In editing a piece of promotional work for someone, I was reminded again of the many similarities between writers, who tell fantastic stories for a living and have no intention that they be taken as fact, and “truthers” or conspiracy theorists, who tell fantastic stories for a variety of reasons with every intention that they be taken as fact.
In truther circles, as in plotting a story, the narratives often become increasingly elaborate as they expand. Take Jade Helm, for example, or the Birther Movement, or Sandy Hook, or 9/11 or the corona virus conspiracies (it came from a weapons lab in a) China, b) North Korea, or c) North Carolina) or any one of a number of conspiracy theories that have grown up over the course of the last decade.
These theories often become increasingly byzantine as the theorists seek to answer the inevitable logistical questions that their theories evoke.
Take Jade Helm or example: Where will the US military put the Texans they so fear while taking over that sovereign nation . . . er, embattled territory . . . uh, I mean, US state?
We-e-ell, there are several empty Wal-Marts in various locations in various cities in Texas. That’s where the enemies of the Federal Government will be taken.
But how shall they be gotten to and from these centers without anyone noticing?
Ah, underground tunnels that connect the empty Wal-Marts to train yards or other points of dispersal.
Dispersal to where? Where would an incursion of prisoners not be noticed?
Obviously, to FEMA camps set up in unpopulated areas of the country so isolated that no one knows they’re there.
This line of questioning could go on for sometime, so but I’ll stop there.
As I suggested in the previous post in this loose series, a question that is seldom asked (or, if asked, is treated superficially as if it, too, was a matter of simple logistics) is WHY? Why does the US military wish to forcibly “take over” one of the states that is already part of our Union?
Answer: Because the Feds want them to do it. But this only leads to yet another WHY: why does the Federal government want to capture rank and file Texans?
Answer: Because the POTUS (Barrack Obama specifically) wants it to.
As you can see, we’re no closer to the Big WHY.
WHY does the POTUS want to militarily take over a state that is already part of the Union of which he is the presiding executive, and imprison random Texans (at great expense)?
Answer: Because he hates America (why?) or that he wants ISIS (or the Chinese) to take over the country (why?) or because he’s a Muslim (why?) or because . . . Well, you get the drift.
At this point, “just coz” simply doesn’t work. And if you think it doesn’t work in the real world in any real sense, be doubly assured that it will not work in your fiction. In fiction, far more than in real life, we expect coherent patterns to emerge and coincidence to be a non-factor.
Above all, we expect to be able to understand the motives and rationales of the characters, else we cannot follow their story lines, much less empathize with them.
There must be an actual motive that merits the scale of the events the writer proposes occurred.
The trick to writing readable stories in just about any genre is to make the characters’ logic accessible to the reader even if that logic is flawed, based on false premises, ethically and morally bankrupt, or completely alien. A character’s motives—their Big WHYs—must make sense to readers on some level or readers will be unable to suspend their disbelief or follow the narrative. Their reaction may be much like my reaction to conspiracist logic: “Wut—? You’ve got to be . . . LOL. . . . Wait a minute. Seriously? OMG, I can’t even . . . Oy. Headache.”
A phrase that’s been floating around the blogosphere for awhile is “word salad”, which is the verbal outcome of thought salad. An article I read this morning referred to this verbal incoherence as a “sentence-like string of words”.
The author also described trying to extract real meaning or logic from these strings of words as “a category error”—as in, you are attempting to understand logically something that is not logical, but is merely a logic-like string of thoughts. He likened it to attempting to polish a duck.
I believe writers owe their readers more than something that only seems like a logical thought because it’s set in what looks like a real sentence describing a real Thing.
Perhaps there are writers (or public figures) clever enough that they can get away with murder (literary murder, at any rate) because their sentence-like strings of words sound enough like the real deal to dazzle readers into thinking they have experienced a coherent idea, felt a particular emotion, or discovered a truth. Some polemicists, for example, make such good use of evocative phrases and emotionally charged words that they give the perception that they’ve said something factual, when no facts have changed hands.
Some politicians are especially adept at stringing together evocative words that, if confronted with those words later on can—in all honesty—say, “No, I didn’t say that.” And, by golly, a careful reading of what they wrote or said reveals that they didn’t actually say what people thought they said. This form of plausible deniability allows every reader or listener to take away from the sentence-like string of words whatever they wish.
I’d like my stories to contain real sentences that grow out of coherent thoughts. I’d like to give my readers the real Thing, not a semblance of that Thing, even at my most ambiguous. And that’s why when I begin to turn ideas into stories, I ask myself WHY; why would my character do this, say this, feel this? If the answer is, “just coz” I’d like them to, I’m not doing my job.
In closing, I’d like to go back to the real world: If you’re confronted with trutherism in relation to any of the circumstances I’ve mentioned in this series or others—Parkland’s Valentine’s Day Massacre, for example. I encourage you to ask “Why?” And to ask any truthers to walk you through the logistics of how all this works.
Occam’s Razor demands that conspiracy theorists and writers be able to offer rational and feasible mechanisms to account for their narratives.
These kinds of irrational lies do more than resemble the straining for coherence of thought that are the Victorian responses to evolution, such as — God planted dinosaur fossils in the earth to test our faith.
Plots (both nutty and in real life) have to make -economic- sense. It has to be worth the investment, for Obama to build tunnels from one Wal-Mart to another. What he gains from spending the jillions of dollars this would cost (the caliche subsoil in Texas is impossible) has to be valuable. You cannot contemplate any agglomeration of Texans and tell me they are worth that kind of money. You could acquire them much more cheaply and easily by offering free football tickets and beer.
Another way to think of this is, it has to pass the newspaper editorial test. The plot or plan has to be defensible on the op-ed page of the Washington POST. In other words, it has to stand up to scrutiny by sensible people. Somehow Lord Denethor has to get the Gondor Times-Picayune to sign on for a war with Sauron.
Good god, Brenda. Imagine if there’s a free game with free beer for -reals.- And–and–
Somebody needs to write this.
In poetry, one can get away with loads of word salad. See, ‘shiny shivery shadows singing their suite of sorrows’ is pure gibberish but sounds impressive. However, unless one is the new Homer or Shakespeare, telling stories in reasonable prose is a much better option.
My country, Estonia, just launched a program offering free voluntary vaccination against HPV to girls aged 12 to 14. As a survivor of HPV 16 cervical cancer (personal aspect) I got really mad at crackpots claiming ‘they just want teenagers to have sex earlier’ and ‘the Big Pharma is out to poison our daughters’. (I can understand the ones worried about proper testing and safety but if I had daughters that age I would suggest they go get that shot as the alternative is scary.)
All right, there are perverts who lust for children. I do not suppose they would care whether the children get pregnant, HPV, HIV, or whatever. No motive to encourage young girls to have sex by vaccinating them against one danger.
And what would be the point of poisoning girls? Eliminating future workers, doctors, and scientists while creating a sexual imbalance? An evil mastermind from a really cheap 1930s novel would have been smarter.
No monetary gain, no motive, just a bunch of truthers citing serious scientific webpages like the local Flat Earth Society, the Extreme White Christian Party, or the Goddess Karmic Crystal Company.
Thanks, Maya, useful advice — I will continue to ask, “Why?”
Wow, I see a comment I supposedly made on March 14, 2018, and the other (clearly recent) comments dated as 2015. A conspiracy by the Incorporeals* of the Internet!! Let us ask, “WHY?”
* Coincidence? You decide: I’m editing my second backlist “Cybers Wild Card” novel for which you graciously designed the book cover in advance. Whoo-ooo….