your book if it’s boring.
I like the suggestion to go with a terrorist organization gaining support from a sympathizer in a national government. As of a few weeks ago, Turkey seemed to have some highly-ranked dissenters and I doubt Erdogan got them all. If you’re concerned that the terrorist organization won’t exist in a year, make up a new one and take your time to write an interesting book that people might want to read.
Realistic and plausible is very important to me, but you should be able to achieve entertaining/interesting at the same time if you are doing your work properly. The problem I have with plausible/realistic is when the author is inconsistent about what they say.
It’s hard to be more specific without knowing what you’re talking about, but Batman villains are perfect examples. They all want to kill Batman, or so they say, but they do so by flipping a switch, activating a dramatic time-delayed death mechanism… then they leave him unsupervised to escape. WTF? If they want to kill him, they should just kill him. If they don’t want to kill him, tell us what their real motivation is.
I may be in the minority but I think realistic IS entertaining. Outlandish plots make me instantly tune out and think that the author either is stupid or thinks the audience is stupid.
I’ll always take a gritty mystery about a guy being pushed off a bridge, over some sci-fi influenced nonsense about cyborgs, microchips, superhuman abilities, etc, etc (blech)
From discussions I’ve had with other people on this, it seems I am in the minority, but the fastest way to jolt me out of the escapism I am seeking when watching a movie/reading a book, is when one of the characters in the story makes a howlingly bad decision that no sane person in the same situation would ever make in reality, but as a result of the completely implausible decision that got made, there’s now more drama/action etc to be had.
Personal anecdote. In the 1990s, I was the primary editor for both Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain) and Donald E. Westlake. Well-known mystery/crime writers.
Evan wrote a novel in which a character was the victim of a stalker. The stalker eventually murdered his prey. The stalker turned out to be a previously unintroduced, anonymous character.
I asked Don what he thought of the book.
Don: “I threw it across the train car.”
Me: “Why?”
Don: “Because the killer WASN’T SOMEONE WHO HAD TURNED UP BEFORE!”
Me: “Much like real life.”
Don: “Bill…REAL LIFE is why we have NOVELS.”
Okay, weenie answer. But I prefer to think of it as a weenie guideline.
I mean, historically speaking, there are plenty of events that would seem crazy and implausible as a work of fiction but that actually happened, and succeeded—the Doolittle Raid, for an example. But there are also plenty of examples of “Hollywood” moments that failed because of simple poor planning, or someone losing their roll against very poor odds.
I’d have to say, personally, it’s less of an either/or question and more of a “proper mixture,” taking into account the genre, the medium, and the kind of story you’re trying to tell. Writing a work that’s TOO stogily, adamantly “hard” would be like putting in prose the results of a simulation or a war-game, without that spark of vitality or audacity to be found in human endeavors—although this itself is probably unfair; I’ve seen plenty of actual war-games, video game “after action reports,” or RPG campaign tales to think of them simply being the product of odds and number crunching!
But, on the other hand, if you take things too far in the OTHER extreme, for the sake of being fun and entertaining, you might be defeating the point of writing in another field to begin with. I mean, writing the finest, gnarliest electric guitar solo of all time is still going to serve badly if you were trying to compose for a traditional Kabuki play.
