Here I sit in my “office”. It’s really not much more than a roomette in my apartment but the fact it is in my apartment is something of a milestone. It’s been quite a voyage over the last few months. The downside of my move-in is that for the past week not too much has happened, other than heavy lifting, which means no adventures and no unexpected fun with barnyard animals. Which means nothing to write about. But does the Blog care? No. Friday is Friday and the Blog must go on. So this week, rather than tell you what I did, I’m going to talk about something that is near and dear to me in my new guise as a Writer.
The Rules.
Rules are important to a writer of fiction because they make whatever you write believable – or more to the point not disbelievable. They provide the framework and structure that a writer hangs his or her story upon. Working within the rules a writer can create a world that is consistent and draws the reader deeper and deeper into the story. Even if that world if filled with things which are completely unbelievable. For example, Dragons. Find me one – other than your ex – all wings and scales and fire breathing down on the hapless villagers. You can’t do it because there just aren’t any left. Damn you Saint George. However, there are an untold number of Dragon Stories, in print, that cover everything from the slaying thereof to their sex lives. Real or not, people just love Dragons and are willing to believe that, at sometime or someplace, they are real.
Same with Time Travel, Gothic Romance, Outer Space Adventures, and Self-Help Books. Any kind of fiction you can imagine can be made not disbelievable by the careful and consistent application of rules the writer comes up with for the story being told. These rules are what I like to call the “little rules”. They make the story hang together. When you’re writing you can start with something like “Civil War Romance”. You need a few rules to meet the requirements of that world. Things like The Civil War (duh!), a Plantation, a Studly Hero and Longsuffering Yet Resourceful Heroine, it’s historical so there’s a Helpful House Slave, and in a romance there’s always a disaster so toss in a Fire. Hit all these points and you can end up with another “Gone with the Wind”. However, if you remove “Fire” and substitute “Fire Breathing Dragon” you end up with one hell of a lot of writing to do. “Civil War Romance” and “Fire Breathing Dragon” just don’t go together naturally. But you could make them go together if your story had rules that demanded a dragon and you were willing to throw “Dragon Sex” into the mix.
Then there are the Big Rules. These are the bedrock principles that form the foundation for the framework of your story. Following them is essential to bringing life to your characters and allowing your reader to fully identify with ol’ Rhett Butler as he lands Kensa the Flying Lizard in the middle of the Battle of Gettysburg and chun-kings the Army of the North. The Big Rules allow your characters to be believable regardless of how real, unreal, or surreal the story they inhabit might be. There are three.
The first is simply named Rule 1. It is so-called because it was written before Rule 2 which says “All rules must have names”. The Rule Makers figured it would be better not to go back and screw things up. Rule 1 states: “Today you will never know what will happen tomorrow.” This rule is at the heart of everyday life and is the core of making a story believable. We may think and plan what we’re going to do tomorrow but we can never be sure what we actually will. In the “real world” you may say “tomorrow I’m going to the grocery”. What really happens is that you head out to the market but your car breaks down along the way or you run into a friend and get to talking, or you pass a sign that says “Big Sale” and you end up at a grocery but not at the one you expected. The only way to know for sure what is going to happen tomorrow is to wait until the day after.
In fiction this is the basis of every story. Without the uncertainty provided by Rule 1 a writer has no story. The veil that the Future hides behind is what gives a story its tragedy, drama, comedy, and hope. It keeps the reader turning the page to find out what ends up goin’ down. The incertitude provides the believability by allowing a reader to identify with one of your characters as his or her day goes to hell and say “Yeah, that’s the way it works.”
