Sherlock Knows Best
26 Jul
There’s this card on my fridge that says: Life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind could invent…, which is a sort of paraphrased quote from A Case of Identity by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (If you’ve not read it, you can see the whole quote here @ goodreads, if interested.) Reenie sent me the card with a present once, and I kept it for obvious reasons.
I spend a lot of time trying to come up with something that might be original, but it’s not really possible. I’m at my most inspired-feeling when flooding my brain with information about reality. Neil Gaiman said at the National Book Fair that “you don’t exist in a vacuum”, and I think pretending you do is not only pretentious, but sounds super boring. Real life is weird as hell (Or we could quote Mark Twain, too: the truth is stranger than fiction), and what’s the point of fiction that has no relevance to it?
The place I notice reality’s strangest effects on fiction is in the characters. In order for their more eccentric points to be accepted, or for the screwed-up ones to elicit any kind of empathy, it’s generally accepted that it’s good for them to have something real and honest about them. If one thing is believable, as many wise people have told me, the rest of their madness can be taken at our word.
Dexter might be a goddamn serial killer, but he’s OCD and loves kids. I so get him.
I’m not advocating characters who are like us, of course. No one wants to see Mary Sue and Gary Stu front and center –well, no one over the age of 12– and that’s the inevitable end of that path. But I think you know what I mean. I’m just talking about keeping it, er, real. Yeah.
But I notice that sometimes when I draw some characteristic I’ve observed in a real person into a fictional character, it can be less believable than the shit I made up. Which brings me back around to the initial Doyle quote– albeit after much pointless circling, as usual. People are so unbelievably weird. I know it’s not cool to directly transfer another human being into your fiction (though it’s all right with permission– my brother loves the fact that he has his own vampire), but we all steal bits and pieces; sometimes subconsciously, for me, mostly blatantly. But the most extreme characteristics we see every day– drama whoring, self-destructive addiction, selfishness on a grand scale– are strangely hard to buy, even for those who possess them. I have vampires, werewolves, telepaths, energy manipulators, a prostitute zombie, and pseudo-Polynesian not-elves… and I feel like I work ten times harder to make my real characters believable.
Reality is kind of awesome, even if I try and avoid it as often as possible. I like to remind myself of that sometimes.
Okay, so is that really cracky of me, or am I not the only one out there who’s experienced this? What kind of things have you dragged into your fiction from reality and found surprisingly unbelievable?
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Now playing: Cornershop – 6 A.M. Jullandar Shere
via FoxyTunes
I’m completely with you. I’ve never felt much “dude – no one will buy this” over the fantasy elements I’ve dumped into my “real life” setting.
Phoenix’s blood relations, on the other hand, gave me fits. Even though I know people who act just like that.
Maybe it’s a good sign. Maybe we’d feel like it was more real if thought their behaviors reasonable. Since we don’t, there’s a little part of us deep down that doesn’t want to believe that anyone would actually DO those things – even when we’ve been on the receiving end.
(On the other hand, like you said, I’m not sure what it says about us that we think vampires and zombies are reasonable, but drama whores aren’t…)
I am constantly amazed by real life – excellent post.
My night school instucture used to say that all writers, to some degree, draw from life experience.
A short story I wrote last year (found in Static Movement) is about a guy, trapped in a marriage and living in a big old money pit, encounters a UFO while driving to work. The money pit was from real life (so was the UFO, but that’s another story..
We just went to the zoo. There are animals in the zoo…(shudders silently).
The world is full of strange and wonderous reality.
Meghan, I was thinking of you and our talk about Phoe’s family when I wrote this. I knew you’d had experiences thinking of it (and you know I have!), but… I mean, I KNOW people like Phoe’s family. I have trouble believing they’re real, but they are, and I’ve seen it. So seeing it in the book is like “oh god, THEM.”
On the other hand, like you said, I’m not sure what it says about us that we think vampires and zombies are reasonable, but drama whores aren’t…
Seriously.
Cate, it’s a weird effing thing, isn’t it? Nice to know I’m not the only one.
Alan, man, that’s a story I’d love to hear. UFO! Dude!
Aaron, the zoo is an excellent example, too. Some crazy shit just hanging around…
“No really, two men can kiss and it’s not gay!”
Still trying to work that into a short story. Never mind that if the lead singer of my favorite band kissed his bandmate (both hetero) any harder, he would suck out his fillings.
I’ve totally had that one in life too, Nat! I worked it into a book once, even, but I do enjoy a good bromance. They’re inviolate– even if they pretend they’re not!
Just have to chime in with how much I love the word bromance.
That is all.