Black Beard Explains How to Write Realistic Fiction and That’s All

So far, I’ve been able to avoid spending an entire post ruminating on the process of writing fiction.  It’s true, I suppose, that in a way everything I’ve discussed is somehow related to my views on the creative process, but I have not, until today, explicitly stated how I think one should go about writing a story.  See, I read Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge recently, and since then I’ve been thinking about the word “Realistic” as it pertains to fiction.

In writing workshops, a lot of time is spent talking about whether the action that unfolds in a story submitted to the group is or is not realistic.  Really, I should say that for good stories, there is often a debate about the realism of the situation depicted.  This is not the case for poor stories because bad writing invariably ends up in one of two groups: the stories that slog through a series of dull and uneventful scenes depicting everyday life, which are entirely too realistic; or the stories that are so far removed from reality that a discussion of its authenticity does not even factor into the discussion.  The good stories, on the other hand, exist in-between possibility and impossibility; they are fantastic enough that the reader will doubt for a moment that the events being described are possible before ultimately deciding the scene is so compelling that they want to believe it is true.

Believability, not realism, should be the artist’s sole concern.  Aristotle tells us that not knowing a hind has no horns is a less serious matter than to paint it inartistically, and I believe this to be true.  Delivering a realistic and accurate story is the goal of a journalist.  For a fiction writer, the goal is to achieve a richness and depth in their prose which will convince the reader that the emotional truths and philosophical questions acted out in their scenes could have happened to actual people in an actual place in the world.  Put another way, a writer must achieve a level of credibility with the reader in order to pull them in and then convince them to care about whatever it is that the writer has chosen to explore.

The Razor’s Edge offers an instructive example of this concept.  The novel tells the story of a young American, Larry, who turns his back on traditional American life (marriage and family, a comfortable job, affluence) and pursues enlightenment while traveling through Europe and India.  The tale of Larry’s progress is unlikely on its own, but in addition Maugham asks the reader to accept that he (Maugham inserts himself in the story as a successful novelist a generation removed from the man whose life he is narrating) serendipitously encounters the protagonist frequently enough in the cafés and bars of Paris that he is able to tell the complete story of his travels and discoveries.  And all of this is merely prelude for the big question Maugham seeks to explore in the text: what does it mean for someone to pursue their passions in life and will this pursuit ultimately be fulfilling?

It’s a difficult sell, and yet, the novel is successful because Maugham is able to convince us through the force of his prose that the improbability of the events he describes is worth overlooking. His writing is so skillful—the settings are so deftly rendered, and the characters are so deep and engaging—that we want to believe in what he is saying, and this is what it means to write believably.