Question and Answer Period

Last week when I did a post on believability, Dianne and then Roland mentioned LOST, my third favorite show of all time, and since once I get started thinking about LOST I can’t stop, I decided to do a post on that shows favorite viewer hook: questions.

LOST was a show of mysteries and unlike procedural and crime dramas, it didn’t have them all answered by the end of the episode—or the end of the series. This frustrated a lot of people, not me, because I’m weird like that, but a lot of people felt cheated or just dissatisfied.

That’s the problem of having a series where the driving force is the what ifs, the whys, the hows. People tune in because they get hooked on wanting to know the answers. But answering the questions gives them limits. People might say it’s an ass pull or worse, the dreaded Deus ex Machina. And you can’t go back without inducing a retcon, and come on. That’s even lazier than a Deus ex Machina. So answering means everyone is stuck with what’s given, but never knowing, whew. No worries there. Hence, creators of massive mystery shows will probably avoid answering anything, at least until the clamor gets loud enough, and then you get stuck with something like Twin Peaks.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid questions in your own works, my writerly friends. But I’d make sure the answers make sense, not just to you but to the reader. Otherwise, you’re stuck with an evil smoke monster that can turn into dead people.

On Dialogue

Once of the things I think I’m pretty good at is dialogue. I was decent at it when I first started writing and I’ve only improved. I can craft voices for characters, I know to make it interesting and relevant, I only use dialogue tags when absolutely necessary. And of course, I remember that dialogue in books never sounds like dialogue in actual conversations.

If there’s one thing to remember, it’s that last point. Have you ever read a transcript of a conversation between two actual people? Let me put it this way: if you tried to pass that off to an editor, you’d get laughed out of his/her office. Ever read Waiting for Godot? Probably one of the more realistic conversations I’ve ever read.

Weird, isn’t it? It’s kind of the same as the rule of believability—namely, that just because something happened in real life, doesn’t mean a reader will by it. The difference between fiction and real life isn’t truth or lies. The difference is that fiction is crafted to make it seem real, not to be real.

Keep that in mind while writing.

So, in the battle of realistic versus believable, which side are you on? Is it possible to meld the two? Heck, is that even necessary?