Why even bother with Realism?

Recently I came to realize, I really love works with realism. I prefer works like Scrubs (apparently it's surprisingly realistic) over House, Generation Kill over Modern Warfare, and The Wire over CSI series. In addition, I strive to do as much research as I can, so I can write realistic fiction.

The thing is, to play The Devils Advocate, why does it even matter? No fiction can be completely realistic, and it's the story that matters. Besides, people are already living in reality, why should they see it in fiction too?

I asked myself that, and I couldn't really come up with any answer.

Try telling that to my brother.

I'm sorry, I'm going to need context.

It's very simple actually.

Realism =/= believable.

Believable means how much your audience "buys" or "believes" in your work of fiction rules and events.

Realistic only means that it's close to real life.

When people say they like "realistic" stories they actually mean "believable"

A work can be realistic and unbelievable or viceversa. For example Harry potter is completely fantastic and unrealistic given the fact it has magic but it's very believable as the author gives a set of rules to the fantastic stuff and gives predictable outcomes. On there hand works like modern warfare are completely realistic given everything has a real life counterpart but the events... are completely unbelievable and fantastic.

Now you have to understand that EVERYONE has a different threshold of whats "realistic" (aka believable) to them. For example Star wars is too childish and too unbelievable for many people that would rather read a "realistic" detective novel and kids usually have a low threshold as they are the least likely to care if something is "close to real life"... Obviously many people that do enjoy star wars and couldn't care less about how "unrealistic" it is.

Some might find House.Md too realistic (specially people that aren't medics) and others too fantastic (medics),so...

What's "realistic" or too silly depends on each person so there is no right answer.It depends on your threshold and your audience's.

People with high thresholds usually aren't fans of superheroes or sci fi in the first place and would rather watch a good comedy/ romantic/histotica novel for example....

I can buy your spell needs 4 ounces of mana and 4 concentration to work to transmute but it doesn't work with wood. I won't buy that your character became rich instantly because he just happened to buy stock values of a company that happened to become super successful just because he misspelled the name of a company.

edited 11th Apr '14 10:53:01 PM by fallenlegend

To give a video game perspective back in the nineties we had Doom which took the world by storm, then Quake, Unreal and the first person twitch shooter was the big thing. Then came along Rainbow Six that took a different approach, a realistic approach, an approach backed up by Tom Clancy and the developers dropping his name to his war buddies so they can look at special forces training, have special forces in padding let the developers whack them with baseball bats to simulate getting hit by a bullet (True story! One was even acting very macho about it) to make it as accurate as possible. PC gamers took to this idea very well, it was a new way, a different way, one that would prove popular and help develop into better and better games, better and better stories. Instead of the Space Marine you were playing with real guns, in real world settings, with real people.

The inverse is also true. PC gamers love their flight simulators, the ones where you have to pay attention to the smallest detail, where it would possibly be easier to land a plane for real and if you were good enough could actually fly a plane. On the other hand we get games like Ace Combat where you don't have to study a manual like you were preparing for a university test, it had stories of the pilots being demons. It was a different take on the popular genre, not better or inferior, just different.

Realism is also important in regards to history. One of the reasons Underbelly was such a hit was because this actually happened, we heard names like Alphonse Gangitano and these underworld assassinations. The court cases were actually still ongoing when it first aired and that caused issues (being banned in Victoria out of fear of influencing the jury presiding over cases such as "The Runner.") Then when we have our fill of realism or history we can go back to the good, fun, Cowboy Cop stories like Mad Bull 34 (okay good may be subjective but it's as over the top as it gets, so you get the idea.)

It basically goes back to the old story of having a three ring circus, if you don't like the animals then you'll like the twenty clowns in the pinto, or the magic, or the acrobats, it's all about having variety, it's all about seeing different stories and seeing how people approach them.

edited 11th Apr '14 11:12:23 PM by tsstevens

My brother thinks the older one gets, one gets more inclined toward realistic fiction and less inclined toward other types of it. Then again, he frequently uses the Anecdotal Fallacy.

