How do I realistically write unrealistically?

[UltimaBahamut93]

Confused by the title? Let me explain, although I'm having a hard time putting it into words. So much of my ideas and style are influenced by anime and manga. Artists use what I would call embellished exaggerations, to enhance what is happening. A character might deflect an attack but the residual impact causes the ground to shatter, or an opponent might be able to perform impossible feats of acrobatics during a fight defying physics. Someone might get hit with a spell that shows the character flying dozens of feet backwards and crashing through a wall that would realistically kill someone, only to be able to get up and continue fighting, or maybe the main hero wields a weapon so comically large that it would break all realistic usability. I love these things. I love animated works because they can stretch and exaggerate reality in order to convey and enhance on a deeper level imo.

My hesitation is my inexperience as a writer. I am worried that if I try to write with these embellishments, it would come off as someone who is inexperienced and doesn't know how things work. I want it to be very clear to the reader that I am not striving for realism. But rather the unrealistic flavor that I add to the story would be there for not just aesthetic but also emphasis.

If anyone has played a Fromsoftware game, you've probably heard or thought that the art direction of these games is like stepping into a painting rather than trying to mimic realism. The world isn't trying to make logical sense, rather I think it is first and foremost trying to convey theme and emotion. I just recently replayed Bloodborne. The game revolves around lovecraftian gothic horror and the enviroment screams that. I want to write about worlds that cause the reader to have an emotional response by using exaggeration, but without completely having

I want to write my stories that invoke similar concepts and styles, but I don't want it to come across as someone who just doesn't understand reality. As someone who is poorly imagining things without thought as to logical function. I feel like I'm failing in trying to accurately describe this to you. These things are accepted in visual formats without much second thought, but how can I transfer these "particle effect" techniques into a written format, and have the reader understand that I am not striving for realism but rather embracing the freedom of creativity in fiction? How can I ask the reader to accept "unrealism" without asking them to abandon logic entirely?

 

[skip.knox]

>I am worried
This describes a more or less constant state of being a writer. We all experience it. So, worried? Don't worry about it!

As for the realism angle, you said you are familiar with manga. I'm not, but I do think there are some purely literary versions or adaptions; that is to say, not all manga is illustrated. Since that's what you mean to write, you should go read it. Stay away from movies, games, and graphical stories in all forms. I mean, enjoy them as entertainment, but don't look there for models because they all rely on visuals to supplement the words. You won't have that.

If you market your work as clearly in the spirit and tradition of manga (and its relatives), then your readers are going to come with certain expectations, the same way a fantasy or romance reader does. That will help. If you packaged your story as hard SF, then a hard SF reader will likely take you to task for your unrealistic realism. It's a matter of finding the appropriate audience.

Meanwhile, don't worry about it. First write something. Right now you are worrying about nothing, because you have created nothing. Get the words down. Then you can stare and glare. You'll have plenty to worry about. Right now, you have nothing to worry about.

 

[WTFisReality]

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind for you is to understand, that in the beginning of your stories and in the blurbs, even the book cover, and title, these are all opportunities for you to set expectations. You're problem isn't as big of a problem as I believe you think it is. As long as you can effectively set expectations.

What you wouldn't want to do is make everything as realistic as possible in the beginning of your story and then all of a sudden start exaggerated everything and going full unrealistic. That would confuse the reader and probably disrupt the story you're trying to tell.

So in conclusion, set expectations, and you'll be good to go. You can write however you want just let the reader know what they're in for so it doesn't throw them for a loop.

Hope that helps, good luck.

 

[WTFisReality]

>I am worried
This describes a more or less constant state of being a writer. We all experience it. So, worried? Don't worry about it!

As for the realism angle, you said you are familiar with manga. I'm not, but I do think there are some purely literary versions or adaptions; that is to say, not all manga is illustrated. Since that's what you mean to write, you should go read it. Stay away from movies, games, and graphical stories in all forms. I mean, enjoy them as entertainment, but don't look there for models because they all rely on visuals to supplement the words. You won't have that.

