Thread: Believability

What do you do when someone tells you your fiction isn't believable, but you know the anecdote at issue actually occurred? I wrote a humorous short story, for my blog, that centered on the protagonist's wife kissing his pet iguana on the mouth, and the iguana -- in response -- biting her lip, and dangling from it until he could be pried off. I received a comment that the story simply wasn't believable. However, some years ago, I personally witnessed exactly such a scene, exactly as described in my post.

If anyone else has had a similar experience (not necessarily an iguana lip-biting event, but a real-life occurrence being deemed unbelievable), how have you handled it?

Maybe you're just not "telling" the story in a believable manner. Cant really comment otherwise without seeing the piece of work. Why not post it in one of the creativity sections and see what people say?

As for real life events happening but people not believing them? Well, why do you care if people believe you? If you know it really happened, their belief or lack thereof wont change that reality will it?

Originally Posted by Candra H

Maybe you're just not "telling" the story in a believable manner. Cant really comment otherwise without seeing the piece of work. Why not post it in one of the creativity sections and see what people say?

As for real life events happening but people not believing them? Well, why do you care if people believe you? If you know it really happened, their belief or lack thereof wont change that reality will it?

Thanks. I'll post the piece in the humor subforum of Fiction, in the Prose section, and see what people think.

I agree that the reader's belief won't change the reality. My only concern is whether the misplaced disbelief will prevent the reader from finding the story funny. I wanted to know if others have had a similar experience, and if so, whether they ignored that critique, or attempted to address it in some fashion.

Originally Posted by garnerdavis

What do you do when someone tells you your fiction isn't believable, but you know the anecdote at issue actually occurred?

Just because it's true, that doesn't make it believable. I remember some time ago I was reading about the making of a movie set in WWII which was based on real events and where they'd collected together a lot of true stories from the people involved ('Bridge Too Far', perhaps? I forget), and the people making the movie said there were some stories they loved which they just couldn't use in the script because no-one would believe them.

Ultimately if you can't convince readers that it's believable then you'll probably have to drop it.

Originally Posted by movieman

Just because it's true, that doesn't make it believable. I remember some time ago I was reading about the making of a movie set in WWII which was based on real events and where they'd collected together a lot of true stories from the people involved ('Bridge Too Far', perhaps? I forget), and the people making the movie said there were some stories they loved which they just couldn't use in the script because no-one would believe them.

You know, the movie of Audie Murphy (a medal of honor awardee) had to be toned down from the reality of his WWII experience because they felt it was too larger than life, even though what really happened is documented.

5 Real Life Soldiers Who Make Rambo Look Like a Pussy | Cracked.com

If its any consolation, I totally believe you. My dad has had iguanas, I think he still has one, and I just bet it would latch on and hang there. In any case, truth is stranger than fiction, and that is how I would reply.

Perhaps you need to build up the character that does this kissing of the iguana. Characterise them as someone who would likely do such a thing. The problem with recreating real life events is that real life does contain events that are bizarre. However, in a book, the bizarre event must always be set up, so that when the reader gets to it, they are not so surprised and more easily accept it.

Thanks to all for the feedback. If I'd written the story for a book, I'd want to include more of a setup. However, I like to keep blog posts short (to accommodate the average reader's limited time and attention span these days), writing each piece as essentially a drawn out joke, leading to a punchline. I guess I'll just have to see whether I get too many comments questioning the believability of the tales.

Incidentally, I'd heard about the Audie Murphy situation. Incredible real life story.

Well, like they say, truth often is stranger than fiction. This reminds me of something that happened to us. There's a guy who lives around here who owns a little monkey and he dresses it up like a doctor and uses it as a prop when he gives safety talks to children. He was at a shopping center, with some firemen and their truck etc. and we had the kids with us so we stopped to look at the monkey. Some guy had a bandage on his ear, and I guess it caught the monkey's eye, because he reached out and snatched the bandage off the guy's ear and it started to bleed profusely. Everybody started to freak out and the monkey went nuts and grabbed the guy's ear again and it was screaming and baring it's teeth. The site of the monkey with his little stethoscope and blood all over his little white coat, screaming, and the man clutching his ear and the fireman trying to deal with the bleeding man might be the most surreal thing I've ever seen. I tried to include it in a short story -- but no matter how I treated it, it just came off as totally unbelievable.

This reminds me a bit of "Life of Pi", where the entire middle section of the book depends entirely upon the reader's ability to suspend disbelief. At the end of the story, the point is driven home when the protagonist offers a more "pedestrian" version and a choice between the two - I won't spoil it here for those who might not have read it.

Or how about "The Hangover", a movie that deals with hard-to-believe plot elements by going completely over the top and getting away with it by setting it in all in a drug-soaked version of Vegas.

I think that the ability to incorporate characters or circumstances into a story that might inherently be hard to believe is a great tool for a writer of fiction, if you can pull it off.

Also, you can't please everyone: I don't think an iguana hanging off a lip is all that big a stretch of the imagination, but possibly your commentator lacks imagination.

JosephB. After the well-known incident in NY, where the woman's chimpanzee literally chewed off her face, I don't think any story concerning violent or absurd monkey behavior sounds unbelievable, including the one you just related.

Skeletor. I wonder if different rules apply to TV shows and movies. For instance, the entire premise of the TV show "24" is so obviously unbelievable as to be laughable; yet the totally unrealistic twenty-four hour plot lines didn't seem to prevent millions from tuning in faithfully. In the case of my iguana story, the commentator's chief complaint appeared to center around the wife choosing to kiss the iguana on the mouth, moreso than the iguana's decision to bite her lip. Personally, I've seen too many examples of people kissing their pets on the mouth to find such an action unrealistic.

If it is a true occurrence and not believable, it means you have not done your work as a story-teller. You may need to build up the event better, maybe dropping clues that the iguana was particularly testy, liked to bite any and everything, etc. So when the event happens, the reader is ready to believe. Remember that the iguana in this story is a character like any other, and all principles of good characterization apply.