When You Can’t Finish Your Story by Randy Ingermanson | Advanced Fiction Writing

 

When You Can’t Finish Your Story

 

by Randy Ingermanson 

 

Advanced Fiction Writing

 

 

When you can’t seem to finish the first draft of your story, that’s a sign something’s wrong. You could try to power through to the end, but if you try that repeatedly and you still can’t finish, then the story is probably broken.

In that case, you have two choices:

• Throw it away and start over.
• Fix it.

Usually, fixing a story is a lot more economical than throwing it away. If the story can’t be fixed, then yes, go ahead and throw it away. But most stories can be fixed. It’s a matter of asking the right questions. Below are a few that may be useful.

Did the Story Have a Plan?

Many writers don’t plan before they start writing. They just write without a plan, and a story emerges.

That’s the theory, anyway, and it very often works beautifully. But in practice, sometimes a coherent story doesn’t emerge. It happens.

When it happens, when you can’t make a story emerge, it may be time to take drastic action. You may need to make a plan, based on the story you have so far. One way to do this is to use the Flowsnake Method that I talked about in the April issue of this e-zine. The Flowsnake Method essentially works my Snowflake Method backward, starting from the story and ending up with a one-sentence summary. And a plan for the story.

Depending on how complicated your story is, using the Flowsnake Method will take you anywhere from a few hours to a couple of weeks. That’s a big time investment, but if you’re stuck, it’s a price you might be willing to pay to get unstuck.

Did the Story Follow the Plan?

You may have started with a plan, but that’s no guarantee of success.

I’m pretty sure no author ever made a plan for a story and followed it exactly. I never have, and I don’t expect I ever will.

Things change as you write the story. Some characters walk on the stage and say things you weren’t expecting. Others just don’t play as big a role as you had expected. Sometimes, small story strands turn into major plot threads. Or the story veers in a direction you couldn’t have foreseen.

Your story evolves. That’s not bad, that’s good. Usually, that evolution takes you to a better place than the story you had planned, and all is well.

But sometimes your story evolves in a way that paints you into a corner. When you’re painted in a corner, you can either walk over wet paint or break a wall. Either way, you need to change from evolution to revolution.

What that means is you need to replan your story. That shouldn’t be hard. You planned the story once, so you ought to be able to plan it again.

But before you make the new plan, write down what’s wrong with the actual story you wrote. And keep that in front of you when you write up the new plan.

Was the Original Plan Bad?

Sometimes, you wrote something pretty close to what you originally planned, but it turned out to be a bad plan.

That can be hard to swallow. You like to think you’re a good writer. It’s tough to admit you made a bad plan. But if the story isn’t working, it’s better to own up to your mistake than to stick to a plan that was bad.

Read the plan again, looking for fundamental errors:

• Can you summarize your storyline in one sentence?
• How does your protagonist change in the story?
• What is the theme of the story?
• Are the storyline and the character arc and the theme in sync with each other?

If you look long enough, you should be able to spot the cracks in your original plan that prevented you from writing the story you wanted.

The hard part is to make a new plan. You may need to break large parts of the story. You might need to throw away some scenes. Or some characters. Or rethink who those characters are.

Do what you need to do to make a plan that actually works. Then get back in gear and follow the new plan.

It’s helpful to remember that writing isn’t some mindless paint-by-numbers thing.

Writing is Hard

If writing was easy, everyone would write a bestseller, and nobody would earn any money, because there would be too many great stories available to buy and not enough buyers to buy them all.

So be glad writing is hard. But that means you’ll often get stuck. Everyone gets stuck. When you’re stuck, you don’t want to hear that writing is hard and everyone gets stuck, but it’s what you need to hear. Because the first step on the road to getting unstuck is to recognize that you’re stuck.

Homework:

• Is your current story stuck in the first draft?
• Did it have a plan to begin with?
• If it had a plan, did you drift so far away from it that you need a new plan?
• If you followed the plan, was it a bad plan to begin with?

