Finding the Narrative
As I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama, the reporters and pundits strove to overlay a narrative on nearly every detail, from the gift that Michelle Obama brought Laura Bush to the look in George W. Bush’s eyes as Barack took the oath of office. That’s their job. They’re there to provide us with a context for what we see on TV.
Just like in fiction, the best narratives in life have a sense of both the improbable and the inevitable about them. President Obama’s personal history resonates with the strength of the American dream. A boy born to a Kenyan immigrant and a native Kansan, then raised by a single mother and his grandparents, grows up to become the first African-American President of the United States.
When Obama was a child, I’m sure this seemed like such an impossible dream that his parents couldn’t possibly have imagined it for him. Looking back from today, though, his ascent has a well-defined arc as clear as a meteor burning through the summer skies.
Good fiction works like that too. You start with a simple premise, and you follow the hero on a journey through a staggering series of events until coming to a triumphant close. Sure, not every story works this way, but the most satisfying ones tend to.
As the pundits (and Obama’s team) create this narrative, they pick out and highlight the relevant details, the ones that wind up having some bearing on the story line they’ve chosen. Details like who was his first girlfriend or what he had for breakfast on his first day at Harvard get passed over. They might be interesting in themselves, but they don’t mean anything to the story at hand.
As human beings, we crave that sense of order in the universe, the feeling that events mean something, especially when lined up next to each other. We want to believe that purpose drives our lives, not random chance, so we naturally winnow out those relevant details and leave the chaff behind.
Fiction has to follow that same urge. Nothing in a well-told tale is random, even if it might feel that way at any particular moment. In fiction, the author plays the role of the intelligent designer, placing every piece, forming every character, and setting events in motion.
This is why truth can—and often is—stranger than fiction. Reality is random, no matter how we may try to frame it.
Dick Cheney hurt his back just before the inauguration. This put him in a black overcoat and a wheelchair for the ceremony. All he needed was a white cat on his lap to transform him fully into Ersnt Stavro Blofeld.
Later in the day, Senators Ted Kennedy (last of his generation of Kennedy politicians) and Robert Byrd (former KKK leader who endorsed Obama in the primaries) both became ill at the post-inauguration lunch.
If you placed these events in a bit of serious fiction, you might set your readers’ eyes rolling. They’re just a little too pat to ring true—even if they are. To make such things work, a writer needs to set them up before knocking them down. Kicking something that’s already down is the act of a bully, not an author.
And nobody likes a bully.
