The Turn of the Unscrew

Story needs characters with needs.

No problem with that. So far.

Story needs characters with needs, set in a place that directly or tangentially contributes to the needs of the characters.

The problem begins with goals of story. Should story first and foremost entertain or should it have entertainment share billing with educating? Or maybe moralizing? Or maybe demythifying?

When was the last time you were entertained by the demythifiation of something?

Was it Catch-22?

The problem extends itself when the matter of realism is introduced, by which I mean some standard of making the characters seem real, their goals real, the landscape or venue of the activity giving the reader the impression that yes, this can be happening.

Imagine then a character who, instead of saying I can't believe this is happening, says instead I believe this is happening.

This brings us to the point of equating real with plausible, which can quickly bring us to the point of the bug and the windshield by the simple fact of introducing Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat, for instance, is nothing less than a hoot. I believe I have read and reread it more times than I have reread The Little Prince, a connection made to show that I am not mixing anything but apples here, no comparing Dr. Seuss with, say, Norman Mailer. You would be likely to give a wide berth to anyone you suspected of thinking The Cat in the Hat was real. What then is the quality that makes The Cat in the Hat entertaining? Is it style? Perhaps so, perhaps the style of drawing and text. Perhaps it is the chemistry of style, drawing, text, and the conclusion that emerges from reading the work, the feeling that inheres in the conclusion.

Middlemarch has a conclusion, one which is in its way as down and cynical as Lush Life, although there are moments of ironic humor, of that landscape of pained cusp between entertainment and pain. Perhaps the very difference between The Cat in the Hat and Middlemarch is schadenfreude.

Perhaps the key to the effect of realness and authenticity in story relates to detail. Funny details contribute to the sense of enjoyment. Dreary details contribute to the sense of pain.

I was going to say that I wish I had answers but now I wonder if answers add to a story or detract from it's effect, which is getting me back on the track by suggesting that each of us who writes story needs to put some time in with the qualities of realness, detail, irony, humor, and answers.

I personally don't mind answers in the stories of some writers, so long as they don't do for answers what Melville did for whales. Nevertheless, I don't particularly want answers in my stories.

Okay so your next question, perfectly plausible, is What do you want in your stories?

The humor of recognition that answers muddy the situation there are already bigger answer footprints in fiction than we have room for. Not in my stories. People in my stories get time off from answers, time off from formulas, time off from dogma they get time off from thinking and time off from not thinking. People in my stories can set out looking for justice, but the color of justice changes as quickly as the skin color of a trout that has been pulled out of water. People do what they do to avoid being screwed. There is some satisfaction in momentarily not being screwed.