Is realism viable?

[Penpilot]

I agree with Devor. No story can be completely realistic. You have to choose your style and tone and through telling the story reinforce that, which also means addressing questions the reader will have which all start with the word 'Why?' All story's and especially fantasy and scifi must establish limits to what can and cannot be done. Without establishing them the reader will ask Why? and Why not?

Yes, it's obvious you thought things out in your story, but did you convey those rationales to to reader in an effective way? As Devor said, you have cut the reader off at the pass and address the questions the reader will ask, by answering them, stalling, or by hanging a lantern on them. If no answers are given, then the reader will make assumptions and those assumptions are probably not going to line up with what you have in mind.

Again no story can be 100% realistic, but you can fake it enough to give the illusion of realism. As long as you're internally consistent you're golden.

As for realism, this is a video on what too much realism gets you. It's from Robot Chicken but it makes a nice point.

 

[Queshire]

I don't know why "justifying" something would be a mistake, even if the readers wouldn't ask. If the justification is a strong one, then you've added to the story. If the justification is "weak," which I don't think applies to the Tolkein case, but if it's weak then you've lampshaded it, which can be just as effective.

But you've got to know your audience. Some people will ask and others won't. The question is which group is reading your book. The only thing to do is be consistent. Make it clear early on what kind of liberties you're going to take. Consider it part of the "tone" of your work. I think most people here are shooting for a level of realism that's at least a little higher than Tolkein's. It makes sense for most of us to assume as much from our readers, and to take a moment to address at least the complaints that a well-read reader might have, like those about eagles or rooftops.

If justifying leads to doing more research than you need to do taking time from writing, if justifying leads to exposition and technobabble within the story that takes you out of the plot, if your attempts at justifying causes you to realize just how unrealistic you’re really cool idea is when without that information it would have fallen perfectly fine within willing suspension of disbelief for you and a lot of your readers than I think that it WOULD be a mistake.

What I’m worried about is prospective writers romanticizing justification and realism and their writing suffering for it. When used in moderation there is nothing wrong with going “This is cool, screw science,” or “This is unrealistic, but it makes the story better for it,” I know that I don’t know nearly enough to try to write a fully realistic story, and I’m fine with this. I don’t try for perfection. All I want to do is to tell a story, to say some sort of message.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with trying to write Hard Sci-fi or Fantasy, it is a style choice and by themselves are can not be wrong. What is wrong is A) when writers view it not as a style choice but think of it as an absolute and find their imagination limited as a result, and B) when those who favor a realistic style looking down on those who favor a more abstract one as lesser. My whole point in this thread is to caution against falling into those traps.

 

[Addison]

Part of writing fiction of any kind, horror, sci-fi, fantasy etc, is trusting the reader to fill in the gaps. Now in the first post you described why your MC did it the way she did. Those points can't be filled by the reader's imagination. If you'd put in the reason with interior dialogue or two character's talking then it would have been explained without taking away from the story.

I believe realism is viable. It makes the story real, valid and solid which helps pull the readers out of their seat and into the world you created. Anyone who prefers Hollywood-action seems to enjoy seeing things go BOOM than really seeing the characters reach their goal and beat the bad guy. Realism is a good tool to use, it has a time and a place in every story whether it's a huge ingredient or just a sprinkle. It helps set a foundation to build off of. Even if your realism is just the medieval setting, it's good.

So realism gets my vote.

 

[Reaver]

The eagles are a deus ex machina for Frodo and Sam to escape as a crumbling, erupting Mt. Doom loomed above them, so who cares about realism there?

I want to know why Tolkien didn't spend more time with the Haradrim barbarians who had to stay behind and dig out their comrades who got crapped on by mûmakil.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

The problem with that critique lies in your reader not sharing your vision. There could be several reasons for that and it may not be the fault of the reader (but it could be).

It's also possible that your writing doesn't feel consistently realistic, then when fantastical possibilities are pushed aside for realism, it doesn't feel right. Or, it could simply be your reader expecting different from fantasy stories. You'd know better than any of us.