The next Rule is popularly known as the Law of Unintended Consequences (LUC to save space later). Where Rule 1 specifies the uncertainty of events the LUC is concerned with the outcome of those events. At its most basic level the LUC goes something like: “If you do anything you can never tell what the impact of that action will be either directly or indirectly.” For example, when you went to the store and accidentally ran into your old friend the conversation lasted long enough to keep your friend from getting on the bus which subsequently wrecked. But you didn’t know that at the time you were talking. The LUC is oft-cited in the real world. For all you bleeding-heart liberals out there who are seeking to preserve the health and well-being of our poor little children, consider this. The advent of mandatory bicycle helmets for pre-adult cyclists has actually increased health problems even though helmets appear to work. The studies have found that, because bike helmets just look so dorky, fewer kids ride bikes. This has resulted in fewer head injuries only in part due to helmet use. However, the overall decrease in physical activity has resulted in an increase in other health problems greater than the benefit received from using helmets. (if you’re curious the study is Cameron, M., Vulcan, A., Finch, C, and Newstead, S (June 1994). “Mandatory bicycle helmet use following a decade of helmet promotion in Victoria, Australia—an evaluation”. Accident Analysis and Prevention 26 (3): 325–327.)
Darwin will not be denied.
Of course the LUC is a goldmine for a writer. A story lives or dies by its characters. Rule 1 gives all the wiggle-room one needs to set up an unexpected scene. The LUC provides a writer the space to really let their imagination run wild and take a story in any direction desired. We should, as readers, be unsurprised to find out that Rhett’s flaming interference in the War Between the States was just the impetus needed for the North to develop a powered flying machine to blast the fiery worm out of the sky pre-empting the Wright Brothers by almost 35 years. Uncertainty about what the future holds is the essence of life and of the art which seeks to imitate it.
The last Rule provides the icing for the cake. This is the Rule that takes the unpredictable events demanded by Rule 1 and the unforeseen impact enforced by the LUC and hammers them into what passes, for most of us, as Reality. I am referring, of course, to Murphy’s Law. Simply stated Murphy says “the worst thing that can possibly happen will”. From a writer’s standpoint Murphy’s gives you the ability to take the little rules that define the world in which you set your story, no matter how improbable, and give your story the edge it needs. With Murphy’s Law you get to pull your readers deep into your characters and they will think “Yes, that’s just like real life”. Even when it isn’t.
My own life has given me a glimpse beyond Murphy’s Law into the vast landscape that lies there. This view has allowed me to see even more storytelling possibilities in the twists and turns that Reality throws at us. My first observation is that people tend to underestimate what the “worst thing that can possibly happen” is. Internally they substitute “probably” for “possibly”. Human logic says: “Sure it’s raining but I’m only walking a block. I’ll just get a little moist.” Then, halfway down the block, a bus goes by you and every wheel splashes into a pothole filled with about five gallons of oily, gray water. You end up soaked. “I’ll just get a little moist” is clearly not the worst thing that can possibly happen. Observations like this led me, many years ago, to what I humbly call Ewing’s First Restatement of Murphy’s Law. It goes “the worst thing that can possibly happen is only half as bad as what actually will.”
The area behind Murphy’s Law is a wide country so there was bound to be more. I have been given a life that, even by my own measure, has been unusual. In just the past couple of years I have had unexpected (of course) encounters with barnyard animals from the deep tropics to near the Canadian border. I have eaten ice cream with zombies in Costa Rica. I have been attacked by a giant jellyfish. One memorable day started with a parade at 5:30 in the morning at which I got slathered in paint and motor oil by complete strangers and ended at 2:00 the next morning at another parade where I and about two thousand others were all dressed up like the Skipper from “Gilligan’s Island” wielding “Star Wars” style light sabers. The list could go on and on but the trend has been in place for as long as I can remember and shows no signs of letting up.
From these kind of life experiences I put down the modestly titled Ewing’s Second Restatement of Murphy’s Law. This says “the weirdest thing that can possibly happen will.” The examples listed above serve as proof.
But let’s not forget Rule 1. That overpowering law of reality says that the “worst” or “weirdest” thing can’t possibly be known, only guessed at. That guess, using the “science” of weather forecasting as an example, will almost always be wrong. You can never know what the “worst” or “weirdest” thing will be until after you are done with the activity in question. That’s just life.
And life, after all, is what the stories are about.