For my purposes, naturalism is an attempt to depict people and things as they really are. In science fiction and fantasy, this is seldom "real life" as we live it today. Still, naturalistic SF&F still aims at an air of ordinary people going about ordinary lives in whatever milieu they inhabit.
The alternatives to naturalism are not necessarily "unnatural" but they are departures from the mundane. One common example is comedy: while comedy can be firmly rooted in real life, the comic mode allows for departures from naturalism. People in comedies are wittier than normal, situations may grow more convoluted, and consequences are usually lighter. Comedies are more elastic than naturalistic writing—even if a comedy never strays beyond the bounds of possibility, what happens in comedies is generally more vivid than we recognize life to be.
| If you don’t like the word “mode,” you can substitute “tone,” “atmosphere,” or “ambience.” The point is that all writing has an overarching “feel” to it. Longer works can have scenes that diverge from the dominant mode—for example, a “serious” piece can contain the occasional comic scene (comic relief)—but these diverging scenes can’t be allowed to derail the feel of the whole work. For example, Hamlet can take a few minutes to talk to a comic gravedigger, but the scene can’t go on too long, and the play certainly can’t turn into a comedy in the last act just because of one funny character. |
Another alternative to naturalism is the mythic mode. This is common in fantasies, though science fiction can certainly be mythic too. In myths, everything is larger than life: the warriors are strong, brave and chosen by destiny; the women are beautiful and even a tavern wench has untapped reserves of heroism; the villains (even if they sometimes have consciences) will go to any lengths to achieve their ends. I'm not saying fantasy has to be this way—plenty of good fantasies aren't. But this mode is a popular one that's been entertaining audiences for thousands of years, and it's bound to outlive anyone who's reading this now.
Other modes include such things as magic realism, experimental narrative forms, tall tales, melodrama, "slipstream" tales, and so on. I don't want to judge any of these forms—masterpieces have been written in each mode. The only important point is that readers are quick to pick up on modes and to pigeonhole everything they read. This inevitably raises expectations...and it is up to writers to recognize those expectations and deal with them.
For example, if you start writing in a naturalistic mode, you can't switch to slapstick comedy in the blink of an eye. The audience won't go along with you. Similarly, if you start in slapstick comedy mode, you can't suddenly switch to naturalism. You can (if you're good) work a gradual transition; Romeo and Juliet, for example, starts much like a standard Shakespearean comedy with couples falling in love, barriers preventing their love, etc. But as Romeo and Juliet continues, it becomes more and more apparent that in this play, the lovers won't find a happy ending. Romeo and Juliet is a comedy that gradually becomes a tragedy. (So, by the way, is Shakespeare in Love—it starts slapstick and gradually comes down to earth with real insurmountable problems.)
So you can gradually change modes if you have enough time and if you're interested in such a transition. (Nothing says you can't write in the same mode from start to finish. That's more common than making a transition.) The thing you usually can't do is change modes abruptly, especially after you've established your mode in the first few pages. If you're in mythic mode, for example, you can bring in mythic-style comic relief—lots of myths have jokers and fools—but you can't suddenly bring in something that conflicts glaringly with the mode you've established. A hundred pages into The Lord of the Rings, you can't suddenly bring in Jerry Seinfeld. Once you establish a tone, you can't drastically depart from that tone; it will jar the reader right out of the story.
And how do you establish a tone? You should know by now: through the viewpoint characters. The perceptions and attitudes of the VPCs establish the mode. For example, even though the subject matter of Terry Pratchett's Diskworld appears mythical, the droll voice of the narrator indicates that you're really in a comedy. I dare say you could take roughly the same action as a Diskworld novel and make it into mythic fantasy; you might also be able to make it naturalistic. But Pratchett's voice quickly tips off readers what mode they're really in.
| Mode is not the same as subject matter. You can write a Swords’n’Sorcery book in any mode you like: naturalistic, comic, mythic, whatever. It’s not what you write, it’s how you write. |
You might ask, "What if I don't want to choose a mode? What if I don't want to limit myself?" The answer is that even if the writer doesn't commit to a mode, the readers will. Within the first three pages of a story (or the first chapter of a book), readers lock in on what mode they think they're reading. They'll still cut you some slack for a while—they'll go along with you, for example, if you have a prologue in one mode, then switch to a different mode for the main part of the book—but pretty soon they'll decide what type of story they're reading, and after that, they'll throw the damned book across the room if you break the consistency.
In other words, you get a mode whether you choose one or not. If you don't establish the mode yourself, the readers will impose one for you. Your readers will quickly build up expectations...and if you don't meet those expectations, they'll be frustrated and angry. You can't stop the readers from building expectations; you can only control those expectations so that readers will accept what you give them.
Therefore you have to be conscious of what mode you're establishing with your readers, and you have to
avoid breaking out of that mode too jarringly. At best, you can work a gradual transition over the course of a novel,
but that's Big League stuff you'd better handle carefully.
| When you're writing something, you don't have to say, "I am writing in mythic mode" or explicitly name any other mode. You just have to be aware of what expectations you're setting up in your reader. Surprises and twists are fine, so long as they're in the general ballpark of what you're doing...but you can't just throw in something so out of keeping with the previous tone of your work that readers say, "What the heck is that doing there?" |
Copyright © 2001, James Alan Gardner