Realistic Fiction

[scribblemyname]

When reviewers complain that a story element is "unrealistic," their real complaint is usually something else. When they say a handsome billionaire falling for a mousy secretary is "unrealistic," they're really saying that the characters were underdeveloped and their romance was flat and contrived. When they say the pat deus ex machina at the end was "unrealistic," they're really saying that it felt cheap. (In general, when people complain about the ending, the problem isn't the ending. The problem is the middle leading up to it.)

— "Ideal vs. Reality," T. K. Marnell

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Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[trovia.livejournal.com]

No, the problem is the beginning. Every single time. I keep noticing this in Hollywood movies. Whenever somebody complains about the ending, there's a flaw in the setup, which is at the beginning, not in the middle. I remember how "Kate and Leopold" implied that Kate was unhappy only because she just got out of a relationship, not because there was something wrong with her life. So people complained when she fixed her unhappiness by timetraveling into the 18th century. Which is a little crass if you're just unhappy about the end of a relationship. Almost every time I see a movie where people complain about the ending, when I look it up, I learn that there used to be a different opening scene but it was replaced by something else late during production. In the middle, you can do pretty much whatever you want.

Otherwise, yes. ;)

[scribblemyname]

A movie is much shorter and more composite in its setup, so in movies, I would agree with you. In novel-length books however, I find that it doesn't matter how well done the initial setup and promise of the story is, the middle of the book establishes all the rules that promise's delivery must be guided by. The flaw can be in not meeting the promise or in not meeting the rules. I find the endings that make me angriest are the ones that didn't follow the rules.

To elaborate slightly, I just finished a duology where the first book has an obvious deus ex machina (apparently, this author does that infrequently), but the set up that made it satisfying didn't come in the beginning of the book at all. It was developed through the second half of the book. By the time the ending came along, I believed and expected the deity to take direct action.

[trovia.livejournal.com]

I do agree in general, but the setup is still in the beginning. That's when you establish what your protagonist wants as well as the parameters of your world - what you called the promise and the rules. After that, you just explore what you've previously established. Maybe we have different ideas about what's the beginning. In a movie, it's the first third. I find that in books, it's sometimes shorter than that, but I'm still thinking of the entire setup, not just of an opening scene or anything. But you usually can't establish new rules anymore in the middle of the novel.

There are exceptions to everything, obviously. It's hard to tell if I don't know the book, but I would suspect that either the possibility of a deus ex machine was in actuality set up much earlier than that even though the actual deus ex machina was established only later, or I would have hated the book. ;) I mean, this isn't about right or wrong anyway, just about what's most likely to work for most readers.

[scribblemyname]

I think we're defining the "rules" differently. What I mean is in the opening, the world and characters and story goal are established. The author promises, so to speak, what sort of story the reader can expect. In the middle of the book, the author shows you how those things are allowed to play out and what stakes are involved, if characters are allowed to die, etc., which places pressure on what the reader will feel is acceptable in the climax and denouement.

The flaw can be in either, and I think T. K. probably meant "before" more than a specific part of the book, but I find that I modify my expectations throughout the middle of the book to reflect how hard of a line the author is going to take. I do take serious issue with a book whose ending disconnects from the beginning, but I downright hate the book that led me merrily along through the middle, then fizzles with an about-face.

In this particular case, the first third of the book established the religious issues involved certainly and it was a fantasy book, but no hint that the goddess was a hands-on 'real' deity that interacted directly with the characters came through until the second half. It is nevertheless an acceptable possibility in the genre, so I couldn't care less because the goddess DID interact before the climax (and I'd read the prequel where it was more obvious), so I was good with it. The rules showed that if the deity was real, she was allowed to have a hand and rescue the characters.

Queen's Thief by Megan Whalen Turner on the other hand takes the same established setup of the gods are real and plays out that they are NOT allowed to intervene directly, which is a rule only learned through the middle of the book, and a deus ex machina would have killed the books dead. The characters had to win on their own. They could only count on the gods to keep them alive. Maybe.

All three parts have to work together and I think we're in agreement there, but I've always been a patient reader, probably because I came up on classics. I don't require the beginning third of a book to be awesome. I require the middle to be awesome and the ending to deliver on both.

[trovia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get your point better now. The beginning establishes the ground rules. The middle builds on them and develops them further. Obviously, the middle can't just stagnate and repeat the same information ad nauseum. Looking at it that way, it makes sense to me.

(I have another Helo for you. ;))

[scribblemyname]

Books are such a tangle tapestry. Pull one thread and you hit all the others.

( :warm fuzzies: )