Hello everyone
I want to talk about truth in fiction, or rather, perceived truth. In other words, the plausibility of fiction.
In fiction, it’s not enough for the author to be accurate in their details—the reader has to believe those details.
Facts don’t matter—what the reader believes does
Tiffany… and why she’s a problem
There’s a notion in historical fiction called the Tiffany Problem.
The idea behind the Tiffany Problem is that Tiffany feels like a very modern name. It feels like a name that was invented in the latter half of the twentieth century. And if we’re really honest, the name has a certain negative class/social ring to it—you’re never going to have a (British royal) Princess Tiffany.
Thrown into a historical context, the name Tiffany would seem wrong. Wrong in the same way that Henry VIII using an iPhone would be wrong.
Henry VIII with an iPhone
However, Tiffany was a popular medieval name.
So while it might be historically accurate to use the name Tiffany, an author likely wouldn’t because readers would often feel that the name was wrong and wrong enough to spoil their enjoyment of a book.
But, aliens!!!
There are elements in fiction which we know aren’t real. Science fiction and superhero fiction is clearly not real.
However, these genres are believable (or at least it can be believable). For these types of fiction, we are willing to suspend our disbelief within the world of the book.
But if we are to suspend our disbelief, then we will only suspend our disbelief in certain areas. For instance, we might be willing to believe that aliens exist, will come to earth, and will be able to speak perfect English. However, within the same work of fiction, we might (rightly) find it wholly implausible for someone to be able to drive from one side of a busy city to the other in five minutes.
Falsehoods we think are true
Then there are falsehoods that are often believed to be true. For instance, how often have you seen (on TV or in a movie) someone shooting a lock?
The idea is that if a door is locked or a gate padlocked, then the lock can be shot, breaking the lock, meaning the gate or door can be opened.
The reality is different. Very low quality locks may break (and so be openable) if they are shot. As an aside, these are the sort of locks you could probably open with a paper clip or just hit with a hammer. Equally, with large enough ammunition (such as armour-piercing rounds or tank shells), most locks will be destroyed.
However, any reasonable quality lock shot with a regular handgun will not succumb to this form of persuasion.
But more significantly, there are serious dangers to this practice: the bullet could do damage. The bullet could ricochet and hurt the human who fired the bullet and there’s always the danger of having shrapnel flying around.
So what’s an author to do?
Plausibility is often a challenge for authors, because the author (assuming they’ve done their research) will know the truth. However, the author cannot know whether a reader will believe that truth. This is especially the case if a “lie” has been frequently been reinforced.
So what’s an author to do?
I suspect there’s one solution: just write a good book which readers believe. In fact, I can’t think of any situation where the answer isn’t: just write a good book.
Until September
That’s me for August.
I’ll be back in September. Until then.
All the best
Simon