Bruce Judisch spoke to the Feb. 7, 2019, meeting of the San Gabrield Writers Guild. He covered accuracy, authenticity, and plausibility in our writing, leading to research methods.
Judisch was born in Canton, Ohio. After serving over 21 years in the US Air Force, he settled with his family in San Antonio. He and his wife, Jeannie, are parents of three, and grandparents of 14. Bruce loves writing historical fiction, teaching, camping, and playing the 12-string guitar. He is the author of six books, including Katia and for Maria.
Reporter's note: Judisch threw out a lot of good ideas, but as a reader, you are going to have to reflect on what he said to gain some insight.
“Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside a lie,” Stephen King.
A novelist can do anything he wants as long as he makes people believe it – Gabriel García Márquez.
There’s three levels of truth in fiction:
- Accuracy – the quality or state of being correct or precise.
- Authenticity – genuinely belonging to a style or period.
- Plausibility- the quality of seeming reasonable or probable.
A truth is a fact that is, and conversely a falsehood is a fact that isn’t.
Parables and fables are false. But the intent of the story they tell is to deliver a truth or show an outcome that is moral.
Yet Judas and Hitler both told truths that were for bad purposes.
So whether fiction leads to good or evil is based on intent and/or outcome.
Bad falsehoods need not involve deceit, but may simply be a mistake.
If a reader catches you in a mistake, they’ll probably forgive you. They look at it as a mistake due to laziness not to check all the facts.
If a reader catches you in a lie, they may not forgive you. If they think you are trying to deceive them, that’s intent and that’s what they don’t like.
Accuracy applies to denotation (the literal meaning of the word). Authenticity (how it is received by the reader) applies to connotation (Not just it's definition, but how it's perceived by the reader).
As writers, you must make a reasonable effort to be accurate.
External consistency: can the event be disproved upon evidence from outside the book. How this works in genre dependent.
Internal consistency: can the event be disproved upon the truth that is already laid down in the book, what the author has already delivered.
Your internal consistency is more important than your external consistency. An internal consistency caught by the reader will knock them out of the story.
Authenticity is what you’ve got to have. Whatever facts and events you write must be true to the setting in your book. Fiction has to be plausible. You could say your story has to pass the sniff test.
For instance, consider alternative history WWII stories where the Germans won the war. In those stories, it’s historically inaccurate. But if the writer presents a plausible premise, the reader will be able to accept what you’re writing and go on.
So plausibility can violate both accuracy and authenticity and the reader can still be satisfied. It's all about how the writer sets it up.
When you violate accuracy, authenticity, or plausibility, you break the dream that’s the reader is developing in his mind as he reads the story. So how do we ensure accuracy, authenticity, and plausibility? Don’t violate the reason the reader is reading your book.
As a writer we need to do research. We need to seek external validation to what we put down in our books. But we also need to set our own internal validation. For instance, if we say a house is x number of blocks from one location, the next time we mention that location, it must be the same number of blocks from that location and every time we mention that location.
There are three ways to do research:
- Eyewitness. You were on the site when it happened. That’s the best. You don’t have to do much research. You saw it.
- Boots on the ground. Be where it happened after the event. When you go there, you will see details that you don’t think about sitting back at your writing desk.
- Subject matter experts. They get you your answers when you can’t go there yourself. But you have to know the questions to ask.
Some sources:
Google Maps. There are sometimes errors on the site.
Wikipedia. Good general source, but watch out! There could be false information because it is user created. Don't rely on Wikipedia. But it's a place to start.
Websites. Find the ones you need via Google searches.
A trip to the library can give you a treasure trove of unique information. There are things in the library that aren't available online, such as old newspapers, file information, and microfiche files.
Additional notes:
If you don't have a real location, create one, but make it visible to the reader.
Deep POV eliminates the distance between the reader and the POV character.
|