Jackson Radcliffe's Blog - Posts Tagged "fiction"

Fiction - it’s just stories that aren't true. Or is it more than that? Can fiction be truer than reality? After all, life is a narrative, not a collection of facts. Fiction joins the dots.

It’s easy to recognize a good story when we read it. But it’s harder to realize that our own lives are stories too.

When we read a story, we want our hero to face challenges, danger and mystery. But in our own lives we want everything to be easy and straightforward. We cry when we experience set backs. We throw tantrums when we don’t get what we want on the first attempt.

Yawn.

Every story starts with a problem. Without a problem, there’s no need for the hero to act. If there’s a problem in your life right now, you should be glad. It marks the start of a great adventure!



Good fiction comes in three parts and follows a series of well-defined beats. A story has ups and downs. It doesn't travel in a straight line. That would be boring. The hero must face challenges and overcome them. The hero must demonstrate qualities like courage, persistence, generosity and kindness.

Sometimes in life we experience disasters. They come out of the blue and knock us flat. Often they come on top of other problems. In fiction, these are called “catalysts” – they are an opportunity for the hero to change. Will the hero decide to make that change? Of course! Otherwise there would be no story! But the hero must spend some time agonizing and despairing before making that decision, otherwise it won't feel significant.

So if your life is full of problems, disaster strikes, and you just don’t know what to do next, then rejoice! You’re about to enter Part Two of your story.

Part Two is full of ups and downs. You’ll meet new people, visit new places, learn new skills. You’ll make enemies too, and face hardships. But eventually you’ll achieve some success. This is the midpoint of your story. It’s sometimes known as the false victory! Ha! This is where the stakes are raised and the bad guys really start to close in. If you thought things were tough before, they will get a lot worse now!



You can’t have a knockout ending to a story unless the hero has a dark, all is lost moment first. Here the hero is allowed a moment to wallow in defeat, pity and self-blame. Very often that dark moment comes immediately before victory is achieved. Those are the best stories.



Sometimes the hero needs a friend or mentor to show them the key to victory. But you know what? In the end the hero wins because of all the trials and tribulations they've been through on their narrative journey. They use the skills they’ve learned on the way. They overcome their internal problems and by changing themselves, they are able to change their situation. How empowering a thought is that? Why wouldn't we want that for our own lives?



So if life is getting you down and everything seems to be against you, remind yourself that the next chapter will be better and that this is just one step along your own personal story.

Every life is a story, and every story has a hero. What’s your story? Comedy, tragedy, mystery, thriller? Maybe even an erotic dystopian vampire romance? Whatever your story, live it to the full.

Originally published on Blog Blogger Bloggest.

By the way, my first novel, The Yoga Sutras is currently on a Kindle Countdown deal - you can buy it for just $1.59 or 99p until October 19, 2014 - how's that for a happy ending?

Wow! This book is a rollercoaster read. I finished it, then started reading it again immediately. It blew my mind.
I’ve just read it again for a third time, and felt compelled to write something. I want to evangelize on behalf of Ms Thomas and spread the word about this book.
The book doesn’t start out too well. Nothing terribly interesting happens on the first page (or rather, it does, but the narrative downplays it), and the voice doesn’t really get you into the head of the protagonist. But stick with it, because things really start to pick up after a few pages, and it doesn’t take very long at all before the book is fully up to speed.
It starts out as a gripping mystery story, split between a contemporary character – a researcher in a university – and an Edwardian writer. The mystery revolves around a cursed book (everyone who reads it dies), a disappearing professor, a sinister doctor at a circus and recipes involving holy water and other arcane ingredients. The mystery draws us in, deepening and deepening, until wham! the book transforms into something totally unexpected and mind-boggling.
Yes, quantum physics is here, as well as circus acts, dangerous books and time travel. There’s also romance, transgressive sex, thought experiments, armed killers, and religion. There’s a lot of philosophy too. You name it, it’s here, and yet it works. The narrative is strongly rooted in modern science, although it veers perilously close to the edge from time to time. The female protagonist has a strong, compelling, immediate way of narrating the story, helped by the use of first-person present tense. It’s a hugely imaginative tour de force!
The ending probably isn’t what you expect, but by the time you’ve got some way into the book, you’ve probably given up on any expectations you might have had. Just go with it. Give the book a try and see what happens. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s just a book!
Originally published at JacksonRadcliffe.com.