 

About The Author

Randy Ingermanson is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels. He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine.

 

 Randy Ingermanson Books at Amazon

 

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The Flowsnake Method by Randy Ingermanson | Advanced Fiction Writing

 

The Flowsnake Method

 

by Randy Ingermanson 

 

Advanced Fiction Writing

 

 

Let’s say you’ve written the first draft of a novel, and now an editor or agent asks you what it’s about—in 25 words or less.

Maybe you’re brilliant and you have a perfect summary sentence already lined up. Good for you if you do! Trot it out and see if it sticks.

But what if you don’t? What if you don’t see how anyone could possibly summarize your heartbreaking work of staggering genius in only 25 words? Then what do you do?

Your task is this: You’ve got a novel of (typically) 100 scenes and 100,000 words, and you want to boil that down to one sentence of 25 words.

That’s hard, but it’s doable.

Reverse-Engineering Your Story

Here’s what you do, and it’s going to take some serious effort—about ten to fifteen hours. But the value to you will be immense. The process breaks down into 8 steps:

1. Flip through your manuscript and summarize each scene in one sentence. Save this to a word processor document, and for the moment, let each sentence be in its own paragraph. This will take you five to ten hours, but at the end of it, you’ll have 100 sentences, each with maybe 20 words, so you’ve now summarized your manuscript in under 2000 words. This is progress.
2. Make a copy of your list of scenes that you can edit. Keep the original in case you need to get back to it later. Scan through that list of scenes looking for sequences of scenes that form the large blocks of your story. Typically, each sequence of scenes will have somewhere between 2 and 7 scenes. On average, each will have about 5 scenes. This will take you about an hour, and at the end of it, you’ll have about 20 paragraphs, each with about 100 words. You haven’t reduced your word count, but you’ve now got a manageable set of chunks.
3. Make a copy of your document that you can edit. Summarize each paragraph so that you capture the main gist but cut out any redundancy. Shoot to reduce each paragraph in half. This will also take you about an hour, and at the end of it, you’ll still have 20 paragraphs, but now they’re only about 50 words apiece, which gives you a total of 1000 words. This is only one percent of your original manuscript.
4. Identify the Three-Act Structure of your story. Start by highlighting all the disasters in green. Then identify the most critical disasters in pink. These will be the major turning points of the story. The first typically happens about a quarter of the way into the story, and it marks the point at which your protagonist finally commits to the story. The second typically happens at about the midpoint, and it marks the point where the protagonist realizes that what they’ve been trying isn’t working, and they commit to a different approach. The third typically happens about three-quarters of the way into the story, and it marks the point where the protagonist commits to some definite step that will end the story, for good or ill. If you can’t identify these three disasters, then what? Is your story doomed? Not necessarily, but it means you don’t have a Three-Act Structure for your story. You can decide that the story is awesome and you’re going to live with it, or you can decide to add some disasters at suitable points to give your story a true Three-Act Structure. Your choice. This should take you about 15 to 30 minutes, depending on whether your major disasters are in place already.
5. Divide your document into four Parts. Part 1 is everything up to and including the first disaster. Part 2 is everything up to and including the second disaster. Part 3 is everything up to and including the third disaster. Part 4 is everything after the third disaster. This should take you five minutes.
6. Make a new copy of your document for further editing. Summarize everything in Part 1 into a single large paragraph of 50 to 100 words. Do this by focusing on the more important story threads. It’s okay to ignore less important story threads. You are trying to summarize only the main story here. You can also insert an initial paragraph that summarizes the backstory or the story world, but keep the length to somewhere betwee 50 and 100 words. You need to be disciplined here. Shorter is better, but absolutely no more than 100 words per paragraph. This step will take about an hour. When you’re done, you’ll have somewhere between one and two pages, adding up to 250 to 500 words.
7. Make a new copy of your document for final editing. You are going to be brutal here. You have five paragraphs. The first is story setup. The next three summarize Parts 1, 2, and 3, each culminating in a major disaster/turning point. The last paragraph summarizes the ending—happy, sad, or bittersweet. Now reduce each of these to a single sentence. This will hurt if you overthink it. Don’t overthink it. Just cut to the bone. Cut each sentence down to absolutely no more than 25 words. No exceptions. If you do this fast, it’ll take you 15 minutes, and you should have about 100 words total in one paragraph. This is your one-paragraph summary.
8. In the same document, at the bottom, write a single sentence of 25 words or less that summarizes ONLY the first two sentences of your one-paragraph summary. Why are you summarizing only the first two sentences? Because the last three sentences contain spoilers. When an editor asks what your story’s about, they’re asking for the story setup—the part that identifies what your protagonist is trying to achieve. They’re not asking for how your protagonist achieves it.

