POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY AND WRITING ADVICE – Lisa Cron: Readers Expects the Protagonist Will Have a Longstanding Misbelief

In 2008, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. To learn more – and to satisfy my natural tendency to “teach stuff”, I started a series of essays taking the wisdom of published writers and then applying each “nugget of wisdom” to my own writing. During the six years that followed, I used the advice of a number of published writers (with their permission) and then applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda to an analysis of my own writing. Together these people write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Today I add to that list, Lisa Cron who has worked as a literary agent, TV producer, and story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and others. She is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. Again, with permission, I am using her article, “A Reader’s Manifesto: 15 Hardwired Expectations Every Reader Has for Every Story” (2/16/18 http://blog.creativelive.com/essential-storytelling-techniques/)

“The reader expects the protagonist will have a longstanding misbelief that has kept her from easily achieving that goal.”

This is a tough one for me to figure out because belief is so deeply ingrained in us, that even atheists seem to have trouble after dragging themselves free from anything not made of matter, ie, “the divine”.

Case to point that I can support: aliens.

Astrophysicist Carl Sagan had no patience with those who believe in any sort of invisible deity: “How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?’” [Odd – he never asked me…] “Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”

Stephen Hawking wasn’t interested in God, either: “‘We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in,’ Hawking wrote. ‘For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in.’”

Yet, neither man has any trouble believing in aliens: beings who exist solely in the imagination of Humans. Those of you who read my blog, know I write science fiction that includes aliens. No matter how intellectual the person believing in them is, they are believing that aliens “must exist”.

But when pushed (I teach a class called Alien Worlds for gifted and talented kids from 9-16), I have to say that the science teacher in me; the one that insists on EVIDENCE to support a position…has no response other than, “There is no evidence anywhere that there is life ANYWHERE but on Earth.”

“None. Nothing. Nowhere. No one has anything.”

“THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS.”

One of these avowed atheists had no trouble writing: “If it is just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” – (Contact, screenplay by Carl Sagan).

Additionally: “Contrary to the popular belief that aliens would be destructive to mankind, Sagan advocated that aliens would be friendly and good-natured.” https://www.famousscientists.org/carl-sagan/

Stephen Hawking said: “‘One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this,’…referring to the potentially habitable alien planet Gliese 832c. ‘But we should be wary of answering back. Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well,’ he added…” https://www.livescience.com/62015-stephen-hawking-quotes.html

So, if my protagonist has some sort “longstanding misbelief”, and the reader agrees with that misbelief, will they follow the story through to its conclusion? To THEM, the conclusion is foregone.

What if the character has a misbelief that the readers violently disagrees with, will they assume that it was that “misbelief that has kept her from easily achieving [her] goal” and throw the story aside, assuming that it was all propaganda, so not worth the reader’s time of day or effort?

How much leeway does a writer have when giving the protagonist a misbelief?

For some people, “…are concerned for the wellbeing of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature’s integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.” Others, “We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” Either would be guaranteed to put off some number of readers.

Or is Cron just talking about something like, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Even so, I suppose that someone, somewhere would find that statement objectionable. Some would find it objectionable in the extreme; or biased and homophobic…And yet, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE continues to be popular and the plot foundational to literature written in English (possibly in other languages, but I could only find PRIDE, PREJUDICE, AND OTHER FLAVORS (Sonali Dev), so there’s never been a groundswell of hatred and rejection of the books, so maybe my thoughts are absurd.

Any thoughts?

Source: https://scientificliteracymatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/carl-sagan-1024x576.jpg, https://www.livescience.com/63854-stephen-hawking-says-no-god.html, https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto3/, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+3%3A+21-25&version=NLT, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5882-it-is-a-truth-universally-acknowledged-that-a-single-man, https://www.amazon.com/Sonali-Dev/e/B00JOSJQFO/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1 Image: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51ddbf8fe4b0bf85e2f4edd2/t/592c2f0b414fb5ddd3a1259d/1496067864402/BookImage.jpg?format=300w