A guide to writing 'real' fiction

The title may seem obvious, but adding an element of realism to your story could be a vast improvement. Yes, true life is boring sometimes, and fiction is there for escapism, but a few touches of reality here and there couldn?t hurt.

A number of authors (including myself) are guilty of filling their stories with completely unbelievable tripe, creating unrealistic situations and characters to easily amuse the reader. This is the difference between a good story and a plain old story.

Certainly some stories are meant to be unrealistic, such as the dreams. However small snippets of real life can be spliced into these over-the-top stories. Realism can more effectively engage your reader, as it provides a point of association and can make them feel that your characters could be someone they know.

Here are some general tips and suggestions for adding realism:

1. Make your characters 'average'. Not every guy is musclebound or an expert at something or excelling at everything they do. Average, with failings and foibles makes for believable. This links to point two.

2. Also, try to avoid making all your women perfect looking and for that matter, don?t make them all the same. E.g. not all guys (or girls) like big-busted women.

3. If it helps, base some of your characters on yourself or people you know (with names changed of course) in order to have a ?real? personality or even physical profile. If you wish to create a fantasy person, give them some minor flaws; e.g. a crooked nose, moles, slightly bad teeth, a disproportioned body; so that your reader can more readily associate with the characters.

5. Aside from just making your characters more real, you could spend more time developing them and build up to an encounter or have them dotted throughout the story. If your reader develops a rapport with character, s/he will enjoy the stoy more.

6. Things don?t have to always work out perfectly in the end. Life isn?t fair, so if you create scenarios in which your main character does not triumph, readers can, again, more readily associate with their own lives.

7. Finally, where possible (and I know it?s difficult) try to have an aftermath, try to continue your story beyond the encounters or climax. Write your stories as a series if it helps, so you can include more encounters, and continue to develop your characters.
* Last updated by: admin on 10/10/2008 @ 10:48 AM *