The Logic of Writing

Avi — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:03:18 +0000

Artists, and that includes writers, have the stereotypical reputation for being impulsive, living and working by intuitive steps. Beyond all else there is—so it is often believed—an emotional basis to creativity. Surely some. From this writer’s point of view, what is also fundamental is rational logic. To write true, to use a Hemingway term, a story must unfold in a logical sequence of events. Crudely put, a plot is a series of cause-and-effect sequences until the ending has a logical resolution. When cause and effect are not logical, readers balk. “Doesn’t make sense.” “I can’t follow the story.” “Too many coincidences.” “You lost me.” “Not believable.” “Implausible.” In fact, there is a veritable dictionary of phrases that are used to reject stories which have no innate logic. That doesn’t mean a story can’t have the unexpected or surprises. Indeed, if the unexpected is simultaneously perceived as logical, the reader is pleased, even delighted. Just witness the enormous success of mysteries in which the logic explanation is there, but hidden. The extraordinary popularity of Sherlock Holmes is due, I think, because brilliant logical deductive reasoning is his character. Of course, to compose three hundred pages or more (or less) of logic, is anything, dear Watson, but “Elementary.”

Fictional logic

Avi — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 07:01:42 +0000

Readers don’t often think about logic when reading fiction, but they know it when it’s not there: “That makes no sense!” Or, “I don’t believe it.” Or, even “But on page thirty, you wrote . . . .“

Fictional logic, by which I mean cause, motivation, and result, needs to be seamless, perhaps invisible, yet that logic is the inner core of the story. It makes a story go from page one to “the end.” Yet, it if it is too obvious, the tale seems predictable, perhaps dull. Too obscure and the reader can’t follow the trail. To make it more complex, I love the notion I have quoted many times, Robert Frost’s dictum, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.”

What’s a writer to do? He/she must imagine—and set down—the whole complexity of the characters’ world, but in the subtlest way possible.

As in life, all people are complex. Imbedded in that complexity are multiple choices. The complex character thus can logically do any number of things, and the reader will believe. Is that hard to achieve? Oh my, yes!

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The Logic of Writing

Fictional logic