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Good evening, Ereki!

Today’s question comes from @sarah-inkdragon:

What’s your opinion on writing “realistic” books? Meaning as in the levels of gore, violence, etc. People seem to crave a realistic view to books and novels anymore, even in the fantasy genre, which has given rise to the ever-popular anti-hero. But where do you think you should draw the line, as realism is not necessarily a pretty thing in today’s world?

Excellent question! And a big one, too. I’ll do my best to keep things succinct.

There are two points that immediately jumped to mind for me:

1. Intended audience. The level of realism that you include in your stories really depends on who you are writing for, in my opinion. I approach realism, as an aspect of storytelling, from the standpoint of asking the question, “To what end?” As a Christian, the ultimate purpose of reflecting reality in it’s gory details is to ‘force’ my readers to confront the things which make us uncomfortable, so that they are pushed to incorporate them into their understand of the nature of evil – and conversely, to more deeply appreciate, cling to, and delight themselves in the nature (and Presence!) of good.

In the context of a narrative (beginning, middle, end; ie. progress and development), realism can be incorporated into the cathartic experience of a story. But at a certain point, portraying that evil/darkness/reality can be a cause of trauma (and trauma has no narrative superstructure: it just is, and tends to stagnate the victim of it).

For each person, there is a line where confronting certain kinds and levels of evil becomes traumatic rather than cathartic, and is therefore not useful to include in our stories. The younger our intended audience, the more careful we have to be with what we do and do not include.

Unfortunately, this means that we cannot make hard and fast rules. Fortunately, it means that we can dig to the purpose that the ‘grittiness’ in our stories is serving and evaluate whether our audience will be positively or negatively effected by that.

2. Story-context. Many of the modern stories that boast ‘realism’ or grittiness (the fantasy TV series, Game of Thrones sticks out the most widely popular of these) take that approach and apply it to everything – including narrative structure and end-of-story-arc payoff. That is to say, because of their strict adherence to portraying life and reality ‘as it is’, they have stopped trying to use the evil and grittiness of life as a catalyst towards Something Higher. This ends up creating a very materialistic, almost nihilistic approach.

As Christian storytellers, on the other hand, our whole approach to art and storytelling is from the conviction that beauty, narrative, and story are meant and should be designed to draw the heart of the reader to Something Other/Higher. This means that the purpose of including grit or reality is for something bigger. It is unto something else. It is not about ‘just being real’ for the sake of being real. It is because we’re setting the stage, creating and strengthening the contrast between darkness and hope, between evil and light.

So. What crosses the line? Bad storytelling crosses the line. Realism that doesn’t work towards eventually underscoring hope crosses the line. Gritty details that don’t offset and increase our love for beauty and goodness (via the negative) cross the line.

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I hope that answers your question! I did not do my best to keep things succinct. XD I apologize. *bows deeply*

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