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Today’s post on (not) repeating reality in fiction is authored by Igor da Silva Livramento. He’s a fellow academic from UFSC, fellow author, fellow creative-writing advisor, and overall a great fellow. He’s also a composer, music theorist, and producer. Check out his papers on Academia.edu, his music on Bandcamp, and his personal musings on his blog – in Portuguese, Spanish/Castilian, and English. You can also find him on LinkedIn.

If you want your fiction to immerse the reader, you probably suppose you should describe reality as it is. That is, you should be repeating reality in your fiction. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong.

Writing fiction is a process of controlled distortion, in which emphasis is placed on what really matters.

If we describe all the details of an event, we will fill many pages with unimportant trivia. Moreover, we will leave the reader tired, cognitively and affectively, so they will be unable to appreciate the most important moments of the narrative. All our figures of speech, so well crafted, will be nothing more than exhaustive annoyances.

The Alternative to Repeating Reality in Fiction

The tip has been given repeatedly on this blog: Focus on what matters. But what is it that really matters? Well, I’d like a simple answer too, but there ain’t none.

Only you know the affective focus of your text. Only you can decide which moments are the most emphatic of your production. Having decided them, however, you must highlight them; for it is not enough that they seem important to you, they must shine in the text itself.

Why do I say that you must decide the most relevant moments? Because writing is an art, and one only learns an art by practicing it.

The ancient Greek word, tekhnites, is an apt one in this context. Ancient Greeks knew artisans/craftsmen and artists were one and the same (working) class: people that do things with their minds and hands.

I know how advantageous it is to produce variants of the same text. We gain perspective and analytical insight, as well as enrich our repertoire of textual techniques and strategies. Certainly, the text itself signals what are the best paths to follow, however, it is healthy to push the muscles of writing in the directions we consciously so desire.

Example

Nothing better than learning by doing. Let’s get to examples!

Compare the following scenes. They are variations of each other, which I wrote long ago. I’ve adapted the character names for an English-like feel (bear in mind that’s a Brazilian feel).

Carrie heard her cellphone ringing, so she slid the bag from her naked shoulder to her elbow, opened the horizontal zipper, grabbed the device, unlocked it without looking at the screen and answered:

“Hello?” she said as she looked both ways while crossing the street.
“Carrie? It’s Thomas.” His voice was slightly hoarse.
“Ah, darling! How are you?”
“I have some bad news.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Jane has cancer.”
“No! It can’t be…” she almost tripped over the sidewalk when she said that.

I won’t say a word about it, just compare it with the following version.

Carrie was running out of breath to get through the traffic light in time when she answered the phone:
“My God! Jane has…” she staggered on the sidewalk. “Cancer…?” The cellphone dangling from her fingertips.

Again I leave it to you to decide which scene you like best.

The Text Types

This will seem like a meaningless section, but every writer who knows their textual types has the fundamentals of language at the tip of their proverbial tongue.

Textual types form a finite list, namely: narration, description, dissertation (argumentative or expository), and injunction. In Spanish they are known as textual modalities.

You may argue that such a list does not make sense, but it is a terminological issue. Let’s see more about each item on this list, and then we’ll take a closer look at how knowing about these subtle differences can help us.

Terminological Minutiae

Dialogues, news reports, interviews, etc., are textual genres, as they concern a way of constructing texts.

Poetry (more correctly: poems) and prose are textual forms, because they concern the way the content of a text is presented.

Epic, dramatic, lyric, etc., are literary genres in the ancient and Aristotelian sense. I propose we call them literary modes, because they concern the specific way of organizing the literary materials.

Romance, science fiction, steampunk, cyberpunk, high fantasy, etc., are literary (fiction) genres in the current and commercial sense, because they concern the content of texts and their conventions, their clichés and tropes. I propose we call them content genres.

Narration

A mode in which a fact, fictitious or not, is told, which occurred at a certain time and place, involving certain characters. Relations of anteriority and posteriority are established. Past tense is dominant. We are surrounded by narrations: from children’s stories to everyday jokes.

Description

Modality in which the written portrait of a place, a person or an object is made. The word class most used in this production is the adjective, for its characterizing function. On an abstract level, sensations and feelings are described as well. There is no relation of anteriority and posteriority, time stands still.

Argumentative Dissertation

Modality in which the aim is to persuade the reader to accept an idea defended in the text. It is the textual type most present in manifestos (both artistic and political), as well as in open letters.

Expository Dissertation

A mode that analyzes, interprets, explains, and evaluates data and information. This textual type requires reflection.

The dissertation is thematic, because it deals with analysis and interpretation; the explored tense is the present in its timeless value.

In this type of text the expression of ideas, values and beliefs is clear and evident, because it is a type of text that proposes the reflection on ideas and their discussion. It uses predominantly denotative language, although connotation may be used.

Injunction

Modality indicating how to accomplish an operation. It is also used to predict events and behaviors. It uses objective and simple language. Verbs are used in the imperative mood, but the use of verbs in the infinitive and in the future tense of the indicative mood is observed as well.

Weather forecasts, cooking recipes, instruction manuals, laws, medicine leaflets, conventions, rules, edicts, all are predominantly injunctive texts.

Practical Usefulness (or, not Repeating Reality in Fiction)

Much of what we understand as real reality is a binary process. “The sky is blue” (though do read this post on qualia!), “John said he’d go to the market”, and “I’ll show you how to cook rice” are basically true/false premises, in the sense that either the premise was expressed or it wasn’t.

Even something like “I love you [a little/a bit/a lot]” is rather straightforward as a process of expressing reality (whether it reflects reality, is an entirely different matter).

But fictional reality has degrees. For creative effect, the author can opt for a different way of expressing this reality.

In other words, whereas in real reality you would normally opt for a textual type in accordance with your aims and expected results – say, using argumentative dissertation for defending your position – in fictional reality you might, as an author, opt to destabilize and defamiliarize the text by going for something unexpected.

An Example

Here’s a hilarious example from the – aptly named – Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department to Submit a Request for a Raise, by Georges Perec.

having carefully weighed the pros and cons you gird up your loins and make up your mind to go and see your head of department to ask for a raise so you go to see your head of department let us assume to keep things simple – for we must do our best to keep things simple – that his name is mr xavier that’s to say mister or rather mr x so you go to see mr x it’s one or t’other either mr x is at his desk or mr x is not at his desk if mr x is at his desk it will be quite straightforward but obviously mr x is not at his desk so all you can do is stand in the corridor waiting for him to come back or come in but let us suppose

Just in case it’s not clear, I didn’t leave out the punctuation; that’s a direct quotation. Perec’s book is an injunctive fictional text that… doesn’t help anyone. Doing so, it goes against the grain and forces the reader to create a different sort of meaning for it.

Know the Rules to Break the Rules

A literary text is certainly composed of several interspersed text types. Knowing which one to use for the purpose we are aiming at is essential in order to achieve what we want.

As people say: One must know the rules in order to break them more effectively.