A relationship with the unreal: fan fiction perspective

I am here again to discuss an aspect of creative prose - fiction precisely – that gets the limelight quite often, especially from the various critics out there. The truth is, there are two different kind of fiction based on settings and characters. These include the partial fictions and the absolute fictions. In partial fictions, either a real setting or real characters are used. The writer was writing based on real life experiences, however he chose to add some fictitious elements to make his story more interesting and mind grabbing. This kind of writing could be a simple fictitious dilution or could be larger ones. Larger ones are seen in situations where a single character is real and the rest are absolute fiction. In such stories the character is often real but his setting is yet fiction. We all know that Ogun is a Yoruba god that lived thousands of years back. However, how will you picture an existence of a Sango in human form in the modern day America? It won’t add up too much but might yet make a lot of sense if the writer could make reality out of it. A smaller dilution will involve both characters and settings but a little twist in the story line. In this form the characters and settings might be absolute with little fiction. That means a character like Sango will exhume fire as expected and summon thunder via his thunder bolt. However how will you picture a Sango that uses machine gun and pull off martial art stunts? Don’t be surprised if exclamations like: “are you kidding me?” escaped from readers’ mouths.
It is at this junction the unreal comes in, the unreal is supposed to be a large divergence from reality - setting and character wise. Such divergence might be found in both partial fiction and absolute fiction. Mind you, an absolute fiction might not necessarily be unreal, however an absolute fiction have a higher tendency of being unreal if the writer is carefree about how realisable his assumptions are. I remember once serving as a critique to a writer and told him to adjust the absolutely unreal which I found in his story. I told him frankly, “Nobody will buy this your idea, it is too sceptical.”  However he only could tell me that correcting such premise is like saying what he saw in his dream is not how it was. Though he went on to publish the story; however am sure he would have frank reviews like I gave him. When we talk about professional unreal in prose, it is often found in fantasy stories or children stories. It is obvious that kids would enjoy any dumb story so far it is interesting and has lessons it teaches.
However the unreal in professional prose could be given vivid elements in form of the characters, settings and plot that would make them extremely acceptable by almost everyone. These forms of unreal are so vividly portrayed in words by the writer that readers found themselves at the very scenes or the worlds in which the stories actually happened. This does nothing but reiterate the fact that you can tell a stupid story in a classy settings and interesting characters. You would discover that the settings and characters’ classy feel would put reader’s mind off the fact that the story was not extra ordinary, however the characters appealed to them enough to overlook the plot flaws. An example of this can be found in a bestselling novel I once read. It was titled “Grisly Tuesday” the story was about a mega establishment with interstellar merchandise which was spread across the days we have. The story is a seven novel series, I was only fortunate to read the Tuesday version, however I was impressed enough by that one to crave reading the other members of the series.
This story was unreal enough in every sense but its unreal was very interesting. The strength of the story was the settings. In the settings the mansion of lord Tuesdays was built on a hill underneath which flows a mystical fluid called nothingness. Nothingness was that aspect of that story that was mind grabbing the most but yet unreal the most. Nothingness was mined by lord Tuesday’s wards to turn men into terrible individuals which are used and bent to lord Tuesday’s will. The truth is the nothingness in the story was exploited to earn the downfall of lord Tuesday eventually by an hero human who was the protagonist of the story. He was also the one that wrecked the establishment of lord Monday in the first installment to the series. I couldn’t probably tell you the depth of the whole setting but I can guarantee you that its unreal nature was justified enough to let us worry the least about reality but to enjoy the possibilities that such perfectly architected settings brought to life.
That might not be a mega popular story, how about the common “Avatar: the legend of ang”. In this story the setting and characters were its strength, the ideology of being able to utilize four key elements to supernatural bidding was an amazing idea that was generally accepted by fans of this story. The character of an Avatar who can utilize all the four elements was also a strength especially since he was initially given the identity of a learning avatar. This made his role more complicated and his person was more unpredictable leading readers to a lot of surprises as regard the Avatar’s capabilities. This particular story settings had won many fans over, that they ended up being able to imaginatively construct their own plots inside the Avatar’s settings. In the end a lot of fan fictional stories were written. The truth is the world of Avatar is unreal, but it was architected vibrantly enough for the fans to not only accept it but adore it enough to write their own stories about it. Other stories like harry porter, star wars and the rest can be mentioned.
The truth is all these stories earned their strength mostly from settings and then characters. When these two have been perfectly created, the plot will naturally flow in as a landlord will smoothly pack into his beautifully constructed new home. The unreal in these stories are not the ordinary ones that can be frankly criticized, No, they remain the face of innovation. They are the sort of unreal that crept into the readers mind, register a foundation of understanding, build a mansion of perception and linger there in forever.
Abd-afeez Abd-hamid