Astrogator's Logs

by Calvin Johnson

I’m delighted to once again host my friend Calvin Johnson, who earlier gave us insights on Galactica/Caprica, Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire. Because the essay is slightly longer than usual blog length, it appears in two parts.

The Mysterious Story, Part 1

You all know this one:

A  grasshopper goes into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender brings the beer to the grasshopper and says, “You know, we have a drink named after you.” “Really?” says the grasshopper. “You have a drink called ‘Larry’?”

Most jokes rely on a combination of logic and surprise. We know the bartender is referring to the drink called a ‘grasshopper.’ But we think of ourselves primarily not by our species but by our personal names. Thus the pleasure in the joke is seeing the grasshopper’s response is perfectly logical though unanticipated.

Much of fiction works the same way.

Theories of fiction are as old as Aristotle. Many of these are prescriptive: for a story to be good, it should do this and that. I want to develop a descriptive theory of fiction: why do we perceive certain stories as effective? By understanding how stories works, we can write better stories.

# # #

Humans are outstanding at pattern recognition. The discernment of complex patterns spread over space and time has been the secret of our success, allowing humanity to develop agriculture and technology, and consequently for civilization to flourish.  Our talent for pattern-recognition is so overdeveloped, in fact, we see patterns where they don’t exist: spirits and gods, astrology and magic, constellations and conspiracy theories.

It is my thesis that our innate skill for pattern-recognition drives our love of story, and governs what we consider a good story. A good story is like a good joke: it is logical, so that we see the sense of the pattern, but contains enough surprise to give our pattern-recognizing machinery a workout.

I don’t claim my thesis is completely new, though I will suggest less common ways of closely reading texts. The closest antecedent is Samuel R. Delaney’s work on how science fiction texts are read, and read differently from mainstream fiction, in particular his classic essay “About 5,750 Words,” which I highly recommend if you can get your hands on it.

# # #

A necessary component of the drive to recognize patterns is our insatiable curiosity. Fiction does this by provoking questions in our minds–and, teasingly, withholding the answers.

For example:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit

grabs our attention: what is a hobbit? It is particularly enticing because the answer seems just out of reach: “hobbit” is reminiscent of “rabbit,” a similarity enhanced by the fact said hobbit lives in a hole in the ground like a rabbit. But is it a rabbit? Curious minds want to know, and soon we are off in the story.

So here is an exercise: take any piece of fiction, and read the opening paragraphs. Read slowly, sentence by sentence, and pay particular attention to how questions in your mind immediately start popping up. These questions, these mysteries, these hooks engage our pattern-seeking minds and draw us along.

I’ll do a worked out example: the first two paragraphs of Connie Willis’ award-winning story “Fire Watch.”

September 20 – Of course the first thing I looked for was the fire watch stone. And of course it wasn’t there yet. It wasn’t dedicated until 1951, accompanying speech by the Very Reverend Dean Walter Matthews, and this is only 1940. I knew that. I went to see the fire watch stone only yesterday, with some kind of misplaced notion that seeing the scene of the crime would somehow help. It didn’t.

The only things that would have helped were a crash course in London during the Blitz and a little more time. I had not gotten either.

Now let’s go through it again in slow motion, sentence by sentence. I’ll add boldface to emphasize text that raises questions, with parenthetical questions and comments inserted. But imagine you are reading the opening for the very first time:

September 20 – Of course the first thing I looked for was the fire watch stone.

(Q: What’s a fire watch stone?)

And of course it wasn’t there yet.

(Q: How could the narrator look for something that isn’t there yet?)

It wasn’t dedicated until 1951, accompanying speech by the Very Reverend Dean Walter Matthews, and this is only 1940.

(Experienced SF readers will recognize this is a time-travel story–a partial answer to the previous question–but it raises several new questions. Q: How did the narrator get here? And why is the narrator here?)

I knew that. I went to see the fire watch stone only yesterday, with some kind of misplaced notion that seeing the scene of the crime would somehow help. It didn’t.

(Q: What crime? Help with what?)

The only things that would have helped were a crash course in London during the Blitz and a little more time.

(This partially tells us the story’s location in space as well as time. But our question about why the narrator is here is heightened.)

I had not gotten either.

(Q: Why not? Has something gone wrong?)

(Full story available free at http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/firewatch.htm)

Such hooks come more rapidly in recent (late 20th-century) fiction and in short stories. Fiction from older, less hectic times is more leisurely in suggesting mysteries, and the longer length of novels allow for slower development.

Nonetheless, I propose that effective fiction works this way. Whether rapidly or at leisure, fiction lays out mysteries, provoking our curiosity. Now for different kinds of fiction the primary mysteries will be different. In so-called literary fiction, the mystery is often primarily of character: who is this person, why are they this way, and how does it affect their lives?  Other fiction is primarily plot driven: will the character succeed or fail? In the genre called “mysteries” there is a specific question: who committed this act (usually a crime)? In fantasy and science fiction stories there are also mysteries of setting: what is this world; science fiction can also have the additional mystery of “how did we get here”?

Furthermore, when a story is carefully read, you can trace how questions arise, are answered, but new questions replace them. For example, we quickly learn that a hobbit is a small person, but that’s not the end of the story; a wizard has come calling on the hobbit and proffered an adventure. How will that adventure end? And so on.

To amplify on the previous exercise: take a short story you like very much, and go through and determine the major mysteries: where are they raised, and where are they resolved.

The Mysterious Story, Part 2

Images: 1st, a perfect logic/surprise combo from Gary Larson, a champion of this trope; 2nd, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) tries to parse the mysteries of his long contract; 3rd, Willis’ Fire Watch collection (likely artist: John Jude Palencar).

This entry was posted on Monday, February 13th, 2012 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Science Fiction & Fantasy, Writing & Literature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.