Hi all. I'm working up a talk for AWP next week on "narrative expectations" in nonfiction: What expectations readers bring to "real" stories, and by implication, how these might different from reading fiction. I could use your help. Here's a thought experiment:
Imagine
a scene in a story in which a famous actress, in the midst of filming a scene
in a New York apartment, trips and accidentally falls out of an open window and
falls eight stories. She is not the point-of-view character (or narrator). This is simply a dramatic moment in a story. If this were a work of fiction, what would you predict happens to the actress? Would you have the same prediction if it was a work of nonfiction? In either case, would you entertain the possibility that the actress survived?
I'd love to hear your thoughts about this, and any other ideas you have about particular expectations we bring to reading stories that we know are "true."
I like the phrasing of this question in terms of expectations. And in that I think fiction and nonfiction are the same in that we as readers expect that something is going to happen and in that happening someone (usually our pov character or out narrator) will in turn learn something, the learning something is the key. I would not only entertain the notion I would almost demand it ( particularly in my fiction ) that the woman survives. Mostly because it's more interesting because to me the story starts once this woman goes heel over head out a window. People react and do things or don't do things, either way it exposes everyone in the room to be critiqued in the moments that follow. I guess I'd be more ok with her dying in the nonfiction, but I can't really articulate why. Brady told us this story recently that was about this doctor and it was the perfect example of why real life is not fiction and why fiction is not real life, and that neither is necessarily more sensational than the other- So this doctor, a young doctor delivers a very premature baby, he stay be its side day and night and it survives like a miracle. Flash forward to 30 years later and this doctor is an older man now and is in a terrible accident, and the fireman come to get him out with the jaws of life and the man that cuts him out of that car and saves his life is the goddamn baby. true story. amazing nonfiction, terrible fiction because the entire plot line would hinge on the coincidence . I don't know if that has a lot to do with the expectations but I think speaks to the limitations on both ends when you're the writer.
ReplyDeleteI agree that in most cases great non-fiction stories would make terrible fiction. And I think it has everything to do with audience expectation. I feel that there is an element of trust that the reader of non-fiction brings to the table that doesn’t necessarily exist when reading fiction. Yet, now that I think about it, I don’t know if this trust affects my expectations as much as my reactions. If a lady falls out of a window in a piece of creative non-fiction and survives—wow. Tell me about it; I want to hear the details, and I want to hear how the characters, and the narrator, responded to/were changed by this fantastic event. But, if a lady falls out of a window and survives in a piece of fiction, “coincidence” is not going to be enough to keep my suspension of disbelief intact. No matter how engaged I am with the story, somewhere deep I know this is fiction; and, because of that, there’s going to have to be some serious scaffolding (beforehand and after) to support, to earn, to retain my trust and my engagement.
DeleteGreat example at the end of your post, Erin. If that were a fictional tale (the fireman and the doctor), then it would most likely be featured on the Hallmark Channel.
DeleteI wonder if the problem with a fictional version of the fireman and doctor story is that we simply don't tolerate that degree of coincidence and narrative symmetry in fiction. Because we know the story is invented, we feel this is manipulative?
DeleteIf we were reading fiction the expectations would seemingly be endless depending on genre. She could be swept away by a super hero, fall into a wormhole or void, or splat against the pavement only to be thrust into the afterlife with a mission to get women to stop wearing heals. In any case the purpose of the fall is to drive the plot. In non-fiction the narrative expectations are different and predicated on realistic outcomes that is we expect only that which could plausibly happen. Furthermore as a reader an episode such as this will leave us asking “why” and we want meaning behind what we’ve just read. We look to the writer to try an understand what significance we are to draw from bearing witness to this event and by extension we also are asking the writer to connect it to the overall meaning of the piece. In fiction anything can happen and as a reader we suspend belief in order to find the meaning. In non-fiction as readers we know the probable outcomes are limited and as such we want to know why the writer has chosen to add them and in what way do they help produce a more meaningful experience.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting thought. I suppose my expectations are entirely dependent on the overall purpose of the story and what role the "woman falls out of a building" scene might play in it. However, to answer your question, I'll assume that that scene is integral to the entire story.
ReplyDeleteIf it's fiction, I think the woman could live or die, either one, because when reading fiction I'm trusting the narrator (and the author) that the perspective they chose to tell the story through is the most interesting perspective of all the characters featured in the story (assuming that it follows one character). However, if it's nonfiction, to me, that woman probably needs to be dead. The reason I say that is because falling off a building and surviving is a tremendous accomplishment. Well done, if done so. As such, if she survives, I'm going to immediately stop reading the nonfiction piece and google this woman to see if she has anything to say about this experience. When reading nonfiction, we can't always assume we're getting the most interesting perspective on an issue--we're getting "a" perspective, but not necessarily the most interesting one. As such, in my opinion, this actress probably needs to die because then the narrator now has a very interesting perspective since he is one of the only eye-witnesses to this event.
I think about Elizabeth Smart's experience. She was kidnapped for an extended period of time and lived to tell her story, writing a book about it. Let's say her dad also wrote a book about this experience, through his perspective. Now, I'm sure there would be copies sold for her dad's book, but it certainly isn't going to be as engaging as Elizabeth's story, and since she lived to tell about it, I'd much rather read her story than her dad's. If a kidnapping experience was fictional like in the movie "Prisoners," where the POV characters were the father and the detective, then I'm trusting the narrator (and author) that those perspectives are far more interesting than the perspective of the little girl who survived the kidnapping ordeal.
Interesting. So because in fiction the author can choose the narrative perspective from any number of possibilities, then we're more likely to trust that choice than in nonfiction, where the choices are more limited?
DeleteBruce's question reminds me of the fictional case (though sometimes reported as nonfiction) of Ronald Opus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Opus):
ReplyDelete"On March 23, 1994, a medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Investigation to that point had revealed that the decedent had jumped from the top of a ten-story building with the intent to commit suicide. (He left a note indicating his despondency.) As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the 8th floor level to protect some window washers, and that the decedent would most likely not have been able to complete his intent to commit suicide because of this.
Ordinarily, a person who starts into motion the events with a suicide intent ultimately commits suicide even though the mechanism might be not what he intended. That he was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not change his mode of death from suicide to homicide, but the fact that his suicide intent would not have been achieved under any circumstance caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands.
Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. He was threatening her with the shotgun because of an interspousal spat and became so upset that he could not hold the shotgun straight. Therefore, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking the decedent.
When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. The old man was confronted with this conclusion, but both he and his wife were adamant in stating that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. It was the longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intent to murder her; therefore, the killing of the decedent appeared then to be accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.
But further investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal accident. That investigation showed that the mother (the old lady) had cut off her son's financial support, and her son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that the father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.
Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son, Ronald Opus himself, had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a 9th story window.
The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide."
The story has gone into popular culture many times, including Magnolia.
ReplyDeleteAnyway: I'm in agreement with Erin and the problem of using nonfiction as fiction and vice versa. Life is full of coincidences and happenstance, which, if written poorly, make for bad fiction. Mostly this is because fiction logic is quite different from "real life." The way the story as Bruce has it set up seems implausible because of the lack of detail, the real specific context. It reads like bad fiction/TV plot. I think plot, the cause and effect of events within a timeline needs to be established. Otherwise, it's just bad luck. One of those things.