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Verisimilitude, dear readers. Verisimilitude. Mouthful of a word, isn’t it? In fiction it speaks directly to the issue of “realism”, and how close or how far a story holds to how we understand things to function in our daily lives. It’s also tied into willing suspension of disbelief, internal consistency, blah-dee blah…
The important thing to me here, this week, was how it plays into a certain protagonist finally getting the opportunity to punch the hell out of someone who richly, richly deserved it.
Zombie Ranch is a story where for the most part, I haven’t had the characters do too much that might be considered, for lack of a better term, “badass”. They’re not superheroes. In fact, keeping with the theme of reality television, I like to think of them just plain folks. Plain folks doing a dangerous job. I tend to write them that way, too, because it makes them real to me… and, hopefully, that carries through to the readership.
The thing is, though, that no fiction will be absolutely true-to-life, at least not any fiction I would find conceivably enjoyable. This opinion piece has an interesting discussion on realism as applied to superhero comics, which includes the following quote: “…when fans talk about wanting more “realism” in their superhero stories, I don’t think that’s what they mean. I think they want verisimilitude. Which is a ten-dollar word that translates to, more or less, “fake realism that I can sort of believe in even though I know it’s silly.” ”
Now that’s definitely a “more or less” translation, but I understand what the author’s getting at, and it applies to more than just superheroes but all manner of drama. Every time some CSI perp is identified based on their “enhanced” reflection in a crappy photograph, every time the commanders of great armies suddenly find themselves face to face on the battlefield where they can engage in single combat, every time characters trade perfectly formed, zingy one-liners over the blades of their crossed swords or the trays of their afternoon tea… none of these things are very realistic, are they? But they sure are entertaining. No matter how grounded and realistic the setting, we crave a certain amount of departure. We want those acceptable breaks from reality, or why bother with fiction at all?
Even where the vaunted “reality television” is concerned, by the time it reaches an audience there’s a soundtrack added, visual effects, and tons and tons of editing to make sure you only see enough of the boring moments of working a crab boat long enough to remind you there are boring moments. But Zombie Ranch mostly represents the raw footage, right?
Well, it’s also a story. Mind you, it’s a story I paced with a deliberate slowness to the point where at least one review accused that in the entire first issue/episode, “nothing happens”, but there’s still plenty of stuff that comes with a bit of dramatic license attached, whether for the sake of humor or just presenting something cool.
Most of the time I’m pretty low-key about it, and Dawn’s art follows suit. You probably won’t ever see someone in this comic wielding chainsaw nunchucks, awesome as that is. It ain’t that kind of setting. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try to provide the occasional cathartic, heroic moment of… well, verisimilitude, of the kind Suzie has just busted out.
Some people even contend such moments are good for character development, but regardless of that they sure are damn good fun to read.
And write.