February 7th, 2009
The Feasibility of a Story
The other day, when I walked out of my house, a piano landed next to me and crunched on the ground. The roof of this old school piano flung out, and out came a mecha robot.
“Mr. Toran. I. Need. You. To. Come. With Me.” the robot said.
“Over my dead body!”Suddenly, I felt something heavy crash into my stomach, the robot had just livered punched me. It was on!
With a small yelp, “RAWR!” of retaliation and a grip of the atmosphere, my hair turned yellow and my eyes turn green. My power was over 9000!
This dead robot is dead!
Like my cheesy story? It was pretty random which begs the question “the chances of it happening”? Not likely. However, it was feasible.
Most audience want to be able to connect with the story that is feasible, however, some writers sometimes make the huge mistake of breaking “The Rules” thus making it infeasible.
My story could have been more random with monster coming out of the ground, and alien invading, but you know what: the audience would have still gone along with it because I already have established the rules.
“The Rules” create the setting and feelings of a story. They can not be broken otherwise it destroys the story and disgusts the reader, viewers, or audience.
For instance, J.K. Rowling, creator of Harry Potter, wrote about Harry Potter using his wand to fight his enemies, but all of a sudden he busts out the gun and kills them all instantly.
“Double You Tee Ef?!”
That is out of character! And that will also make the audience feel cheated.
However, there are always way to go around breaking the rules. By giving “The Reason“. Then it may become feasible.
Something in dark had swiped at Harry which had cause him to lose his wand in the dark. However, there was a faint glow in a distance. He saw a silver pistol shining in the moon light. To his quickness, he roll over and armed himself, and delivered a fatal blow to the Werewolf.
Although a crappy fan fiction, this may work because I have given a reason to Harry’s lost wand.
Thus to all writers out there, I remind you not to break your rules unless you have a reason to do so. This article was inspired because I am still writing Eslend, and I ran into a simple block.
This block made me question, “What are the chances of this happening to a person in real life?”
Well… the writer writes the story.
It happened because the writer wrote it.
The audience have no choice to follow.
It’s like James Bond coming out of the water wearing Scuba Diver Gear, undresses his gear and he is already wearing a Dried White Tuxedo.
I dig it!
If you are in a block, questioning how to connect with the audience, questioning the possibilities of this happening, or questioning the physics of the real world and your story’s world physics, just write it!
If bullets can pierce through water in your world, even though they don’t in ours, it still works because it’s your world!