A Backwards Snowflake

If you’re familiar with my Snowflake Method, you’ll see that the steps above have reversed the plot-oriented parts of the ten steps of the Snowflake.

That’s why I call this reverse-engineering process the Flowsnake Method. It’s a backwards Snowflake.

It really doesn’t matter whether you plan your story first and then write it, or write it first and then reverse engineer it. In the end, you need a first draft and you also need a sound story structure. The Snowflake will give you both. So will the Flowsnake. Use whichever works better for you.

Homework

• Can you summarize the storyline of your current work-in-progress in one sentence?
• If not, when will you do this essential task?

About The Author

Randy Ingermanson is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels. He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine.

 

 Randy Ingermanson Books at Amazon

 

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Your Character Bible by Randy Ingermanson | Advanced Fiction Writing

 

Your Character Bible

 

by Randy Ingermanson 

 

Advanced Fiction Writing

 

Most novels contain several major characters. And maybe a dozen minor characters. And maybe twice that number of walk-on characters. Or more.

If you’re writing a series, you know that each book seems to accumulate new characters.

After awhile, it gets hard to remember all the details about all your characters. And how they’re related to each other. When did they get married? When did they get divorced? When did they die? When did they have kids?

Any of your characters can potentially have some sort of relationship with any of your other characters. If you have 10 characters, that’s 45 possible relationships to keep track of. If you have 50 characters, that balloons up to 1225 possible relationships!

And every character has a history. And a physical description.

The details grow exponentially until it’s impossible to remember it all. Sure, you can search through your manuscript using your word processor. But if Joe is on every page, your search function may not help a whole lot. Or if you have three characters named Mary, that’s a lot of wrong Marys to sort through. (Who would be dumb enough to write a novel with three Marys? Somebody writing a historical novel that has three actual historical persons named Mary. It happens.)

And it gets even more complicated when you’ve written a lot of books, and your list of characters expands up into the hundreds.

That’s why many authors create a “character bible” that has all the details on every character. Because if it’s 3 AM on the night before final edits are due on your book, you don’t want to be frantically trying to track down what year Harry met Sally so you can figure out how old she was on that magic day.

Speaking from personal experience, on the last night before a book is due, I prefer to be sleeping at 3 AM. But usually I’m doing final fact-checks and checking off my punch-list of last-chance detail-questions on the story.

How to Make a Character Bible

Making a character bible is not that complicated.

A character bible needs to be on a computer, because this is the 21^st century, and we don’t have to do things the slow way anymore.

One way to do it is to just make a Word document or a Scrivener document. Start with the names of all your characters. Under each character, leave some space.

Then start filling in information. The kind of information you need depends on what kind of book you’re writing, but for most books, the date and year a character was born is a good place to start. Then work out their age when the story takes place. You probably also want some basic info like height, weight, physical description, color of eyes and hair.

After that, you have a lot of different things you could add. What does the character want in life? What is their goal in the story? What are their personal values that control how they make decisions? Where do they live? Where were they raised? What events in their past have put scars on them in the present? What do they do for a living? Who else in the story are they related to?