If you market your work as clearly in the spirit and tradition of manga (and its relatives), then your readers are going to come with certain expectations, the same way a fantasy or romance reader does. That will help. If you packaged your story as hard SF, then a hard SF reader will likely take you to task for your unrealistic realism. It's a matter of finding the appropriate audience.

Meanwhile, don't worry about it. First write something. Right now you are worrying about nothing, because you have created nothing. Get the words down. Then you can stare and glare. You'll have plenty to worry about. Right now, you have nothing to worry about.

Yeah exactly this, expectations are a big deal.

 

[Genly]

As a reader, I was just thinking about one of the reasons (among many) that I enjoyed reading LOTR. The interactions and reactions of the main characters were solidly grounded in mundane, realistic detail while all of this crazy stuff was happening around them. Maybe that is one way to get the reader to accept unreality.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

A common (but not super usable) hat trick in anime (and other media, but especially anime ESPECIALLY shonen) writing is the rule of cool.

If it Sounds Cool, and Also Makes Sense, then it doesn't really need to do much else. The make it make sense part is the trickiest part of the problem, but it can be done for even the most nonsensical things. Like eating some random fruit turning you into a rubber man or finding seven dragon balls to grant a wish.

Think of all the technobabble Mech anime/movies throw at us. We're not expected to ingrain the information into our brain 100%, only enough to understand what's going on. Do I need to know how a hydrothruster compondupiter 2000 works to understand what it does? No, just from the name alone I can grasp that it's water based thrust providing technology. As a viewer/reader I don't need to understand more than that, if I were a Pilot I'd have to know the piece of hardware in and out, thankfully I'm not.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I want to write my stories that invoke similar concepts and styles, but I don't want it to come across as someone who just doesn't understand reality. As someone who is poorly imagining things without thought as to logical function. I feel like I'm failing in trying to accurately describe this to you. These things are accepted in visual formats without much second thought, but how can I transfer these "particle effect" techniques into a written format, and have the reader understand that I am not striving for realism but rather embracing the freedom of creativity in fiction? How can I ask the reader to accept "unrealism" without asking them to abandon logic entirely?

My team writes Urban Fantasy, basically it's soap opera with a side of dragons, and we tend to lean in hard on the Rule of Cool. I'm our drafter, so translating our collective vision into words that pull the reader in and suspend reality.

And right there is how it's done. You suspend reality so the reader has buy in and becomes willing and eager to follow along with you. How do we do this? By going in with confidence and a little poetry. I write everything, from dragons and trauma surgery to dragons having trauma surgery and maybe dragons performing trauma surgery, as if they are the most normal things in the world. This is a decent example of this. Here we have a scene with a talking sword and a bit of quick thinking and surgery in the bloody mud of a battlefield. Bit longish, but it makes the most sense that way.

