How to Make Readers Forget Your Story Isn’t Real
By Janice Hardy
Why the right details can make a reader believe just about anything.
I watched The Martian again recently. If you haven’t seen it, it’s based on Andy Weir’s novel about an astronaut named Mark Watney who’s accidentally stranded on Mars and has to survive for years while NASA struggles to rescue him.
Near the end of the movie there’s a scene where Watney is driving a rover across the surface of Mars to reach a spot where he’ll hopefully be rescued, and I started thinking about how this guy was going to have so many speaking opportunities after this, and how his life would change.
And for just a fraction of an instant, I wondered if it was based on a real event.
Yep, you heard me. I wondered if the story set on Mars was real.
Luckily, I caught my doofiness right away and laughed. But honestly? That little brain-fart shows how well-written this movie was. It felt so real, so believable, that I literally forgot it was pure fiction.
And that, right there, folks, is the goal.
When you can make your reader forget they’re reading a made-up story, you’ve struck gold.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had this experience, either. Years ago, I was reading Max Brooks’ World War Z about the zombie war that nearly ended the human race. I was alone, at night, during a storm, and the book felt so authentic that even though I knew it was fiction, it didn’t feel like fiction.
It felt like I was reading a narrative history of an actual war against zombies.
Which is why it’s still one of my favorite books, ever.
Believability is all in the details.
What makes both The Martian and World War Z so good is that they built a rich and deep world around their stories. They focused on the oddly specific, yet perfect details that felt too real to be made up.
In The Martian it was:
- The running jokes about the disco music Watney is stuck listening to, because it’s all his commander left behind.
- The little “fun facts” about how growing crops means you colonized a place, and how he had now colonized Mars.
- The odd combination of international laws that meant he was, briefly, a space pirate.
These details made Watney feel like a real human stuck in a crappy situation. We see him use his dark sense of humor to deal with the incredible stress he was under, and how it helps him cope with the unimaginable.
And that makes us root for him.
It’s been a few years since I’ve read World War Z, so I don’t remember the specifics as well, but it resonated with me because of:
- The individual personal stories that focused on one tiny part of the zombie war, yet when combined, they told the whole story.
- The very credible way people and governments reacted to the situation.
- The matter-of-fact details such as how there was a northern line where zombies froze, and how teams of soldiers would stick flags in the snow when they found one, so clean-up crews could find and dispose of them after the war was over.
People reacted to a fake zombie war in ways that I could absolutely see happening in real life. Some were heroic, some were self-serving and awful, and some were just plain human.
And that’s the secret ingredient.
Our humanity is universal, and every reader recognizes it, no matter how wild the premise gets.
None of us has been stranded on Mars or lived through a zombie war. But we all know exactly what it looks like when someone cracks a joke to keep from falling apart, or saves their own skin at everyone else’s expense, or does something brave when no one’s watching.
That’s the part we believe. And once we believe the characters, we’ll follow them anywhere.
Which is why you want your details to be specific and wacky and unique to your characters.
And the best way to do that, is to show readers the quirky side of your characters’ humanity.
Because generic details strip away that common ground and turn your characters into the same old people readers see everywhere. They walk through the same “generic suburban America” or “default fantasy world #67” and act like every other character in those worlds.
You can tell readers your protagonist is:
- Scared, but resourceful
- Desperate and willing to do anything to survive
- Obsessed with the love of their life
But if readers don’t see those very real and very human details that support those generalities, you wind up with very forgettable characters and stories.
Specific details build the world and reveal the character all at the same time. One perfectly chosen, wacky and surprising, absolutely true-feeling detail beats a paragraph of generic description every single time.
This is especially handy for those of us writing in made-up worlds or off-the-wall premises, but it holds true for every writer, in every genre. The more believable your story feels, the easier it is for readers to lose themselves in it.
And just maybe, they’ll forget for a moment that what they’re reading isn’t real.
If you want to sharpen your description skills, you might want to check out my book, Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It). It’ll help you find the best ways to show both your world and your characters’ quirks, so readers believe whatever tale you want to tell (or show).
And if you’d like more tips, sign up for my Narrative Nuggets list. It’s story-based writing advice delivered right to your inbox. And as a thank you for subscribing, you’ll get my book “25 Ways to Strengthen Your Novel Right Now” for free.
What books or movies made you forget they weren’t real?
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About Janice:
Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. and the chapter books Who’s Haunting Who? and The Haunting of Cabin 13 for Lerner Publishing. For adults, she writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series under the name, J.T. Hardy. When she’s not writing fiction, she runs the popular writing site Fiction University, and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series.
Featured image licensed from Depositphotos.