You can easily think of hundreds of questions you could potentially ask. Most of these are irrelevant to your story. Leave those out and put in the ones that are relevant.

Using Your Character Bible in Story Development

Many writers build their character bible while developing the story. That is, they grow the plot and their characters out in stages, working a bit on one and a bit on the other until they have a clear understanding of the story. My Snowflake Method uses this approach.

Of course you don’t have to use a character bible to develop your story. A lot of writers just write the story and let things happen. Characters appear and reveal who they are. If you’re writing your story this way, it’s still a useful thing to keep a character bible. As each new character comes on stage, you can easily update your character bible with the basic info on that character. As your story moves along, you’ll learn more and more about your character. As you do, it’s a smart idea to keep adding to your character bible.

Should You Create a Character Bible?

Making a character bible is a lot of work, so it’s worth asking whether you really have to do it.

No, you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to do anything. You can write your novel however you like.

Keep in mind the reason anyone creates a character bible. It’s to help them keep their characters consistent.

The classic example is the novel where John has blue eyes when we meet him on page 10, green eyes on page 154, and brown eyes on page 302. There are readers who will find this an insult to their intelligence and will let you know about it. If this matters to you, your character bible will give you the definitive answer on the color of John’s eyes. And then when you’re doing final panicked edits at 3 AM, you know where to look.

If the color of eyes seems like a trivial detail, I can’t argue with you. Lately, I’ve been writing novels set in a place where all the characters have brown eyes, so I don’t really care about eye color. But the motivations of your characters is something slightly more important. And your character bible is a fine place to keep track of that. Along with a whole lot of other important stuff.

Homework:

• Does your novel need a character bible? (There’s no wrong answer here, but for every book, you get to decide, and your choices are “yes” or “no.”)
• If you need a character bible, what’s your best option for creating it?
• If you don’t know your best option, then that’s a research question that you need to tackle first.
• Once you figure out what tool you’re going to use, start by creating a separate entry for every character you care about. You won’t fill in the same level of detail for all characters, but every character worth caring about has a name, so start there. Then just add info as you have time and energy.
• Someday at 3 AM, you may thank me for this. You’re welcome.

About The Author

Randy Ingermanson is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels. He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine.

 

 Randy Ingermanson Books at Amazon

 

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The Golden Rule of Fiction by Randy Ingermanson | Advanced Fiction Writing

 

The Golden Rule of Fiction

by Randy Ingermanson 

 

Advanced Fiction Writing

About twenty years ago, I was accepted into a small mentoring group led by Sol Stein, a famous novelist, playwright, publisher, and writing teacher.

It was a great group and I enjoyed hanging out with so many talented novelists.

Sol had a recent book out, THE BEST REVENGE, and most of us in the group bought a copy.

Sol, knowing that I'm a physicist, autographed mine as follows:

"Physics = facts; Fiction = truth"

I've often thought of that over the years. A fair number of people think that fiction is the opposite of truth -- it's just something made-up that doesn't mean anything.

But Sol was right. Fiction is truth. Good fiction, anyway. It's the truth about people.

My only quibble with Sol was with the first half of his formula. Physics isn't really about facts. Physics is about what lies behind the facts.

Physics is truth, too. It's a different kind of truth than fiction, but it's truth.

The hardest part of fiction is telling the truth. 

It's very easy to misrepresent your characters. To fail to tell the whole truth about them. To reduce them to a caricature. But as a novelist, you can't afford to do that.

The problem is that you don't always realize you're doing it. It's one of those things that you don't know that you don't know.

It's easier to see a caricature when you're the one being caricatured. Because when somebody misrepresents YOU, you get angry.

Some examples from the usual fault lines will make this clear:

If you're a Democrat, then you get irritated when Republicans call you a big-spending, soft-on-crime panderer to the poor.

If you're a Republican, then you get irritated when Democrats call you a militaristic, greed-driven pawn of the big corporations.