Because realism is fun.

Like...seriously.

If something is realistic, and you are aware of the topic at hand, seeing accuracy makes you happy and enjoy yourself.

AHR just summed up what I was going to say.

For some folks, the realism is the main attraction - I enjoy it when someone has clearly taken the time to think something through and how it would logically work, and a ham-fisted attempt (at least in ostensibly realistic works) can make my eyes roll like nothing else.

I tend to side more with Moff’s Law than the MST3K Mantra, especially as the attitudes of some who use it to deflect criticism can rub me up the wrong way. Then again, I do sympathise with writers who would prefer not to consider aspect [a] or [b] because it would prevent them from telling the story they want to tell.

So... uh... yeah. Those are my views.

Because going for an unrealistic feel isn't going to always work. Sticking to realism and the basics is better than trying to be the next avant-garde writer.

Well, at the same time, don't blindly try to incorporate reality into everything and feel free to branch out. In the end realism is pretty much just another element, and how you utilize it, or whether you utilize it at all, is up to you.

Because it's far easier to believe in, and therefore far easier for the audience to invest themselves in, a story that takes it's internal consistency seriously. A story that focuses on realism will favor carefully considered scenarios where the events of the plot and the motivations of all the characters involved make rational sense, as opposed to having to rely on contrivance and happenstance.

It is also more likely to be applicable to real life and therefore can be more meaningful, though this- as with anything- will depend on how it's written. This is what makes deconstructions like Watchmen interesting and important. If a genre work favors realism it could be deconstructive, revelatory of all of the ways the narrative conventions of the genre in question twists and contorts aspects of the story's universe to have it conform to them.

You could construe it as a Socratic exercise. Using Mass Effect as an example, "What if there existed a substance that, through the application of positive and negative electric currents, can generate a field which respectively increases and decreases the mass of objects within it?" One of the reasons Mass Effect has the best sci-fi worldbuilding I have ever seen is because it presents answers to this question that, excepting the existence of eezo itself (as the premise), are almost all in accordance with what we know of modern physics. Technology is, more often than not, treated as an actual thing in Mass Effect as opposed to a plot device or a writerly convenience.

All of the plot that relies on the technology (which is all of it, it's a sci-fi series) appears plausible, and therefore is more believable, because of the strict attention paid to the principles of realism. Indeed, when the series abandons these principles *coughthecruciblecough* it suffers greatly.

edited 13th Apr '14 11:15:26 AM by gault

I see. Cool, now I know what to say when someone asks me, for nth times, why I care about realism so much.

I ditch works in progress if I come to the conclusion that the story can't work unless I ditch "realism" or "plausibility". I'm happy with having magic, fantasy races, cyborgs, aliens - provided I can come up with answers to how such things would "realistically" work in that universe.

Rule of Cool matters not to me. If it would be unrealistic for Character A to dive through a plate glass window, drop two storeys and walk away unscathed, then it won't happen, no matter how much of a card-carrying hero protagonist he might be and no matter how daring and exciting it might make the action.

If Character A does dive through a plate glass window, drop two storeys and walk away unscathed, Characters B and C are likely to look at one another in disbelief and Character D is going to say "Fuck!" because he either knows what they're dealing with or it's something new and dangerous.

Because there'd be an in-universe reason why someone could do that.

I'll accept certain conceits - such as FTL, the existence of fantastic races/creatures/monsters and so forth - but I want to be able to say "yeah, that makes sense," when I read someone else's work and I want others to be able to say that when they read mine.

I nearly sweat blood thinking of the ramifications of things I introduce into my stories and I get picky about what others write and get annoyed by frequent hand-waving or gaping holes.

Fridge Logic is the biggest killer of my own works - that awful feeling halfway through making a coffee that my entire plot would be rendered meaningless because anyone with the power/skills/technology/magic I've given them and who's not kicking the Idiot Ball around would have solved the problem in five minutes.

