By Daddy X (ERWA Editor)

What does fiction do for us? Take us to the outer reaches of
the universe? To new worlds? Inside technology? To a contrived history of the
pyramids? Do we, as writers, first experience our travels in the real world,
then relate the trip to our readers? Or do we create the journey from whole cloth?
What stimulates a reader’s mental and emotional synapses to trigger a
particular realization the writer has in mind? How to get readers to process
information the way we intend? Do we acknowledge sophisticated readers by subtle
tricks, isolating ourselves from their own interpretations? Or do we hold their
hands, explaining everything as we go along, leaving nothing to the reader’s
imagination. How do we make it all happen? How to keep it real?

Life experiences hint at ways a character may behave in a
given circumstance or what reactions may result from certain stimuli. Creating an
acceptably realistic scenario is a melding of what we know as fact with what simply
could be. It’s a matter of blending the universally accepted knowable with
conjecture. Sounds easy, as long as we’re simply writing what we know, what
we’ve lived.

While I certainly do make up shit, I can’t say that I’ve
ever been tempted to write anything too far out.  By that I mean crossing erotica with Sci-fi, paranormal,
vampires, zombies (ick). I do have a couple thousand words set on another
planet, but there it sits, in the ‘what next?’ pile.

Fact is I’m not really conversant in the very fantastical,
except for those places I’ve traveled within myself and consequently still within
my world. Doors opened and thresholds were crossed under the influence of
psychedelics. Real life, whether interpreted within our conscious minds or not,
is all so interesting (and fantastic) that there’s enough internal space to
explore before I’d get to setting up other, unfamiliar, complicated societies.

 It’s hard enough to
grasp the one we’re living in, for crissakes.

Clearly, a lot of readers do love these fantasy genres, and
the artists who create them can be quite affecting. The great storyteller
Stephen King is one who states the impossible and makes us believe it. The
writers of the ‘Star Trek’ series, endowed with the innate ability not only to
create new worlds, technologies, societal patterns, etc. also remembered to
take us along for the ride. As if a phaser was something everybody had in a
drawer somewhere. We felt we understood how warp drive worked.  

Feeling one’s way around a created fantasy world is at once
a noble, frivolous, and difficult task.

Noble, in that alternative orderings of the human condition
potentially reside in the random cards of earthly imagination.

Frivolous, for those who lead a more simple existence—even
folk tales and creation myths, no matter how complex, tend to stay fixed within
a culture.

Difficult—in that it all has to jibe for the reader.

We mustn’t forget the need for the human mind to create
fantasy. Even in the most removed tribes, the otherworldly has a way of
creeping into practical existence even though a moody, introspective state couldn’t
be sustained for long. Not at least without the cooperation of others of like
mind. It seems as though there’s a need in our species that requires flights of
fancy. Escapism? Metaphor? A need to explore the creative process? This is the
genesis of magical thought. To create an unsubstantiated story to explain who
we are, why we are, and where we come from. Births of religions would fall somewhere
within this realm.

The very complexity of our own way of life seldom makes
sense, so why, one may ask, does ‘real’ matter so much in fiction? Good
question, but fiction has to make sense relative to itself. Life doesn’t have
to follow any rules. A reader’s observation may suggest that a particular outcome
of a series of events would be impossible given the information provided.

At times it appears we accept such incongruities in our real
lives much easier than we endure errors in our fiction. Reality is a state of flux.
In the real world, we can’t always predict the effect of an action, whereas in
the world of fiction we must. We can surprise, but the surprise must be congruent
with what has come before.

My guess is it’s my own laziness, covering for some
perceived inadequacy that keeps me from the difficult stuff of research, which
would be necessary to any endeavors in writing the fantastic. Same as a historical
piece for that matter, so it’s not just a simple fear of the unknown that keeps
me from that noble task. 

My lamest excuse would be that at this stage of life, there
isn’t time for researching something outside my experience. After all, I’m still
a long way from exhausting what I’ve learned thus far. Going forward, it
follows that research into esoteric and non-substantive issues could be a waste
of time.

Time better spent writing.