If you're pro-choice, then you hate having the pro-lifers painting you as a baby-killer.

If you're pro-life, then you hate having the pro-choicers painting you as a Bible-thumper.

When somebody uses simplistic terms to misrepresent you, it makes you angry. You know good and well that you aren't that way. You know that things are more complicated than that.

Now here's the Golden Rule of Fiction: 

Treat your characters the way you want to be treated.

You don't want people misrepresenting you. Don't do it to your characters.

If you intend to tell the truth about your characters, then you have to dive deep into them. You can't settle for a cartoon level understanding. When a character disagrees with you on some deeply held position, you have to play fair with him.

That's hard.

When your character is WRONG about something, when you know he's wrong, when it's plain as day he's wrong, when you just want to shake him and show him how wrong he is -- that's when you're in the most danger of not playing fair.

It's your job to understand your character. Even when he's wrong.

It's your job to become your character. To be wrong when you're inside his skin. To believe (if only for a moment) that he's right.

That's treating your character the way you want to be treated. It's playing fair.

Remember that only YOU are obligated to play fair. None of your characters have to. In fact, most of the time they won't. Most of the time they'll misunderstand each other. Most of the time, they'll misrepresent each other. Most of the time, they'll caricature each other.

That creates conflict, and conflict is good.

But when it's just you and your character, alone on the page, then you have to do your utmost to put yourself inside her shoes. To see the world from her point of view, not yours.

Even if she's wrong.

I think that's part of what Sol meant when he said that fiction is truth.

About The Author

Randy Ingermanson is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels. He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine.

 

 Randy Ingermanson Books at Amazon

 

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A Quick Note on How to Write Weird Fiction for the Novice Writer by Ryker J. Phoenix

 

A Quick Note on How to Write Weird Fiction for the Novice Writer

 

by Ryker J. Phoenix

 

 

Weird fiction is a genre of literature that has gained immense popularity over the years. It involves the creation of stories that are strange, bizarre, and completely surreal. It is this sense of the uncanny in weird fiction that has made it appealing to many readers. One particular work of weird fiction that has captivated readers for generations is H.P Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu".

"The Call of Cthulhu" tells the story of a group of sailors who discover an ancient tomb that houses a monstrous entity known as Cthulhu. The existence of Cthulhu is said to be tied to a cosmic, unknown force. As the sailors explore the depths of this ancient tomb, they uncover several horrifying truths about the universe and its inhabitants.

What makes "The Call of Cthulhu" an exceptional example of weird fiction is its ability to use the concept of the unknown to create a sense of horror and dread. The dread that surrounds Cthulhu in the story is not because of his physical appearance but rather what he represents. Lovecraft is able to create a sense of dread by making his readers question the very nature of reality.

Throughout the story, Lovecraft makes use of a particular style of writing that adds to the eeriness of the work. His use of long, complicated sentences adds to the sense of desolation that pervades the story. Moreover, his descriptive language paints vivid images in the reader's mind, making them feel as though they are a part of the story.

Another aspect that makes "The Call of Cthulhu" stand out is its themes of cosmic horror and the existence of a deity-like figure that exists beyond human comprehension. This theme of cosmic horror shows up across other works of weird fiction and creates a sense of an uncaring, hostile universe that is indifferent to the fate of human beings.

Here are some guidelines on how to write weird fiction:

1. Incorporate surreal and complex imagery: Weird fiction typically features bizarre or otherworldly images that challenge the reader's perception of reality. Consider exploring strange locations, unusual objects or creatures, and other oddities that will make your story feel alien and unsettling.

2. Create an atmosphere of unease: Use language and description to establish an unsettling tone throughout your narrative. Characters should feel anxious, uneasy or disoriented, and the setting should be mysterious and disconcerting.

3. Use non-linear storytelling: Instead of following a traditional narrative structure, experiment with unconventional methods of storytelling such as stream-of-consciousness, disjointed timelines or unreliable narrators. These techniques create a sense of disorientation and can enhance the feeling of weirdness in your story.