As far as how much realism you can convey in a story, you can do a lot. I agree that no story can be completely realistic, but that's because most aspects of daily life are mundane and boring. Take dialogue for example. Good dialogue is conversation's greatest hits. We don't want to read small talk. We want drama. We want tension.That applies to most any story element.

However, you can still write with a high level of realism and make the story interesting and engaging. Take "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara. The story is a historical portrayal of the battle of Gettysburg dramatized through characters, some of which are based on real life personas. Shaara didn't show everything in the daily lives of soldiers. He didn't detail them eating every meal, marching endlessly, or sitting behind fieldwork fortifications for hours on end with no combat. Instead, he showed us the the engaging bits and slices of dramatic action through the eyes of characters.

So, can you be realistic? Yes, but you need to show the realism in engaging ways, not through mundane behaviors. Give us your greatest hits.

 

[The Dark One]

This reminds me too much of LOTR. The biggest complaint you see about that epic is "Why didn't they just fly in on the eagles?" The problems with that solution are overwhelming, but people don't see them. The only mistake Tolkein made in this regard was not including the following scene:

Frodo: "Can't we fly in on the eagles?"
Gandalf: "They'd be shot down by the massive orc army living in Mordor."

Gwaihir should have been Gandalf's first solution, having used him to escape Orthanc.

I still love LOTR though, despite that outrageous plot flaw / deus ex machina to save Frodo and Sam at the end.

On topic, I prefer any sort of fantasy or sci-fi to be plausible. It must be plausible within its own story rules, but the closer it is to our own reality then the better I like it. Magic can exist but I prefer it to be smaller in scope and less godlike in application.

Everyone's different though. I was watching a fantasy film in the cinema once and near the end these people climbing a castle wall are hiding just below the parapet as guards go past with dogs, and the kid in front of me whispers to his mate: 'Oh that's ridiculous...the dogs would have sniffed them for sure!'

The kid's just sat through all that magic and dragons but he won't cop the fact that dogs might not sniff people hiding.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Just to weigh in on LOTR, there's no reason at all why the eagles couldn't have carried them in. Eagles can fly high and very fast. Orcs on the ground therefore don't matter at all. And only the ring wraths on their dragon thingies could have fought them in the air. The explanation I heard for it was that the eagles weren't going to go there while the dark lord was around.

As for the OP's two scenes. I'd simply write a line for the first "- sometimes they'd escape across the rooftops, but here the buildings were too far apart." And for the second "- he held him firmly with the garrot making it impossible for him to struggle."

Job done.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Chessie]

I'm fine with realism either way, so long as the story is good. I try to have some of it in my own work, but its not an essential thing for me.

 

[ThinkerX]

As to the eagles bit (since everybody else jumped in on this), I'd say Gandalf didn't take this route for a very good reason: giant eagles verses flying Nazghul. The Nazghul would have sensed the ring and closed in en-mass. They had reputations for sorcery - the witch king was probably a near match for Gandalf in his own right, and all of them were pretty much unkillable as long as the one ring remained intact.

With regards to the OP, I'd go with the suggestion of an earlier poster in this thread: have one (stupid) thief ask about jumping to a nearby rooftop, and his smarter companion shooting the idea down - too noisy, roof too steeply pitched. Maybe mention a thief who tried something like that years earlier and broke his neck.

 

[The Dark One]

But Gandalf says to Gwaihir, we have need of speed faster than the wings of the Nazgul. Then Gwaihir replies: The north wind blows but we shall outfly it.

Thus it is established that Gwaihir (and at least some of his kin) is faster than the Nazgul and might therefore have flown in from way above to deposit the ring to the sammath naur.

 

[Devor]

But Gandalf says to Gwaihir, we have need of speed faster than the wings of the Nazgul. Then Gwaihir replies: The north wind blows but we shall outfly it.

Thus it is established that Gwaihir (and at least some of his kin) is faster than the Nazgul and might therefore have flown in from way above to deposit the ring to the sammath naur.

I didn't mean to start this kind of back and forth. But I'll go a round.

- Frodo's goal was to go in undetected. To Sauron, he was a worthless hobbit. Even when Sauron found Frodo, he could only imagine Frodo to be a spy, not one to trust with the one ring. But Sauron and his spies would have been watching the eagles, and there's only one reason a group of eagles would try to dive bomb into Mordor. He would've seen them, known the ring had come to them, and have had his forces waiting on Mt. Doom.