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16 comments on “How to Make Readers Forget Your Story Isn’t Real”
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Dear Janice --
Your post provided many wonderful nuggets, but these three are now posted on the wall above my computer: "...oddly specific, yet perfect details that felt too real to be made up." "...we all know exactly what it looks like when someone cracks a joke to keep from falling apart, or saves their own skin at everyone else’s expense, or does something brave when no one’s watching." "...show readers the quirky side of your characters’ humanity."
Thanks for these and I can't wait to dig into some of your books. Much appreciated!
You're most welcome! I'm glad this one resonated with you 🙂 It's the weird that akes it work!
Good article! I enjoyed it. I like to think I've breathed life into most of my characters. Mostly, I've relied upon their words and actions (and a small smattering of 'beats.' I especially like your comment regarding World War Z* about the individual small stories.
My novels (two, so far) have essentially been ensemble pieces, not one but several main characters who've been thrown together and learned to work together as a team. As the overall story (a tetralogy) has progressed, additional such teams have emerged. Each has had their own focus of attention and challenges, which ultimately all serve the main plot line. However, I also have single, minor characters whose purpose, while not directly serving the immediate plot, provide a backdrop–add detail to the changing world scape that I felt were needed for believability and to presage what comes next in the series. That, and they're usually fun to write and (I'm pretty sure) fun to read.
Thanks!
Sounds like you have a lot going on there 🙂 And a lot of opportunities for some interesting characters and situations. I hope your series does well, and thanks for sharing!
Such an important post. The devil really is in the details. Even for contemporary work, you need specifics. They can say so much. It's why research is so important. Consider a character catching a whiff of roasting food. Big deal, right? But when I know it's onions, pork or salmon, it suggests a cuisine/ a region. The character reaction adds to that---maybe it's out of place for the season or area. And you can also smell something that sets up your fantasy world--"a whiff of roasting atluma bark told me I was almost home." We all know that feeling of smelling a comfort food even if we have no idea what atluma is. And, more importantly, we'll want to find out what it is. In my WIP my main character smells neoprene that isn't there in the moment. It's sense memory from trauma. Got to love those specific details to make the universal.
Absolutely! Love your region example. Smells are great for triggering memories, too. They're so useful.
"The devil is in the details." You're exactly right.
I remember advice to discard the first and the second level of details that come to mind - those are going to be obvious and generic - and keep digging for a while to fiddle something only my pov character would notice.
Since I try to CHANNEL each pov character in my Pride's Children mainstream trilogy AS I write their scenes (I alternate roughly between the three main characters), it helps to stay longer in THEIR pov and experience the scene the way I want a reader to be experiencing it: right behind the eyeballs and peculiarly from THAT character.
Keeps me searching longer for the special things each would notice.
I've heard that advice as well, and it's good advice. Do the unexpected! Pick what most folks won't immediately think about.
I'm a huge POV fan, so I love that approach 🙂 You get way better stories that way.
And as you've found, it's worth the extra searching, too!
I've been watching The Martian about 2-3 times a week all summer. I've watched World War Z half a dozen times this year, already. I rewatch Day After Tomorrow many, many times every year, too. Such memorable characters and the events all feel so real...that they COULD happen. And then, there are Jane Austen's characters. Their events are real even today.
Fantastic post!
I see we have the same taste in movies! Those are all on my frequently watched list. I just watched 2012 a few days ago as well.
What you say is so true, Janice. I remember finishing the book Bridges of Madison County while lying in bed next to my husband, and since hubby was a photographer and we had lived in Seattle at the appropriate time, I turned to ask him if he had known of the photographer [name of book's love interest] while we were there. Fortunately, just before I opened my mouth to ask this question, I remembered that the answer would, of course, be "no" since the photographer I was inquiring about was a fictional character. DUH!
LOL I'm glad it wasn't just me 🙂 But it cool when that happens. Even if it is a bit embarrassing.
I can't think of literary or movie example at the moment.
Now that you're thinking about it, you might find one in a book or movie you see 🙂
Janice,
I remember when this big bear of a former Marine had come up to me at a convention and said, "I read book 2 and while I liked it, I hated that Tamea lost her baby."
I said, "Craig, such things happen in life."
He was truly upset with me and said, "I know! But, I just didn't like that it happened to Tamea."
I could not contain my absolute glee from his emotions here. He asked me why such a thing made me so happy that I laughed and hugged him.
I said, "If I caused such emotions in you that you're upset with me for causing a fictional character turmoil, then I have done my job as the author."
We, fiction authors, truly do the most awful things to our characters! However, it's the journey back from such catastrophic life events that make the story rich and the characters relatable.
Oh I LOVE this story!!! This is the gold standard for what we want, lol. Make Marines cry!