From Faerie Rising: The First Book of Binding.

~~~

As they watched, another object flew from the rooftop and plummeted towards them. Brian’s eyes widened and he pushed Legolas out of the way just as a sword drove itself into the mud at their feet. It was long, straight, and had a curious, reverse curve to the blade. He reached out and pulled it from the thick black goop and a shiver ran up his arm.

It was another named weapon.

“It is Keeper, Hero.”

Brian’s mind turned to Courage, riding his hip. Keeper. This was the blade Scoithín had been tasked with carrying. “Is it okay that I’m holding it?” They must have been fighting Midir up on the roof and were losing.

“Yes. It has chosen you for a reason, my Hero.”

Brian’s blood ran cold. Was this his Destiny, then? He was only eighteen and had been a Hero for a single day. He blew out a breath. If it was, he would face it.

“Fear not, Hero.” Courage sounded somewhat amused. “I did not choose you for such a short journey. Heroes are capable of many acts before their ultimate Destinies."

He looked at the sword. Then what did he need to do? He looked up. Get this back up to the roof where it could be put to use? Yes, that must be it. He looked for the building entrance…

“Look out!” Jessie cried.

Bodies pitched over the roof edge and plummeted down, forcing Brian and the knights to dive out of the way. It was Lana and a strange man, landing in a tangle of limbs, daggers, and blood.

Lana lay limp but the man seemed barely phased. He rolled to his knees with a roar of rage and wrapped both hands around Lana’s throat, squeezing down with all his strength. “I’ll rip your head off, half-breed!”

“Now!”

Brian rushed forward and drove Keeper through the man’s back, jerking to a stop before he pierced Lana. The man cried out in pain, blood spraying Lana’s unconscious face, and without warning the blade sprouted chains that latched onto the man’s wrists and ankles and pulled up short, prying his hands from Lana and binding him painfully to the blade.

Brian blinked. That was different. He moved around the coughing man and knelt beside Lana, her throat swelling and purpling with bruises. “Winter! We need you.”

Winter rushed forward, stepping carefully around the bound man, and knelt in the mud beside Lana. “She’s not breathing,” she muttered and palpated Lana’s throat. “Her hyoid bone is broken and her trachea feels crushed. She’s suffocating.” Winter dug in her bag, pulling out a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a scalpel, and a pen.

Jessie’s eyebrows rose and she moved to hold the bag open for her mistress.

Brian looked from wizard to wizard. “What are you doing?”

Winter doused the scalpel with the rubbing alcohol and handed the bottle to Jessie, who doused Lana’s neck from chin to chest. “She needs to be intubated. She needs help to breathe until her body can heal the damage Midir caused. So, I’m making an alternate access point for the air. Jessie, fish out the water bottle and get me a dose of the painkiller, please.”

“With a… pen?”

Winter took the pen apart and threw the innards into the purse, creating a tube. She cleaned out the inside with the alcohol and nodded. “Yes.” She then took up the scalpel and made a precise cut just above the meeting of Lana’s clavicles, just below the swelling, blood welling up around her fingers, and neatly popped the pen casing into place. Immediately air whistled through the tube and Lana’s chest rose, greedy for oxygen. Winter began taping it in place.

Brian breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, that was one of the cooler-”

Lana’s eyes snapped open and she came up swinging.

Brian caught her hands before she could batter Winter, and Lana began coughing while Winter held her tube in place.

 

[Penpilot]

As others have mentioned, it's all about setting up expectations early. Lots of stories have unrealistic elements, but if you introduce them, set up how the world kind of works, that should set things up for people to buy into the story.

For example, let's say you have a scene later in a story where your main character takes a literal brick to the face from the bad guy and shrugs it off like nothing. If that's the only time in the story where something like that happens, it's going to feel dropped in and ridiculous. But if you show similar things happening to the main character and/or other characters in say the first scene and a few other scenes, it softens that tendency to disbelieve.

And it doesn't have to be something super dramatic. What if in the first scene, the main character is walking down the street and gets hit on the head with a falling flower pot and shrugs it off? What if he pisses off his mom and she crack a plate over his head, etc.

 

[Finchbearer]

Consistency for me will allow me to believe what is happening. I always read what are pretty much unrealistic things in fantasy books, but you as the reader kind of expect fantasy to be exaggerated, or unrealistic or just insane. There is a talent I would have thought to making the reader believe you, but it’s also about genre IMO. If you’re writing for a YA audience then the writing tends to be pretty melodramatic. Adult fiction tends to be more realistic and more gritty. For fiction inspired by manga or anime I would have thought over -exaggeration and melodramatic prose to really underpin what you’re trying to achieve.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I think the 3 main things are internal logic, consistency, and character reactions.

Internal logic means that if characters can fly, and they need to get to the top of a cliff, then they fly to the top of the cliff. Or if they can throw a rock halfway across the world, then they don't have trouble opening a jam-jar.

Consistency is that if something happens in chapter 1, then it should happen the same way in chapter 10 and chapter 20 (unless there's a reason for it to be different, which the reader should know).

Character reactions means that characters shouldn't be surprised when something weird happens that's completely normal in their world. Again, if some characters can fly, then that should just be normal to your characters. If they treat something as normal, then everyone else will too.

If you want a great example on how to do this, then read teh Cradle series, by Will Wight. It's progression fantasy inspired by manga. It's 12 books long. The characters start off quite weak, but at the end, they can shift mountains and move continents. And it feels logical and obvious that they can. Study those books to see how you could describe it.

 

[JBCrowson]

Winter took the pen apart and threw the innards into the purse, creating a tube. She cleaned out the inside with the alcohol and nodded. “Yes.” She then took up the scalpel and made a precise cut just above the meeting of Lana’s clavicles,

Needs to go in a bit higher, that low you'd hit the thyroid isthmus and probably bleed out. Just below the voice box there's a soft bit, the cricothyroid membrane. That's what you aim for. Doing it while someone is crashing even in a cottage hospital setting is intensely scary. I don't need that level of brown trouser terror at work, part of why I switched to psychiatry later.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Needs to go in a bit higher, that low you'd hit the thyroid isthmus and probably bleed out. Just below the voice box there's a soft bit, the cricothyroid membrane. That's what you aim for. Doing it while someone is crashing even in a cottage hospital setting is intensely scary. I don't need that level of brown trouser terror at work, part of why I switched to psychiatry later.

Whoops! You're right. Thank you so much for the head's up. I come from a medical family, but I don't have my parents to help me with this stuff, anymore, so I'm finding things tend to slip from time to time.

We're going to have some real fun next time around. Wanna see a preview? This is still in note form, but you'll like this, I think.