- There's a lot of factors in determining whether the Nazgul could catch an eagle coming to Mordor with the ring. The eagles might move faster overall, but that beast the Nazgul rides might have enough burst speed to catch one. The Nazgul have sorcery. The Nazgul would have the home turf advantage, as well as orcs and artillery they could call upon, and wights, like those they were turning Frodo into. Speed doesn't beat numbers, mixed weaponry and position.

- Could an eagle fly as swift and as high and as far with a ring bearer on its back? What about while breathing in the smoke over Mt. Doom and the thin air of Mordor? They swooped in, picked up Frodo, and then, believe me, with the oxygen needs of a bird, they stopped somewhere. By the time they got to Mt. Doom they would've been easy prey.

- It's not hard for a marksman to shoot down a flying target with the right weaponry. Not at all.

- There's no reason to assume the eagles would've shown any resistance to the power of the ring, let alone the kind of resistance it would take to destroy the ring. Even if the eagle wasn't the ring bearer, but only served as the mount, the ring bearer would be completely helpless if the eagle turned on him mid flight to seize the ring.

- Even if someone could still reasonably argue those points and believe it might work, there is plenty of reason to assume that the characters, including the eagles, would not be willing to risk it.

 

[Malik]

You can't have 100% realism when you're dealing with a world where magic is standard operating procedure.

But when an author starts telling me something that is not magic, and that has absolutely no basis in reality, the spell is broken. I was reading something on Goodreads last year in which, in the opening scene, a character reached down into a pool of lava to retrieve . . . something. A sword, I think. I don't remember what he was trying to get, or even the name of the book, now; I just exited at that point. "Nope. No way. This narrator is lying." Reading it felt like listening to someone tell an aggrandizing lie about one of his buddies who is so super-awesome.

So there's realism and realism. I'll forgive dragons and flying horses and sorcerers shooting fireballs at each other, but if you have an arrow sticking out of someone's stomach, heroes swinging 20-lb. anime-style swords, someone bouldering along a castle wall in armor (you know who you are and I hope you're reading this), then you don't know what the hell you're talking about and I have better things to do with my time than listen to you. Get your facts straight and get back to me.

This is just me; your mileage may vary.

 

[The Dark One]

Clutching at straws Devor...

The point is, Tolkien could have dispelled/precluded all the debate simply by adverting to the problem and dismissing it with just a couple of brush strokes.

 

[Mythopoet]

I think realism in fiction is a very modern idea and not a very good one. I'm not sure why it's been sweeping through the fantasy genre in recent decades, but it strikes me as yet another example of the kind of "zero-sum" writing advice people enjoy peddling to young writers to make themselves seem like experts.

"Your writing MUST be realistic!" Well, no, it mustn't. There's certainly a place for realistic fiction. There is a fanbase for them. If you like writing realistic fiction and you are aiming toward that fanbase then carry on. But if all fantasy were realistic I would immediately stop reading it. If realistic fantasy was the only fantasy that sold I would immediately stop writing. There's nothing that appeals to me about "realism".

But I think some of the people who peddle "realism" simply misunderstand what it is they really mean. Because there is something that, on the surface, seems like realism but isn't and it is the foundation of storytelling. And that is credibility. The storyteller has to make the reader believe in the story he is telling, even if it isn't realistic. Tolkien called this "Secondary Belief". The reader believes in the story and the world of the story while within it because the storyteller has crafted such a credible experience of it. You can believe in, for example, a world covered in pink trees if the storyteller has done his job properly and made pink trees a credible thing within the story.

I think the main difference between "realism" and "credibility" is that the first is external and the latter is internal. Realism compares the world of the story to our own world. Credibility demands only that the world of the story be internally consistent and believable. Realism isn't necessarily a bad thing. It has its place in fiction. It's only when you start trying to apply it to all fiction that it goes wrong. Credibility can apply equally to any and all fiction without causing any problems because its criteria will be different for every story. I think that makes it a much more useful way to set a standard for yourself as a writer.