In the meantime a series that doesn't have perfect magic has made well over a billion dollars. I honestly think that realism is up there as one of the most overrated things brought up on tropes a lot, alongside deconstruction. Just making a story which speaks to enough people is all that's really important. Realism is overrated. I say things should just be plausible & influenced by reality than it has to be. Being hypercritical has led to more series never seeing the light of day than successes.

But the characters in Harry Potter are believable, even if the world isn't.

Oh I agree they are. My point was that everything not being perfect and fitting the little definition of "realistic" is a horrible reason to stop working on something, as the post above me had said. I honestly feel that the hypercritical attitude the post above my previous one was regarding own work is a counterproductive & that's why I gave that example to call out where one's priorities should be. I will always stick to though that telling a story that speaks to the ideal audience is the key, not realism. It's a good tool and it has it's place, but to me, it's just a tool. A means to an end, never a destination.

To further add on real quick, another reason I wouldn't worry about "realism" is because human history is so absurd, you're likely to still somehow be something that really happened or seemed sane to someone. You can have someone who puts cats in bags & set them on fire for good luck & it would be realistic since this actually happened.

edited 20th Apr '14 11:03:07 AM by Prime_of_Perfection

Realism is about more than that. I've seen stories with great technical realism and characters who behave in utterly inhuman fashions. That's violation of realism too; if you have people, they must behave in fashions recognizable as human behavior for the most part.

To that, I've heard it said that while something like Star Wars regularly breaks the laws of physics, Heinlein's works break the laws of Human interaction.

Realism is entirely unnecessary. All you need is a solid story. You get that right, and you can get away with murder.

edited 22nd Apr '14 7:48:29 AM by Tungsten74

It's true that if you're good enough at the writing (say, at the level of Virgil or Homer) you can dispense with some of the more technical details, or wave it away as artistic license. But you cannot dispense with the human factor.

Where character interactions are involved, realism is key, as plenty of posters have noted. This isn't technical realism, but simple old-fashioned character writing. When you write a character you want your readers to like or to identify with, you are necessarily forced to write their characterization and their interactions in a way that is identifiably human.

Where technical realism is involved, I recognize there are points where you are forced to "black box" certain mechanics—magic, science fiction, et cetera. That's a necessary evil. But I am firmly of the opinion that those cases should be strictly minimized. I find setting as important as characterization; when you write fantasy or sci-fi or even speculative fiction of the Tom Clancy model you are conjuring up a whole world and inviting us to step into it. In this case, what matters is that the world works. Set it down and it will tick by itself. The first reaction of your readers may be to follow the guided tour of the world you've offered them in your storyline, but their second reaction will be to wander off the beaten path and look at the other aspects of the world. This doesn't necessarily mean that everything must follow the laws of physics; this does mean that it makes for a much more enjoyable story when you explore the implications of your setting and the black-box magic or technology you introduce to it. A pretty world may be enough to draw your readers' attention, but a functional one will ensure that it actually keeps their attention. Painting a pretty but two-dimensional world tells me that you're lazy and don't care about your setting beyond what's needed to keep my attention through one read of the story, and if you're only willing to erect a Potemkin village that won't stand up to examination, why should I be willing to invest my attention?

I'd cite Harry Potter as a case where it's mostly successful. Now, God knows that the magic and the governmental aspects of the setting aren't perfect; I've done my share of exploring the edges and the inconsistencies. But Rowling went into the details of the 'verse: the society, the governing structure, the balances of power. Even if holes appear when you look into it via polisci or economic lenses, it's still a pretty thorough-paced verse held together by recognizably human laws of power relations and interaction. A case where it's even more successful would be a even more fantastic world, the Discworld. From a strictly technical view this is a world that's even less realistic than the Potterverse, yet in terms of building a compelling, functional setting, it outstrips the Potterverse in every way. Pratchett goes into politics, societies, human interactions, the implications of magic and stories, all with an unmatched deftness of touch, and that's what makes the Disc superior as a setting. Pay attention to the portrait of rural life he presents in the Witches and Tiffany Aching books, or the nitty-gritty of city politics in the Moist von Lipwig series, or the dynamics of a street revolution in Night Watch. The level of attention to detail and the recognizably human nature of the institutions, mirroring our world, is what keeps Lancre or Ankh-Morpork from being the Generic Fantasy Village #7 or the Yet Another Adventure City #4.