~~~

Triage: Got another one for you. Penetrative chest wound, right side, pneumothorax with munition still in place.
Winter: Mu-? *glances over her waiting patients, still running on a low-grade high* She needs priority. *calls over her shoulder* Evan, how do you look?
Evangeline: I look like I'm up to my armpits in this guy's gut. Can you stabilize and give me a few minutes to take over?
Winter: *mouth twitches in anticipation* Absolutely. Gentlemen, grab that folding table and bring it to my light, please. Gently. Gently. Perfect. *Winter takes out a probe and pulls some sticky and shredded fabric aside, the wound frothing softly at one edge as the object plugs it shut, and her eyes dilate from adrenaline* You didn't say the object was a grenade. *she pulls out a probe and looks more closely* A live grenade.
Evan: *frowning with alarm over her work* Are you bloody serious? Who the hell thought bringing grenades down into these tunnels was a capital idea?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

And~ I'm looking over this and my wife, who's our plotter and 10 times smarter than I am, asks what the grenade looks like. The image in my head is wrong. *facepalm*

 

[pmmg]

My hesitation is my inexperience as a writer. I am worried that if I try to write with these embellishments, it would come off as someone who is inexperienced and doesn't know how things work. I want it to be very clear to the reader that I am not striving for realism. But rather the unrealistic flavor that I add to the story would be there for not just aesthetic but also emphasis.

Inexperience is easy to fix. Just start writing, and then the experience magically appears.

I see a number above talking about the expectations of readers, and setting it early. I will just ad to that, that you make the rules the world works under. If you start with a dog wearing a caped suit and jumping over a building, then I know there is a dog that can do that. If you then state the dog is unique, I am not expecting any other dog can.


Most worlds exist in some aspect of, everything in the real world is still true, but my world has some exceptions. So, you have to show me something that allows for exceptions first, and then you get to lay out how it works....or not, if you can manage the open ended nature of it. But...once you make the rules, you need to stick by them. If only one dog can jump over a building, don't have two doing it...or have a really good reason why.