Writing Tips and Reviews

Realistic writing

Yeah, I know, it's been a hot minute since I last posted on this series. I've mainly been busy with real life and Specter of Glass has been taking up all my free time. But I've got a good topic that you might like.

Being realistic is something I think is important in writing. Without it, people can't connect to the story.

Is it realistic for a fourteen year old girl to yell at the principal and him run off crying while she talks about how amazing she is? In a first person story, perhaps it can explained by saying it's what's happening in her own mind. But when looking at it realistically, that kind of scenario wouldn't happen. It's more believable for him to walk away or send her to his office than for him to cry about being yelled at by a child. Is it realistic that a group of friends lay on the grass and drink lemonade while their friend is in danger and think, "my ice is melting" is their biggest problem? Is it realistic that the protagonist suddenly gets god powers with no mention of having them or having a relationship to a god beforehand? Of course not.

And while the examples can be fine when given more context to them, it's not up to the audience to give that context. But that's another subject.

What I mean by being realistic isn't that it's a perfect recreation of real life. Do dragons, elves, fairies, and witches exist in real life? No. Do we still connect to the story despite that? In many cases, yes. Because it's more about the ideas and themes. Let's look at another example.

A magical book that gives people powers isn't realistic, but how people react to it is what matters. Depending on their established personalities, we can predict how they'll react. Those who are cowards will shy away and be cautious, those who are adventurous will test it, and those who are arrogant may ignore it for a while until they're alone and play with it. How about that lemonade example? In no way is it realistic for people to prioritize drinking lemonade over saving their friend, but it is realistic for them already being drinking, drop it when they find out, and make jokes about losing it once everything has calmed down. The lemonade is still part of the story, though it doesn't take away from the tension.

How about worlds that aren't tied to our own completely? Fate Grand Order can answer that for you. Set in timelines where history has been distorted, it still feels like it all could happen. There could be an alien god out there planning to set the world back to the age of gods and descend upon the planet. The writers know what they're doing, and while I will admit there are very hard stretches to the story at times, it makes sense as to why the world is like that. Avalon le Fae for example, why is the world populated by fairies and humans are being farmed? Well, the world was destroyed with only fairies surviving and one human who was harvested to create "clones" that only live 30 years. What about Olympus? The Greek gods were actually machines who had their machine bodies destroyed in the real world, but here, they weren't and they ruled the world with their power.

These aren't real scenarios, but they feel real because the writers have reasons as to why they happened. I think what's why I love the Fate series so much, despite its complete insanity and twisting of history, it usually tells the players why those changes happen and it fits into the universe they've created.

Let's look at another game, Punishing Gray Raven. PGR tells the story of a virus that broke out and began turning machines into monsters that killed anything human or human like in behavior. What was humanity's response? To create machines with the mind of a human. It makes sense. The virus attacks the human body and the machine mind, so the perfect conclusion is a machine with a human mind. Of course, it's not full proof. These machines, or constructs, must continue to behave like humans and their bodies mimic normal functions. Heart beat, breathing, and pain. If they don't have those, they'll become machines and the entire point of their existence will be voided. Babylonia also exists as a new home for humans while the constructs attempt to fight the corrupted machines to take back the earth.

Or, how about we bring back that whole "got god powers out of no where to save the day"? Like I said, without a connection to a god or reason for it, it becomes Deus Ex Machina, or "an ass pull", and people don't like that. So, what can be done? The TV show Amphibia has the answer for that. Early on, we know about the music box and see the gemstones often, yet we don't know what they're for until later. We learn that they're able to power the box to take people to different worlds and our characters begin to refill their strength to go home. We also see many signs that the girls have some of the power in them through their eyes glowing at certain times. When Anne is refilling her stone, it's shown to not be completed and might be leaking power. And it's the fight against Adrias that we see her use the power it leaked out. These "god powers" do allow her to fight, but they aren't a full solution to the fight and she does technically lose. Why? Because it's her first time using them and realistically, she can't win when she has no idea how to use them. Even during the final fight, these powers aren't enough to completely stop the core and she has to ask the stones for help at the cost of her life.

Now that's how it's done. We have a set up where the stones are introduced along with their connection to the girls. An explanation as to how they work. And a final use of them that comes with a cost. Unlike the example where the hero gets the power out of... her ass, Anne, Sasha, and Marcy's god powers are perfectly reasonable. It's even stated that because their bodies aren't used to the powers, like Anne's is, they don't last long on the battlefield. And that makes sense.

Overall, what I mean by writing realistically doesn't mean copying real life, it means to write what makes sense. Like a river there are many paths to the end, just don't go off randomly without a reason why. You can dig a new path but you can't go from the characters laying on the beach to burning in lava without an explanation.