So, what matters isn't necessarily technical, physical realism. What matters is that you explore the implication and ramifications of your setting, especially since we humans are curious little monkeys who will happily take advantage of every loophole in the laws conceivable. Building a 'verse with consistent laws is hard; factoring in how those laws will affect humans and their societies is extremely hard. But it's necessary if you want to share the wonder and beauty of the world with your readers. Realism encompasses the human factor, both at the interpersonal character level, and scaled up at the societal and political levels. Fail to recognize and explore their impact at your own peril.

Not really. Toy Story and Finding Nemo both have settings that are completely nonsensical if you take them at face value, but the films work because the audience is more interested in the characters and their struggles than in everything making perfect sense. In fact, I'm just going to link you to an article that explains my point much better, and in much greater detail, than I can:

http://badassdigest.com/2012/10/30/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs.-plot-holes-and-movie-logic/

It's long as hell and mostly focused on movies, but it is so worth reading if you're looking to understand what makes stories work. There's one section of that article in particular that I really, really love, and which I think works brilliantly as an example of what I'm talking about:

So, again, stop obsessing over realism and write good stories.

edited 24th Apr '14 8:29:29 AM by Tungsten74

I note the examples you cite are movies, which are granted a bit more license than books and which have the advantage of showing dazzling set-pieces visually rather than telling it through prose (which requires a bit more brainwork on the part of the reader), and that it would take a frankly exceptional storyteller to make Toy Story work as a novel; I'll also point out that making a setting that at the least won't actively interfere with the story is part and parcel of telling a good story. Going avant-garde with magic realism is an option, paying scant attention to setting while dazzling the reader with brilliant prose and characterization, but that requires an extremely deft hand and a thorough knowledge of what the hell you're doing. Rules can be broken, but only if you know why they're there in the first place.

This isn't "obsessing" over realism. It's the simple recognition that if you're going to make setting a part of your story, you'd better think it out with the same care and attention you'd pay to characterization and plot.

edited 24th Apr '14 8:37:26 AM by SabresEdge

I'm actually in between two of you on these things.

Should one care about the setting just as much as a character of the story? Yes, I think you should. I don't think you should obsess or worry about "implications" all the time or explore every corner - one has to remain focused on the main story - but you can think about it.

Still, when it comes down to it, people just want a good story. It doesn't have to be dark, it doesn't have to be a comedy, it doesn't have to deconstruct or subverting tropes, it doesn't have to worry about being strictly realistic, etc. The key is to just make something that entertains your target. Hell, that's why things like Twilight or 50 Shades of Gray were such a success. I personally find them horrible for many, many different reasons, but they satisfied their target audience & that's ultimately all that matters.

edited 24th Apr '14 8:56:27 AM by Prime_of_Perfection

I'm hesitant to take advice from someone who thought the original ending of Mass Effect 3 was a masterful, nuanced bit of storytelling, and told everyone who dared to disagree to fuck off and die.

edited 24th Apr '14 8:56:17 AM by gault

A good story and good characters require consistency and causality not actual realism. Reality often makes a crappy story because random stuff happens often. In reality, Shepard might die in an accident and it be the end of his/her story. Such randomness would be realistic but doesn't usually make for a good story.

In this context Realism isn't strict adherence to reality. It'd be more accurate to say that Realism is a consideration for many of the factors that govern Human behavior and major events in real life, such as internal consistency and the applicability of causality. Your story doesn't actually need to resemble the real world at all provided these few basic premises are adhered to throughout.

edited 24th Apr '14 10:12:13 AM by gault