10/20/2024
IT'S FICTION!
Often novelists write a story based on the truth. They take a real event and fictionalize it. That makes it potentially less likely that readers will go, "Oh well that would never happen," and put down the book.
Yikes.
The key word then is plausibility. The reader must constantly be convinced that the story is plausible. Even with science fiction, the reader must feel that the futuristic or alien adventure in current day is possible and believable.
Once I gave a talk to a design class about book covers and how they need to tie into the story as an advertisement that embellishes the story. Especially for novels.
I apologized for missing the previous class, and told them the rather disgusting reason why. This is kind of gross so reader beware. The week before I had helped the Virginia Beach Stranding Team in conjunction with the Virginia Aquarium dispose of a dead beached whale.
Fortunately it was a juvenile, a humpback, but still huge at 35 feet long. We estimated the weight at 5000 pounds,
The bloating of the body meant that it was 5 feet tall, almost as tall as I am. We had done this many times, and knew that the trick was to cut a long slice through the top of the body, and then roll it with the excavator, which was standing by.
Two of us climbed a truss ladder. James Miller began the cut using a long-handle flensing knife that whalers use, then passed the huge blade to me.
Reaching for it, I slipped and fell into the open cut and into the whale's body cavity.
You have no idea how disgusting it was. I almost fainted, but fortunately was able to roll and stand up. They used the excavator to lift me out of the whale. They carried me down and rinsed me off in the surf. Several times because I stank!
As you can imagine the students and the instructor, my friend Mark Miltz, were horrified and disgusted by my story. You should have seen the looks on their faces.
Then I told them I made the whole thing up.
Likely you figured that out since we are talking about writing fiction. What's my point? In truth I just wanted to share that story with you.
Just remember that even though you change the names to protect the innocent, they may still know it is about them. Which could lead to a lawsuit if the story is salacious or libelous. So you may want to change the town as well.
Oh yeah, try to make it believable!
Big love and plausible kisses,
John
