Reality in Fiction

Successful fiction is built on reality. Not just the plot and the characters, but the setting must be based in reality, too.

The setting could be very like a character in the story, as a haunted house might be or a hurricane-lashed shore or a snow-bound mountain pass. In which case, a writer must be as meticulous in making it a complete vision as they would be with any major character.

Even if this setting is just a setting, it still must be believable. Descriptions and references to the real world need not be numerous or extensive. Real world minutiae will stimulate the reader to fill in the rest of the setting. 

Not every reader will be an expert in all fields, but each reader will be an expert in their own lives and worlds so a writer must be accurate in their small bits of reality. We don't want to do anything to throw the reader out of the story.

It doesn't matter what our setting is. Conformity to the real world is the place to begin. Then we can add the touches that will make our setting fit somewhere in the past or far into the future. In deepest, darkest Africa or the sunny splendor of the Caribbean. 

An easy method of research to write believable fiction is to pay attention to our world. It's a good habit to cultivate.

Yesterday, I took my car in for an oil change. 

This is the view from the parking lot of the oil and lube place. That white area at the top of the hills just left of center is actually Pike's Peak, seventy miles to the south. We can see it from my front porch, too. When I look at it, I focus on it and it is much larger in my view than it is in this photo. When I am LOOKING at it, I naturally crop all the things I'm not interested in and zoom in on, in this case, the snow covered mountain top.

Photos of the moon work the same way. A rising full moon looks huge, but try to get a photo giving the moon the same prominence without zooming in on it. You can't.

And that's the way we must bring a reader into the setting. Zoom in on the visual element that will put them firmly into the setting.

While my car was being serviced, I walked the half mile or so down to my house, paying particular attention to things around me.
                    

Spring has finally arrived here at the base of the Rocky Mountains and the lilacs are in bloom. During my walk I passed both white and purple forms of lilacs. Guess what. The white lilacs in the left photo have no scent, while the purple ones in the right photo do. Almost to the point of being overwhelming.

Lilacs remind me: if I put plants in my scene, I must be sure to have the right plants. Lilacs and apples, don't do well in Southeast Arkansas. It doesn't get cold enough for them there. Honeysuckle does do well there and fills the air with it's own perfume. It does not do well here.

             

                         Columbine                                                       Irises

In May, the daffodils are gone. They bloomed a month before the last snows. And the tulips are past their prime. Columbine and Irises bloom in early summer. Roses are showing new growth and putting on leaves. Lawn mower tracks sweep back and forth over luxuriant grass.

These plants give the impression that the neighborhood is well-kept and the people are concerned with how it looks. They have enough leisure time to spend on lawn care or enough money to hire it done.

It doesn't matter what our neighborhood is really like. We can use real things about it to portray it in any light we like.

               

                                Dandelion                                      tiny purple Stork's Bill, leaf litter,
                                                                                         and plants run amok

In addition to the tony, well-cared-for lawns on my walk, there were Dandelions growing unfettered in cracks and along the edges of the sidewalk. Tiny, purple Stork's Bill, identified by the local Extension Service as weeds have taken over a yard here and there. (Actually, I rather like both flowers.)

Because they are generally regarded as weeds, these plants give the impression that this neighborhood is less well-off, a bit rundown, lower class perhaps.

By the mere mention of what's growing in the neighborhood, we can focus our readers' views and set the tone of the scene.

"Sorry I'm in the way, will move soon."

A house shrouded in tarps, stacks of new building materials extending onto the sidewalk, the sharp popping sounds of nail guns, people talking as they work. All signs pointing to a remodel of the house, a positive tone. Here is a home being restored or improved.

If the building materials appear to be weathered and there are no workmen on site, the sense of the scene is very different.

(In reality, this house is being remodeled. I love that the workmen apologized for their materials blocking part of the sidewalk. And only a small part of the sidewalk at that.)

Take a walk in your neighborhood and see how you see it. And how it smells. What can you hear?How does the air feel? What effort does the terrain require of you? How does the light change as you go? What else can you use to make a setting seem real?

Maybe the best thing about my walk yesterday was that my husband gave me a ride back up the hill to get my car when it was done.

Something Woke Her -- Flash Fiction

Something woke her.

Fear kept her eyes shut. Her chest, so tight it hurt.

A dream maybe. 

She moved her hand to his side of the bed. Empty. She hated it when he traveled.

She felt stupid. Of course there was nothing to be scared of. Her house. Her neighborhood. A safe neighborhood.

She opened her eyes. A shadow spread up the wall.  A strange, long-beaked bird across the ceiling.

Think. She had to think. The bathroom door stood open. The nightlight above the sink. Behind the soap dispenser. Nothing more. Just the almost empty soap dispenser which she should refill in the morning.

But something woke her. Was it a sound?

The cat? No. The cat stood rigid at the foot of the bed. Eyes wide in the gloom. He must have heard it, too. 

A cat. A scaredy-cat. She should have a dog. Her husband wanted a dog. A big dog, he said. For when she was alone. But she'd argued that you have to walk a dog. Every day, rain or shine. Or snow.

She pulled her arms close against her sides. She liked to sleep naked. There was just something about slipping into an empty bed. She could take up the whole bed when he was gone. Stretching as far as she could. Her skin, warm from the shower, against cool, smooth, freshly laundered sheets.

Not now, though. Being naked made her vulnerable. At risk. Defenseless. 

Quietly, she moved the duvet aside and sat up. The cold struck her bare skin like a slap and she reached for her robe. For her phone. 

Three, thirty-eight. She could have slept another hour and a half. Maybe longer. No need for an alarm. He was gone and she didn't have to work that morning. A day off. On her own. She could do anything she wanted. Or nothing.

