Verisimilitude, books.
May. 9th, 2012 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dsrtaoIn a work of fiction, the author controls the vertical and the horizontal.
Still. Mark Twain said, in his critique of James Fenimore Cooper, "[the rules] require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable."
In thrillers, we expect the protagonist to do things which are not ordinary accomplishments; each is perhaps feasible, but doing them all together in sequence, or being a single person with the ability to do so much: that is the miracle. Sometimes it is super-competence, or inhuman agility, resilience, or endurance. All of these are miracles which can be excused by special training, inherent toughness, and merely bending biology rather than breaking physics.
We are also subject to the law of preparation: when the protagonist is explicitly shown to make preparations -- even in flashback, even in post-action flashback -- they are allowed to harvest the natural consequences of the seeding. This is especially delicious when it is not entirely obvious to the first time reader what the preparations are, yet they are completely consistent with the reveal.
It has just come to my attention that an author's thumbs upon the scale can also be too visible in a pacifist work. When the protagonist finds himself in a dark and dismal situation filled with blackguards and ruffians, it is unreasonable for a semester or two of college tai chi (even when tutored by a master) to result in a distinct lack of injury to the protagonist and a thorough beating of his assailants... compounded by the strict lack of culpability on the protagonist's part. Yes, he is pure in spirit and did not actually throw the beasts at each other. He just stepped out of their way.
I understand that the author was trying to consistently uphold values of pacifism and nonviolent resolution of conflict. It just wasn't believable.
_Double Share_, Nathan Lowell. Not recommended as highly as the previous entries in the series.
Still. Mark Twain said, in his critique of James Fenimore Cooper, "[the rules] require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable."
In thrillers, we expect the protagonist to do things which are not ordinary accomplishments; each is perhaps feasible, but doing them all together in sequence, or being a single person with the ability to do so much: that is the miracle. Sometimes it is super-competence, or inhuman agility, resilience, or endurance. All of these are miracles which can be excused by special training, inherent toughness, and merely bending biology rather than breaking physics.
We are also subject to the law of preparation: when the protagonist is explicitly shown to make preparations -- even in flashback, even in post-action flashback -- they are allowed to harvest the natural consequences of the seeding. This is especially delicious when it is not entirely obvious to the first time reader what the preparations are, yet they are completely consistent with the reveal.
It has just come to my attention that an author's thumbs upon the scale can also be too visible in a pacifist work. When the protagonist finds himself in a dark and dismal situation filled with blackguards and ruffians, it is unreasonable for a semester or two of college tai chi (even when tutored by a master) to result in a distinct lack of injury to the protagonist and a thorough beating of his assailants... compounded by the strict lack of culpability on the protagonist's part. Yes, he is pure in spirit and did not actually throw the beasts at each other. He just stepped out of their way.
I understand that the author was trying to consistently uphold values of pacifism and nonviolent resolution of conflict. It just wasn't believable.
_Double Share_, Nathan Lowell. Not recommended as highly as the previous entries in the series.