4. Draw from mythology and folklore: Many weird fiction stories incorporate elements of mythology or folklore, combining real-world legends with fantastic elements. Researching these myths and legends can provide inspiration for your story and help you create a thoroughly unique experience.

5. Don't be afraid to experiment: Weird fiction is a genre that allows for a lot of experimentation and creativity, so don't be afraid to try something new. Take risks with your storytelling and embrace the strange and unusual in your writing.

In conclusion, Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" is an excellent example of weird fiction that has captured readers' imaginations for generations. The use of cosmic horror, the unknown, and a surreal world create an atmosphere of dread that is unmatched in the realm of literature. Its themes of cosmic horror and the idea of a universe beyond human comprehension are still relevant today, and it is why "The Call of Cthulhu" continues to inspire readers across the world.

Also see:

• The Call of Cthulhu
• Classic Weird Tales
• Weird Fiction at Amazon

 

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There is a Magic in Story Writing by John Steinbeck | Writing Quote

 

There is a Magic in Story Writing

 

by John Steinbeck

 

 

 If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that make a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.

-- John Steinbeck

About thr Author  

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American author and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception." He has been called "a giant of American letters."  Wikipedia 

 John Steinbeck at Amazon

How to Enrage Your Character by Randy Ingermanson | Advanced Fiction Writing

 

How to Enrage Your Character

 

by Randy Ingermanson 

 

Advanced Fiction Writing

 

 

How to Enrage Your Character

As I’ve said many times, writing fiction is about giving your reader a powerful emotional experience. And you do that by giving your characters a powerful emotional experience.

The question is how to do that realistically. How do you set up a situation in which the character would naturally feel strong emotions?

That’s a large subject, too big for one column, but I can tackle one piece of it today.

Let’s talk about rage. That’s a powerful emotion for you, and it’s one that some of your characters will feel. 

Sometimes rage is justified. Think about the #MeToo hashtag, and you can come up with millions of examples of justified rage. I think we can all understand justified rage.

Unjustified Rage

But sometimes rage is unjustified. That’s a little harder to understand. Why would somebody go into an unjustified rage? Are they bad people, or is there some other explanation?

This is important. If we can’t understand it, we can’t write it. 

Let’s do a little thinking on unjustified rage. How do we make sense of it? Or is rage so irrational that we can’t make sense of it?

Think about the last time somebody was enraged at you. Has that happened to you, ever?  

If you can’t remember, let me toss out some short phrases that may jog your memory. I got these phrases by going to four popular web sites and scrolling down, looking for controversial topics, and typing them out in the exact order I saw them. It’s kind of a long list, even after I removed the duplicates:

• Guns
• National anthem
• Election districting
• Fundamentalism
• UFOs
• Federal corruption
• Russian investigation
• Climate change
• Environment/conservation
• Trump
• Obama
• Election fraud
• Putin
• Mega pastors
• Immigration
• LGBT
• Economic inequality
• Crime
• Fake news
• Taxes
• Bitcoin
• Euthanasia
• Creationism

 

What Makes People Angry?

Have you ever had a discussion on one of these topics and gotten angry at somebody? Maybe even enraged? 

Were you justifiably enraged, or unjustifiably? That’s actually a bad question. No doubt your rage was justified. 

But let’s turn it around. Has anyone ever been unjustifiably enraged at you over one of these topics? I’m guessing they have.

Now let’s ask the hard question—what caused them to be unjustifiably enraged?

That’s tough to answer, because you can’t go inside someone’s head to know what they’re thinking. All you can do is guess.

Here’s my guess, and I know it’s just a partial answer. People get unjustifiably enraged when they have a strong false belief about a current danger that is being ignored by “those other people.”

The rage comes from the strong belief that this terrible danger is being ignored.

