For more than 20 years now I’ve been studying various forms of stories with an eye toward understanding what makes a “perfect” story. There are various definitions, of course. One could consider that a story is perfect if it contains no flaws—much as a diamond is considered perfect if it has no major flaws. Thus, one might imagine that a story is perfect if it holds your attention, draws you into each scene, creates the emotion that the author sought to achieve, and so on.
Yet I’m not sure that I’d consider a story to be perfect unless it also had a good number of strengths, as well. I’ve seen numerous stories that, if you understood story form, seemed to be technically all there. The opening achieved what was required. The author managed to insert adequate try/fail cycles, reach a climax, and bring about a satisfying resolution. Yet time and time again, I’ve looked at the technically whole stories and felt that the author was just going through the motions. It was sort of like trying to admire a painting that came from a paint-by-the-numbers kit. Sure, the whole picture was there, but it felt half-hearted. It lacked artistry.
So I’d say that a “perfect” story has to come alive. It doesn’t just follow a formula. Jesus once gave a sermon about what constituted a “perfect” man, and in it he enumerated a number of virtues that made one “whole” or flawless. In the same sense, I think that a story needs to contain the proper virtues to make it “whole,” to give it substance.
Algis Budrys used to claim that he had read three or four perfect short stories in his life, but never had seen a perfect novel. We never really discussed what he saw as the virtues that it took to make a story whole, but we talked about stories enough so that I think that I can discuss some of them.
As I do, remember that Algis and I have a definition for what a story is. Not everything that an author puts on paper is necessarily a “story.” Not all pieces of prose are meant to be stories. I’ve spoken a good deal about the form of a story and what constitutes a story in the past, so I’m not going to do so here. Just rest assured that I will do so in the coming days.
So, having said that, let me list some virtues of a story for the next few days, and talk about each in turn.
First, a story is honest. Now, that isn’t quite the same as saying that a story is true. Obviously when we are writing fiction, we are basically telling lies in order to enlighten and entertain. So stories aren’t necessarily true. Yet in order for a story to work, there must be a good deal of truth in them.
Part of that honesty is simply necessary in order to lure the reader into your fictive universe. If I were to set a story in London, and make the grand mistake of thinking that London was in the United States, just south of New York, my readers would of course consider my tale to be foolish. They wouldn’t be able to become engaged by it.
So as an author, you have to have to do enough research for your story so that you can entice your reader to enter your fictive universe. This research can encompass many things. If I am writing about London, I darned well better know a bit about London. It will help if I’ve been there a few times. It would help even more if I’d live there my whole life. I need to write about London well enough so that my reader feels confident in my skills. The reader needs to let go, and allow himself or herself to enter the fictive world. If I make a silly error, then the readers will have that “Say what?” moment, where he or she will simply eject themselves from the story.
Similarly, if I’m writing about people, then I’d better know my characters—and people as a whole. If you’re going to write about Tongans, for example, it would help if you’ve gone to Tonga. You need to know the culture, the mindset, the way that a Tongan would think and act, particularly if it would be different from, say, a Londoner.
You’ll also need to your conflicts. If your Tongan develops a mental disorder, you need to understand the disorder. If he goes to war, then you have to convince me that you understand wars.
Hence, at one level, a story needs to be honest simply in order to slide past your reader’s defenses, to get him or her to engage in a “willing suspension of disbelief,” as Samuel Taylor Coleridge put it.
Some authors talk about adding facts to gain “verisimilitude,” to create the illusion that the author knows what he’s talking about. But I’ve often felt that too many authors don’t put in an honest effort. They try to dump in a couple of facts and hope that it will fool their readers. Such halfhearted efforts often fool no one but the author. Creating the illusion of reality often takes more than a little effort.
A story needs to be honest in one other major way: it needs to be honest in the way that it arouses emotions. Some authors try to fake it. They hope to arouse emotions by use of heightened language. For example, they might try to get a reader to believe that a character’s love is great simply by affecting pretty language or by making vague assertions. “Ah, no one has ever felt a love so pure and true as what Tristan felt for Emily. The love in his heart was soaring thing, like an eagle with a course set for the moon, its wings spanning the heavens.”
Well, that’s not how one arouses emotions. One arouses emotions by engrossing a reader, placing him or her into a fictive universe so completely that the conscious mind is convinced that the reader is in fact living the events of the tale. Once that happens, then the events themselves arouse the emotions. In an honest story, we don’t talk about how much Tristan loves Emily—we make Emily so demonstrably lovable that the reader falls in love with her. Once that happens, we need not talk about his love for her at all.
So stories need to be imbued with honesty on several levels.
News from the industry: Borders bookstores announced a couple of days ago that they will be closing about 200 of their mall stores in 2010 and laying off about 1500 people. While some might worry that this is due to the economy, Borders has been closing their smaller stores—the Waldenbooks—for several years, and this sounds like business as usual for them in some ways, though the number seems a bit high. (I had heard as early as last may that about 130 stores would be closed.) The accelerated rate may well be due to the fact that the company has been living on borrowed money for years.
Now that the “Writers Death Camp” is over, I did want to mention that it was an awful lot of fun, and I found a couple of very talented writers in the group. I mentioned Regina Richards last week, but Melinda Morley also impressed me as someone to watch over the next few months. So here are two talented women, both with consonance in their names.
Click here for part 2!
