How Fiction Works

Last year in English 10, I wrote a 10-page story about a serial killer. In my opinion the plot line was great and the story was really creative; however, I received a 6/12 grade. I drove myself crazy trying to find out what it was that I had done wrong, for I thought I had written an excellent piece. After reading this article, I realize it was not my story that had received the failing grade, but the way in which it was written. I have never been a very strong fiction writer, and I think it is because of the very reason that Wood describes in his article. There has to be a certain bridge between the author and the character, and it is not possible for a story to survive without it. My story lacked this ‘free indirect style’, and instead moved choppily from author to character voice.  For so long I had thought that writing fiction existed only in the elementary sense, but upon deeper analysis I can see there is so much more.

This concept of ‘free indirect style’ is what governs most of the books we read nowadays. Books such as ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ and ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime’ are classic examples of literary masterpieces achieved through the use of successful ‘free indirect style’. What makes a book deep, and what allows one to analyze in a book, is the development of character. Free indirect style demonstrates the use of indirect characterization, where the author can express descriptions from his/her own viewpoint, as well as the view a character has about him/herself. Wood brings up a concept called ‘Mock heroic’, which I found to be very interesting when it comes to the author describing how a character feels about him/herself through free indirect style. It takes great skill to portray a pompous man, without direct description of his pompous nature. Instead, the uses of subtle adjectives are used to depict this aspect. When reading this essay, it seemed as though Wood went through a lot of analysis to extract how a certain adjective conveyed a certain message; however, great authors (such as authors of the books mentioned above) have used similar tactics, which seem to easily convey their message to the reader.

Although Wood went into great analysis of how a single word can change the entire viewpoint of the speaker, the thought that the authors were doing this unknowingly occurred to me. Is it really possible that all great authors put in so much thought into their work? Or is it simply habitual that their thoughts start to mesh with the thoughts of their fantasized character? I also wondered whether this habitual trait occurred, because authors on general tend to write from personal experiences. One of my favorite authors, Jacqueline Wilson, writes books that every teen can relate to. However, it seems as though there is a similar voice in all her stories, perhaps entailing that there is more author than character in her writing. Even in her biography, she took on a similar tone of voice that seemed to carry the same air as her characters do. It got me thinking; can an author truly write about a character (through the means of successful free indirect style) that he/she has absolutely no connection to?