An Introduction and Establishing Credibility
September 19th, 2006 by Guest
Firstly thanks to Therese and Kathleen for inviting me over to Writer Unboxed to write an occasional post. Some of you may know me from my own infrequently updated blog, but it’s only fitting to introduce myself for those of you who don’t. I’m thirty years old, an aspiring novelist writing an ever-growing fantasy series, a full-time student and a new father. I live in Australia - which should explain my funny spelling and punctuation (though might not) - and think pizza and beer is about as fancy as anything ever needs to be.
Now even though this is my first post at Writer Unboxed I thought I should talk about something other than myself, which is where establishing credibility comes in.
Most writers are, I think, readers first and foremost, and it’s from reading that many of us learn how to craft our own stories. The first big lesson I ever learnt through reading was all about credibility. I was about twelve or thirteen years old and had started raiding my father’s collection of paperbacks and was reading a Wilbur Smith novel (of all things). Up to this point I’d been enjoying entertainment of the A-team and He-man variety where nobody ever got hurt and the heroes were all bullet proof. And while the A-team was, to me, an excellent show, you could always guarantee the goods guys were going to get away unscathed and everything would fall into place. So it came as something of a shock when I first ventured into the world of grownup (I almost said adult) entertainment and found that it was entirely possible for my favourite characters to suffer terribly and even, gasp, get killed off.
It turned my world on its head. If it was possible for characters to die, that meant literally anything could happen - Mr T might not make it through the next episode, one of Hannibal’s plans could actually fall apart and Skeletor might even get one up on He-man.
I still come across books where you just know everybody is going to make it through and live happily ever after, but I’m always the most impressed by books where the author sacrifices characters they’ve invested time in. It lifts their credibility and keeps me guessing to the very end.
My equivalent was seeing The World According to Garp as a kid. Lots of adult themes in there, and for me at a young age it was a very strong introduction to the idea that “bad things can happen to good people.”
Seeing that and Raiders of the Lost Ark by the age of six probably scarred me for life, in a good way.
Great post, Jack. Welcome to Writer Unboxed!
I read John Jakes’ North and South trilogy in junior high. In the second one, “Love and War”, he kills off one of the main characters. I was actually quite horrified and even wrote him a letter asking him how he could (gasp!) do such a thing. He responded and said that the main character’s death showed the truly horrible face of war.
That book changed how I look at the world, too.
WELCOME, JACK! We’re so glad to have you with us.
What shattered my illusions about happily-ever-afters (aside from my father having me watch those horrible Nostradamus specials with him)? The literature I was exposed to in high-school English classes. I would never have chosen these books myself, and I always felt like cracking one open was a painful and unnecessary thing, but then I would inevitably get involved in the story and have to go out and buy the book for myself. Books I remember for their realism:
Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies
Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon
Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds
Bernard Malamud’s The Assistant
Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire (with that buff pic of Marlon Brando on the cover…)
My cousin let me borrow his copy of Stephen King’s Cujo, which also made an impact. All that struggle, and the boy dies at the end! I was horrified.
Melissa, I think that’s terrific that John Jakes wrote back to you! A big aside here, but my bro-in law wrote to Leonard Bernstein when he was a child to say that Leonard was his favorite composer. Bernstein, surprisingly, wrote back.
Great introduction and first post, Jack.
I don’t remember ever having a certain book or movie that transferred me into that grownup world, I think I always knew that somehow. I feel that fairy tails, ooops, tales, actually exemplify that very well. Great subject. Got me thinking.
Beth in Little Women. I freaked out. I didn’t think the author would DO something like that. Then she did.
It’s a good technique though. I call it the Boromir Effect. Killing off a really good secondary character (like Sirius Black) tells the reader anything goes when they pick up a book by you.
Great post!
Thanks for the welcome guys.
I don’t know if anybody has read that Wilbur Smith book, but it was one of the Courtney books - When the Lion Feeds, A Falcon Flies, something like that - and Mr Smith killed off my favourite character, an Englishman called Duffy. I was horrified and amazed at the same time and had to reread the page about a dozen times.