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This is Just Fiction

"This is Fiction."

No other combination of words has every achieved the effect of excusing, negating, and ignoring advice quite like those three words.

Lately, I've been reading web novels. As I read novels, being the Good Samaritan that I am (read asshat), I like to write comments about how I thought of the chapter. When I reach something that doesn't make sense, I'll complain about it. When I reach a plot hole, I'll point it out. To which I receive complaints.

Defenders rushing to excuse my criticisms and insist they're wrong. Now, these defenders aren't the author themselves, although I do recall back it being the author from time to time.

We'll do a back and forth. They'll complain about why my opinion on a subject is wrong, and I'll explain why I have a right to hold my opinion that happens to differ from their own. However, if the conversation goes on long enough, it usually devolves into the comment "This is just fiction."

It's kind of like Godwin's Law. So I'm going to call it Chase's Law until someone calls me on it.

Chase's Law

"The longer someone defends a work of fiction, the greater chance they will attempt to stop further argument by declaring it "just fiction" and pressing the offending party to "just accept it.""

This has left me pondering that comment for a bit. If something is fiction that suggests it is fictional. Since everything in it is "made up", who cares if the scene doesn't make sense (to us). It certainly makes sense to the characters, after all, and they exist in a made up world.

Kind of like Arnold in Last Action Hero, you come to expect the rules of your fictional universe. If you live in a universe where cars blow up with a few bullets and no one ever worries about it, then is it so odd to continue to live in that universe? How is that something we, the viewer, should frown on. After all, it's JUST fiction.

At the core, I actually favor this argument quite a bit. I'm a big fan of plot holes. Both in reasoning out things that make no sense, and also finding out about logical loopholes I never thought of before. That said, I get annoyed real quick when people point out "plotholes" that aren't plotholes at all.

When your BIG "plothole" can be explained away in a very easily presented sentence, chances are it isn't a plot hole. Some people will go to nauseating lengths to defend their plot holes. Oh yeah? A deleted scene totally explains it? Well tough! The deleted scene wasn't there thus it was a plot hole!

Sorry, that's just stupid. By the reasoning that it wasn't shown, therefore, it's a plothole... then every time there is a scene with your characters in it, and then switches to a scene with them in another location, it must have been a plot hole. You weren't shown them getting into a car, driving over to the next location, getting out, and entering the scene. Therefore, your only logical conclusion is that they magically teleported from one scene to another. It's a plot hole.

On that point, anyone who thinks the simplest actions need to be seen or they are clearly plot holes must live a hellish life of discontinuity. Every day, you wake up and find people magically appearing and disappearing from the universe, only to pop somewhere else. Objects move on their own, people are doing things where they don't monologue their reasons to you. Life must be hell. For normal people who can imagine that things can happen off camera or outside of your field of view, the number of plot holes made in books and movies are a lot more reasonable.

So I'm all for the reduction in supposed plot holes. However, "It's just fiction" is not the way to defend it. Naturally, you wouldn't understand whether I make mountains out of molehills without specific examples, and I'm not interested in singling people out, but I think there is a clear line that ought to be fairly easy for most of us to follow.

So here goes my argument. Fiction... all fiction... is fundamentally grounded in reality.... Specifically, our reality. I know this, because fiction is written in language... words invented to describe our reality. You can only twist things as far as your language has developed words to do so. You can't name a color that doesn't exist in our reality. You can say there is a color that doesn't exist in our reality, but the only way you'd have to describe it is with words that already exist in reality. Do you get where I'm going with this?

No matter how abstract you want your world to be, at its base, it exists within our world. The more your story departs from reality, the more your reader departs from understanding what the heck is going on. This doesn't mean you can't write a "John dies in the end" or an "Alice in Wonderland". However, every time you pull away from the internal logic of human beings, you turn away from what makes your writing accessible to human beings. You pull too far, and there is no one who is even going to understand what the heck you're talking about.

So, is criticism that cuts at the "feasibility" of things happening in your story fair? Well, that depends on the story. If I read Alice in Wonderland, and started complaining that "rabbits can't talk", I'd come off as pretty ignorant to the point. However, at some point, somewhere... you have to accept that reality holds a place in your work of fiction, and can be critiqued on that reality.

What if the world is a generic fantasy world? How can you say, in this fantasy world, how fast people are, or how strong, or how high they can jump. What if the person was superman? What if you're criticizing that superman can seem to lift 100 tons in one comic, and then struggles to lift 10 tons in another comic. How about when lois lane falls from a building a superman catches her. She's falling at terminal velocity and he abruptly grabs her from thin air. She'd have died in reality. Is it right to draw comparisons to reality? It's JUST FICTION!

Your world happens to be a world where common villagers can jump 6 feet in the air, but never happen to mention it in the story? Can I give it criticism? Isn't it just another example of people claiming plot holes where a quick explanation can throw it away?

My answer? Of course you can draw criticism. Of course you can point out plot holes. Of course you can point out what doesn't make sense. At the end of the day, the only thing important in these novels is readability. The story should make sense... to you. You, the reader.

Now you, the writer, might have greatly different experiences from your readers, and might find things in your mind way more plausible than the things your reader complains about. However, don't spaz out because your reader is caught up on something that you feel is explained away with a sentence. It still helps you to see your story from another point a view... from another perspective.

And perhaps, most importantly, if you have a lot of people saying similar things, maybe it's becoming a trend. Maybe you need to have a sentence in there, because at the end of the day, what matters the most is what affects people's ability to read your writing. If they're caught up on why this character suddenly acted different than normal, they're not enjoying the next scene, and a good writer should always look for hints on how they might improve their writing. Your writing is never JUST FICTION. Your writing is YOUR FICTION. So own it!