For most people, depth in fiction sounds like a good thing, right? Just as we conflate vivid descriptions or rich vocabulary with high-quality writing, having a deep narrative must be a great thing, right? Right?
The thing is, there are so many fluid variables in the statement “Depth in fiction is a good thing” that it’s impossible to answer that in any sense-making manner before we truly focus on what it is we’re talking about.
That’s what I’m planning to do in this post.
I’ll first offer some definitions and reflection points on what constitutes depth in fiction and whether it’s always a good thing (sneak preview: it ain’t), and then I’ll list some ways that could add depth to your narrative – if you decide you need it.
This might seem just like a random stock photo to convey the concept of (visual) “depth”, however there is a subtle element crucial to my argument on depth in fiction. Namely, the balance between depth and width. If the camera angle was wide (imagine a drone image, high above the person), we wouldn’t quite get the same sense of depth as we do here. (more…)
I love deceptively simple questions. “What is fiction?” definitely counts because, on the surface, it appears childishly obvious. One might say “Fiction is writing stories that aren’t real”, or something of the sort. Probably you couldn’t even entirely disagree with that. And yet, this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Obviously enough, if we want to talk about fiction and reality (aren’t they, after all, supposed to be antonyms?) there are special cases, too. “What is fiction?” seems to have a different answer if we offered as an example fantasy fiction, and yet a different one if we talked about, say, historical fiction. And what about memoirs? Not to mention the crazy notion (of yours truly) that all books are autobiographical.
The problem of comprehensively answering the question “What is fiction?” boils down to two main issues:
Who is the author of a work?
What is reality?
I told you, I love deceptively simple questions. “The author of a work is the person who wrote it, you dummy!” I hear someone telling me. The same person might even roll their eyes hearing me asking what is reality.
But, as you will see in this post, neither of these questions has a clear answer. And this complicates our attempt to answer “what is fiction?” as well. Though worry not, I’ll face the challenge!
“What is fiction?” is not a question that can be answered with recourse to whether it depicts reality or not, but whether it’s predicated on affect(more…)
A Trick of the Light is a short film by Brandt Ryan – based on a short story by Pinckney Benedict that first appeared in the Zootrope literary magazine. If the name is familiar, you’ve also read my review of his play Restitution. If the name of the film itself rings a bell, perhaps you’ve noticed it on my Bandcamp page. You see – and this should also serve as a disclaimer of sorts, though it hasn’t affected this review – I’ve composed the score for the film. I’ve also had many interesting conversations with Brandt about art, creativity, films, and the Gothic.
Speaking of, you might have noticed “Gothic” is one of the tags accompanying this post. Is A Trick of the Light a Gothic film? There isn’t a yes/no answer to this (which, funnily enough, would be a heck of a Gothic marker if you asked me as a Gothic fiction specialist), but I’ll come back with the long answer in a moment.
You might also recall there is (at the time I’m writing this) one more film review on Home for Fiction: Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse, which is as Gothic as it can be. Plenty of coincidences – another Gothic markerPerhaps I’m being a bit hasty calling coincidences a Gothic marker, but there is an undeniable connection between the Gothic and what Bakhtin called “adventuristic time”. If you’re interested in the topic, also see my post on coincidences in Frankenstein.! Let’s take a closer look to see why A Trick of the Light is a genuinely intriguing, affectively impactful short film.
Album art of the A Trick of the Light soundtrack(more…)
