KBA
Dreamer
I would need the main character to also be confounded, and to know he or she is confounded by their actions. Otherwise, as a reader, I'd think I'd missed something or that my reading comprehension was becoming demented.
I would need the main character to also be confounded, and to know he or she is confounded by their actions. Otherwise, as a reader, I'd think I'd missed something or that my reading comprehension was becoming demented.
As your characters begin to understand the reasons (they don't have to be "good" reasons), then so will the reader.
I am wrestling with a particular aspect of my story right now - a community that plays quite an important role. The thing about this community is that much of their behavior is utterly mystifying. And the significance of this concerns me because some of this nonsensical behavior is key to shaping how the story plays out. I can't help but worry if this will leave a sour taste in the readers' mouths; if it will come across as poor writing, having characters doing things for no coherent reason, seemingly only because the writer needs them to do those things.
I am not talking about a community of lunatics, either. Lunacy offers a writer a great deal of leeway to explain away the nonsensical actions of a rogue character or two.
No, these people live as they do with (seemingly) stable minds. But what they do confounds my main characters and, presumably, will confound the audience, too. And perhaps what troubles me most about it is that even I don't really understand why these people do what they do. As the author - the creator of this world, do I have a duty to understand why my characters are what they are, why they do what they do? Especially when the plot hinges upon their unconventional character? Or is "just because..." good enough?
My fear is that having a nonsensical element play such a major role will turn the story into something that leaves the readers going "WTF did I just read?" I know that there's a niche for abstract storytelling, but I personally have never cared for it. I like to leave a story feeling like I've understood what I've just read/watched.
If a major element of your story never makes sense, then your story will literally be nonsense. Is there some powerful reason why you want to write nonsense?
Don't get me wrong; some literary fiction explores exactly that. But it did not sound like that's what you're going for. Which still leaves me wondering why you are so insistent on having nonsense at the core of the story. What's the payoff? Where does it lead?