The whole idea of realism in fiction is, well, a bit phony, as most fiction writers would agree. I sometimes wonder, though, what it’d be like if more writers (and filmmakers) really bit the bullet and tried to make art that looked just like life, with all its boring pauses and incoherent dialogue and unattractive people and bad lighting and so forth.
Also, if you’re really dedicated to realism in fiction-writing, you should probably consciously resist even doing things like letting the fictional events reflect any awareness on your part of readers’ expectations of those events. For instance, a long-awaited new character should not first appear by striding into a room of expectant onlookers.
(This is not to say that real life is always boring, as my planned musings on Genghis Khan in next month’s Book Selections entry shall remind you all.)
7 comments:
“if more writers (and filmmakers) really bit the bullet and tried to make art that looked just like life, with all its boring pauses and incoherent dialogue and unattractive people and bad lighting and so forth.”
Isn’t this a pretty accurate description of the whole mumblecore movement in film?
Judging by what I just learned looking up the mysterious term on Wikipedia, I can say with an air of unwarranted expertise that it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumblecore
And I’m not necessarily endorsing it, mind you.
Is this really the first you’ve heard of mumblecore? I’m pretty surprised.
Choose Your Own Face-Saving Wiseass Response:
1. Meh. I ’unno. Nuh. Gonna get a sammich er whatever.
2. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I was into the mumblecore scene back before Pearl Jam messed it up, but who cares now?
3. Dude, I never even heard about the “I’m Rick James, bitch!” sketch until like a year and a half ago. _I have absolutely no idea what’s going on_ — you can quote me on that.
4. Hey, I’ve known about mumblecore since your 10:44am comment. I am so over mumblecore now.
5. I don’t need to _see_ mumblecore. I _live_ mumblecore.
I choose…#4!
The comedy/thriller/commentary-on-storytelling movie “Baghead” is supposedly mumblecore, but I found it pretty exciting so maybe it’s not. Recommended.
My pet peeve in fiction is: characters who walk by a mirror within two pages (a “subtle” way of physical description) and I’ve banned “salt-and-pepper-hair” from my own writing.
Not a big fan of The Epic of the Wheat, are we?
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