Accuracy isn't the only thing I'm looking for

 

Last week I was settling in on the couch at a new cat friend's apartment and found she was watching COPS.  I did not want to risk life and limb to move her off the remote, so I joined her.

 

But after about ten minutes, Her Purriness was out of luck.  It was change the channel or die.  The people being arrested were either breathtakingly witless, or drunk — sometimes both. It was worse than watching a train wreck cause it never ended. And it was hard to root for the cops cause they were clearly punching down three ‑ or ten ‑ levels at least.

 

As I flipped through the channel guide, and fended off Her Unhappiness, I thought about writers who tell me how accurate their books are.

 

Now, the stories on COPS might be at least sort-of accurate, but that was clearly not enough to hold my interest. (A lot of people watch that show. If you're one of them, I'm not saying you're an idiot.)

 

For me the show didn't work for a couple reasons, first and foremost because the characters were unevenly matched.  It's not all that fun to see a witless, drunken lout get baited into confessing his sins anymore than it's fun watching someone take candy from a baby.

 

And that meant the stories weren't emotionally satisfying.

 

Which led me to realize: Reality and accuracy are seldom emotionally satisfying.

 

Which is why when someone tells me that the novel they're writing is accurate, it's not the plus they think it is. I know what they mean (they're getting details right) but a good story has to sacrifice some accuracy to be emotionally satisfying.

 

I thought of this again when a friend of mine Tweeted about a very uncomfortable situation she found herself in recently. She was confronted in a public place by someone with an agenda. An agenda that involved a bullying busybody cloaked in smug self-righteousness.

 

 

My friend avoided a scene by walking away.

 

I think most of us would have done the same.

 

But that end of the story left me emotionally unsatisfied.

I wanted that prig to be struck by lightning. Or to eaten by wolves. Or both.

 

To make myself feel better, I wrote a new version of what happened.

There was no lightning, nor any wolves (sadly) but you can be sure revenge and retribution figured heavily in the plot.

 

And it dawned on me that my friend's version was accurate but emotionally unsatisfying, whereas my reimagining wasn't accurate (it's not what happened, and it's not what how most people would have handled the confrontation). But it was much more emotionally satisfying. Which is exactly what you want a story to be.

 

 

 

I believe this is why people invented storytelling: to make sense of the world and provide emotional resolution to what happens to us and others. To make the world feel better.

 

 

There will always be a certain number of people for whom accuracy is more important than the story. You're not writing for them.