If they actually had some expertise on the subject, their rage would probably be justified, because there are real dangers in the world. Ignoring those dangers is wrong. If a danger is high enough, people should be enraged that it’s being ignored. 

If you’re on the Titanic and you know there’s an iceberg ahead, you should be enraged when the captain says, “Full speed ahead.”

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

But what if the danger isn’t real? What if the person is misinformed? What if there is no iceberg?

That happens a lot. In that case, the rage is unjustified.

I’ve seen a fair number of cases where it looked to me like the rage-provider was much less informed on the subject than the rage-receiver. I bet you have too.

There’s some rather weird psychology that comes into play here, the “Dunning-Kruger effect.” It has two sides:

• Incompetent people often think they are much more competent than they actually are.
• Very competent people often assume that other people are much more competent than they actually are.

The key point here is that incompetents tend to rate themselves too high. Competents tend to rate other people too high. 

Competent people tend to rate themselves fairly accurately. They know what they know and what they don’t know. They have a good understanding of the level of uncertainty in ideas. They know which statements are real facts and can be known with high certainty. They also know which statements are less certain and could be right or could be wrong.  

But competent people tend to assume that “if it’s easy for me to understand, it’s easy for other people,” which is why they overrate other people’s level of knowledge. Note that they are overrating “other people” taken all together as a group. Of course, a competent person can easily tell that a particular person is incompetent by talking to them one-on-one. 

Incompetent people, on the other hand, tend to lack the knowledge to even recognize what competence is. They don’t realize how much there is to know. So they think they know more than they actually do. As your grandmother told you, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” You might say that incompetent people are logjammed by their own incompetence.

The way to break that logam is for incompetent people to study the subject more. A lot more. Once you get past the beginner stage, you realize how much you don’t know and you stop overrating yourself. Then as you start getting some actual expertise, you begin to rate yourself higher and higher, but now your self-rating is justified.

One advantage of education is that you learn how much you don’t know. When I was 13, I knew pretty much everything. By the time I was 26, I knew pretty much nothing, except on a very few subjects where I had some level of expertise. I like learning, and I know a lot more now than I did at 26. But I’ll never again be as smart as when I was 13.

One disadvantage of education is that there is an endless supply of people who know very little, but think they know more than you.

I’ve found that I can learn something from just about anyone, if only I can find out what subject they’re an expert on. The trick is figuring out if they’re a real expert, or if they just think they are. You can do that by asking questions about how they know that they know what they say they know. Real experts will answer differently than non-experts.

Authentic Unjustifiable Rage

So getting back to the subject of unjustifiable rage, here are my thoughts. Over the years, I’ve had some massive rage directed at me in discussions on certain controversial subjects where I actually have some expertise. Things I’ve spent years studying.

And the rage has come most often from people who didn’t appear to have much knowledge at all on the subject. But they thought they did. And they thought my opinion was not only wrong, it was dangerous. Hence, the rage.

The Dunning-Kruger effect explains this. They have a little knowledge. They see a danger that isn’t real. They get angry because I don’t see the danger.

They’re not necessarily bad people. But they’re still angry and the rage is still toxic. Knowing that can make it easier to deal with toxic people. (Although I wouldn’t advise ever telling anybody, “You’re toxic because you’re ignorant.” There are probably better ways to respond than that!)

And if you want to write fiction with three-dimensional characters, that’s the key thing you’re looking for. You can have nice people go into a terrible, toxic rage attack. The secret is to make them ignorant on the thing they’re angry about. It’s no sin to be ignorant. Everybody is ignorant on something. 

Homework

Think about the novel you’re writing right now. Is there any scene where a character goes into a rage? Is that character a bad person? Or just a regular, flawed human? How are you playing that character? What’s the motivation you’re showing for the rage? Is it possible you’ve got a Dunning-Kruger situation? How would you show that to make your character more three-dimensional? 

About The Author

Randy Ingermanson is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels. He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine.

 

 Randy Ingermanson Books at Amazon

 

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