 

[Devor]

Clutching at straws Devor...

Handwaving only works in fiction.

The point is, Tolkien could have dispelled/precluded all the debate simply by adverting to the problem and dismissing it with just a couple of brush strokes.

Hey! That's what I said!

 

[BWFoster78]

Mythopoet,

Where are you seeing all this advice telling all fantasy writers to be realistic?

I haven't seen that advice at all, and I read a lot of advice about writing. Ask Steerpike, if someone had come up with a rule that said, "Your writing must be realistic," I'd have stuck it on my must-do list already

Seriously, the advice I've heard everywhere is much like you stated about credibility - you world must adhere to its internal logic.

 

[Devor]

Where are you seeing all this advice telling all fantasy writers to be realistic?

I'm sure it's out there. I went on a fantasy-forums search a while back, and a lot of them have members who pile up on that kind of advice. Take your adherence to something like "tight writing" and add open condescension to people who disagree, and that's the internet in many other public forums.

 

[Svrtnsse]

But I think some of the people who peddle "realism" simply misunderstand what it is they really mean. Because there is something that, on the surface, seems like realism but isn't and it is the foundation of storytelling. And that is credibility. The storyteller has to make the reader believe in the story he is telling, even if it isn't realistic. Tolkien called this "Secondary Belief". The reader believes in the story and the world of the story while within it because the storyteller has crafted such a credible experience of it. You can believe in, for example, a world covered in pink trees if the storyteller has done his job properly and made pink trees a credible thing within the story.

I think this is something we keep coming back to now and then; the difference between what's realistic and what's believable.

Personally I haven't come across anyone who serious claims "realism" needs to be incorporated in fantasy, but I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would argue it in one way or another (this is the only forum I frequent btw). I'm all with you on the credibility thing; internal consistency, believeability, secondary belief or whatever you want to call it. The important thing is that things make some kind of sense within the framework you have established.

Where I guess there may be some kind of conflict is where the framework of the story conflicts with how the reader perceives the world in general - the real world, not your story world. It's fairly easy to suspend your disbelief when it comes to fantastical creatures and magic and other elements that are staples of fantasy fiction.
It's less easy to suspend your disbelief of what you consider to be rational human behavior in certain situations.

Let's say you have a mage performing at a market to try and earn some coin. It shouldn't be very hard to convince the reader that he juggles fireballs in the shape of kittens to amuse the kids, right?
But let's say that instead of the fireball thing the mage entertains people by turning little kids into tuna, permanently. You'd have a much harder time convincing the reader that this is a commonly accepted form of entertainment and that the parents wouldn't be protesting against it (reader wouldn't bat an eyelid at the mage turning someone into tuna though).


Fortunately, things like that shouldn't be too difficult to avoid (I believe/hope).

 

[BWFoster78]

I think there's room in fantasy for both realism and a more action/adventure slant. When I go to a movie, sometimes I want a real story about characters that has a plot. Other times, I want to see a guy knock out the guard with a single punch or run through a maelstrom of automatic weapon fire without getting a scratch on him.

Some people have more preference for one over the other. Some action movie fans won't go to a movie that is more "real." Some fans of realism will thumb their noses at action.

This is a personal preference, not a rule. If you want to write for one audience over the other, that's your choice. You can make that choice based on what you prefer or on what you think your audience prefers or on a flip of the coin or on the phase of the moon.

Where you start having a real problem, imo and as others have stated, is when you are not internally consistent. If you've written a gritty, real-world story, the reader may lose confidence in you if suddenly your hero can knock people out with a single punch and cars explode during crashes for no apparent reason.

 

[Steerpike]

The point is, Tolkien could have dispelled/precluded all the debate simply by adverting to the problem and dismissing it with just a couple of brush strokes.

Yes. This is why it is important to have explanations or justifications in fiction, when necessary, even if just in a cursory fashion. The extent to which they are provided will affect the reader's willingness or ability to suspend disbelief. If you go into it thinking the reader will just suspend disbelief no mater what, you're taking a foolish approach and one that isn't likely to gain you much of a readership. The amount of rationale that needs to be provided is a gray area, as demonstrated by the different views on Tolkien.