Light seeped through the closed blinds. Moon bright light on snow. Something clattered across the deck outside her window. Should she look through the blinds? If she moved even a single slat, they would see her. If there were a 'they' out there.  

The wind. That's all it was. Chinook winds coming down out of the mountains. Snow eater winds bringing warm days to February. Sixty-seven degrees, the forecast high. She could walk to Starbucks. Then maybe around the lake. She didn't have to have a dog to walk.

She padded barefoot down the hall and through the kitchen. The floors were cozy warm. That was the nice thing about living in a house with a basement. The floors were always warm in the winter. She'd never lived in a house with a basement before.

The basement. Had she remembered to close the window in the basement bedroom? Yesterday was warm, too. She loved opening all the windows and letting the world in. It was a perfect day. Not as warm as today would be, but welcome sunshine and winter neighborhood sounds.  Children playing, taking advantage of the warmish weather. No lawnmowers, yet. And no snowblowers.

Was the window locked? It stood less than two feet above ground. No bars. She hated barred windows. Bars made a home look besieged. Susceptible to invasion. If there weren't real danger, why would a home need bars? What if there were a fire?

She hesitated with her hand on the basement door knob. She hated scary movies. They were either dumb or really scary. Screeching violins warning the hapless heroine not to go down those stairs. But she always went. The idiot.

The cat rubbed against her legs then sat waiting expectantly for her to open the door. He always wanted to be first down the stairs.

She held her breath and opened the door just a crack. The cat -- his ears and eyes focused on her -- waited for the door to open enough for him to run through. She knew he thought she was acting strange. She thought she was acting strange. 

She listened for a sound, any sound. The heat came on and the vent in the entryway across the hall rattled. Just as it always did. The familiar sound should have calmed her. Or irritated her. She'd asked him to try taping it open so it wouldn't rattle. He said he had duct tape in the garage. She'd do it herself in the morning.

She opened the door wide. At the base of the stairwell, the laundry room door stood ajar. A narrow beam of light sliced across the basement floor leaving the terracotta tiles beyond in deep gloom. Maybe she should have chosen light colored tiles. 

She didn't remember leaving the laundry room light on. Growing up in her father's house inculcated the mantra "waste not, want not." On leaving a room, she always turned the lights off. Sometimes to her embarrassment, if someone was still in the room.

The cat did not rush headlong down the stairs. Had he heard something? Sensed something? 

Should she call the police?

And tell them what? It's dark? Her husband is gone? The cat's afraid to go down into the basement?

Maybe she should just make a pot of coffee.

She closed the basement door. And locked it. She was glad he'd put the lock on the door to keep their youngest grandchild from tumbling down the stairs.

She'd wait and see.

Writing Real Characters

image from aspenpeak-magazine.com

  Your whole life is gathering material for a really good story. And that story should be filled with realistic characters and events and settings. Yes! Even Fantasy.

  After all, your readers have to be able to connect with characters in fantasy, too. That character may be a big hairy guy with an ammo belt slung across his chest. And maybe he doesn’t speak, just grunts and growls and roars. But I can tell you, that Wookie reminds me of someone’s brother or father or a guy I went out with once.

  For me, dialogue describes my character more than the color of their hair or how tall they are. Unless, of course, the color of their hair plays a significant role in my story. For instance in Murder on Ceres Rafe has red hair and green eyes. They are important to the story. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out. http://bit.ly/murderonceres.

  Where do I get the dialogue? It’s in the air, all around us, all the time. Even when we sleep, we dream dialogue. All we have to do is listen.

  My grandmother, being ever so conscientious about not taking the Lord’s name in vain, would occasionally exclaim, “Lawsy, lawsy.” As opposed to Lordy, Lordy. My grandfather, however, was not so religiously scrupulous. He was a good and kind man, but it was not unusual for him to emphasize a statement by preceding it with “eye-God.” Phonetically – he was saying “by God” not referring to God’s eye. If I use either of these exclamations in my story, you’ll recognize the character whether or not I describe them physically.

  I love to eat out. Don’t get to do it often, but when I do, I listen. I gather material. At a café in Santa Maria, California, on my way down Highway 101, I got to eavesdrop on a group of local farmers having coffee. Their conversation was not unlike the farmers having coffee in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Will it rain? Taxes are too high. A neighbor has done something that’s negatively affecting their creek, their fence-line, or their line of sight. The accent is different. Idioms are different. Even the rhythms are different. These things may be too esoteric to give a reader the information they need to locate the speaker geographically, but the farmer’s concerns are the same, and the reader will recognize them no matter the idioms or accent or rhythms. They are real characters.

  There was a man who came into the office where I used to work. He would say “She went to town. So she did.” Or, “it rained so hard, it was a toad-strangler. So it was.” He invariably ended whatever statement he made with “So he/she/it did/was/verb-of-choice.” Another distinctive voice.

  If you use a particular speech pattern consistently for a particular character, the reader will recognize that character whenever they speak, so they will.

  And not just words, repetitive noises can be identifying. Post-nasal drip sufferers and their sniffing and snorting. Smokers and their throat clearing. People who eat too much fiber and their – well, you know. Pencil tappers and toe tappers, paper shufflers and rattlers. People who pant and puff and suck their teeth. Eye-rollers, shruggers, nodders. Yes, sometimes we do need to listen with our eyes to catch all the wonderful sounds and actions to use in and around our dialogue.

  So my advice to character builders everywhere (and I don’t mean sports coaches) is to listen, appreciate, and use all the dialogue – verbal and nonverbal – that comes your way. Now, go to a local café and have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie for me. And eavesdrop.