Control: Reality vs. Story, Part One
I, Dalton Lewis, tell stories. Sometimes my mind goes in strange directions and makes me write about big fights, saving the galaxy, and brutal murders. These things can happen in real life, but they don’t look like the way they do in story. In reality a man was shot because a group of Trump allies and a group of Black Lives Matter group had a conflict. In a story a man has his dog shot and goes on a rampage of vengeance, killing countless enemies with guns, knives, and vehicles.
In fiction Thanos wants to destroy half of reality, and it’s a big reality: there are aliens, metahumans, humans, and even Inhumans if you watch the television shows. He goes from planet to planet killing half the population because he thinks that will help the economy. It’s not as bad as when Lex Luthor nuked western California to make more money off of his land in eastern California, but it’s still batshit crazy.
In reality there are only humans and animals — there aren’t any aliens or metahumans or Inhumans or artificial intelligences or anyone other than plain old humans. In addition, we have very little protection against damage. We don’t have superpowers at all. We do have weapons that do massive damage to our fellow humans — or to animals.
In story people get resurrected. This gets me. You know those shows — I know you do. The Vampire Diaries is a capital offender. People die and come back, die and come back, and die some more and come back some more. In reality people die. They don’t come back. We don’t know how to bring Chadwick Boseman back. We can’t get Naya Rivera back. Celebrities die all the time. Nothing protects them from it.
In reality almost no one makes it in the writing or acting fields. In a television show, book, or movie, everyone — everyone — is a talented success story. They win Pulitzers. Every novelist or reporter in fiction nowadays won a Pulitzer. The DCEU is bad about this; Lois Lane and Kara Danvers each won a couple of the damned things.
Why don’t I write more realistic fiction, then? The answer is complex: I like to use hyperbole to explain what is wrong with life in the context of a science fiction or horror situation. I think that showing Thanos killing half a planet shows us the perils of someone who thinks he is right and kills people, not realizing all the people he hurts as he does it.
In conclusion I like writing about story but want some stories to reflect reality.
Thanks, and take care, friends.
