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Written by Jeffery Stevenson
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Friday, 31 December 2004 |
In war, one of the easiest paths to your own defeat is to rush headlong into battle without thinking things through. Your enemy's flank is lightly guarded. Is this a weakness you can exploit or a trap in disguise? The enemy's on the run from your attack. Do you run them down or will that leave you open for attack from elsewhere? One of your allies is under attack. Should you rush off to help or stick to your post? Actions have consequences, and a warrior must weigh the options and find a balance between all the elements and considerations in warfare to be successful.
Words and imagination are great for building ideas and cranking out a quick draft or rough outline of a story. But when it comes time to pull that draft together into a tight, cohesive story, you need to consider the consequences and balance all the elements of your story. You need to apply some deductive reasoning, so you can lay out your story in a logical manner that people can follow. You're the great detective at the end of the investigation pulling all the bits and pieces of mystery into a reasonable path of actions and consequences that lead to the guilty party.
But I write fiction, and I want to stretch the reader's imagination as far as possible, so I can slingshot them out of reality. I want them to be sucked in by new worlds, strange characters, and possessed moon-eating, nuclear-powered scooters. I want fun, exciting creativity not boring, old logic. I want a work of art not a textbook.
Logic isn't just for textbooks and computers. It can help you keep your readers from getting lost and walking away from the story in confusion without ever finishing it. It can help you build a storyline that keeps the reader "into" the story when you introduce fantastical elements that might otherwise put the brakes on the story while the reader tries to rationalize the situation. It can help you build the reader's trust and for a brief moment...make them believe.
Sounds like a powerful weapon, doesn't it? But it stems from the simplest of concepts...something you probably learned way back in your childhood. Actions have consequences. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." For every stimulus introduced, there is a response. When you do something wrong as a child (action), you'll probably get yelled at or disciplined (reaction). When you cuss out your boss (action), you'll probably get fired (reaction). If you get distracted talking on the cell phone while driving (action), you could make the wrong turn (reaction).
And they just don't stop with one little action-reaction phase. Every reaction is a new action. When you get yelled at or disciplined as a child (action), you'll probably start crying (reaction). When you start crying (action), your parents might start feeling guilty about their actions (reaction). When your parents start feeling guilty (action), they might give you a cookie or a piece of candy (reaction). When you get candy (action), you come to the realization that crying=candy (reaction).
It's a logical progression of steps from one point to another...and more importantly, it's subconsciously/psychologically "believable." That's the power of logic. If you lay out a scenario for someone in a nice, logical manner, you have a better chance of convincing them to believe in the scenario. They can picture it happening...this leads to this, which leads to that other thing and so on. And if you consistently lead them down an action-reaction story path with no major gaps or odd leaps in logic, you'll build their trust. Then you can make the leaps into the realm of the imaginary, and they won't have any doubts you're leading them in the right direction...to the story's logical conclusion (note that it's not a "predictable" ending...it's a "logical" ending or one that resolves the clues you've placed throughout your story from the beginning).
The other thing that logic is good for is to help promote consistency throughout your story. When a character takes an action, you can use your reasoning to make sure that the action is consistent with the character's personality/background and any prior events in the story. So now, it gets a little more complicated. Not only do you check to make sure the reaction falls in line with the previous action, but you also check to make sure the response stays consistent with all the actions that have occurred earlier.
So, how do you whip those powers of deductive reasoning into shape to help the believability and consistency of your story? With practice (of course). It's not easy...it can take a long time to hone your skills in this particular weapon, but here are some exercises/ideas to help you get a better handle on logical thinking.
- Break it down. Take one of your favorite stories (preferably a shorter one to start with) and flip to the ending. Now, write down what the ending is and ask yourself why that happened. What actions led to that ending? Write down the immediate action (the event just prior to the ending that is the final action that brought about the ending) and all the different actions and events in the story that apply to the ending. After you get all that, step back to the action just before the ending and repeat. Continue this until you get all the way to the beginning. While you're writing these down, jot down notes on any gaps you see... any points where the action/reaction flow is disrupted (you'll run into minor parts of these when you jump from scene to scene and change locations, but if the writer provides a good transition, these should be really minor). Also take note of any situation that doesn't remain completely consistent with the elements introduced earlier in this story. With these gaps and inconsistencies, think about what could have been done to fill those in or to make the action consistent. Then think about how that change would impact the rest of the story (and not just that one action). It's a lot to think about, but keep practicing... it tends to get easier after a while.
- Problem-solving. One of my favorite pastimes. Growing up, I used to read all the young mystery and "you solve it" books... Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, and others. I'd check out puzzle and problem-solving books from the library and try to solve every one of them. Little did I know I was also giving myself some quality training for my writing... head to your local library and give one a try.
- Play games. That's right... play some games. Something that requires some thought--especially logical planning and decision-making. Chess, Go, Risk, CCGs, RPGs, and the like.
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As a writer, you probably want to be creative and not worry about logic, but if you want your stories to be as strong as they can, it's best to temper that creativity with logic. This is why some writers tend to pour their imagination into the first draft and then think through the story in the rewrites... to get the most out of each of these skills. Put a little extra thought into your stories... your readers will appreciate it. Next week, we'll discuss why words, imagination, and logic won't even make a difference if you don't have discipline.
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