 Welcome to church of the chair where I have answers even if you didn't ask any questions. I'm your host E and today we're doing some more unsolicited advice. Now before we get started I want to preface this with something that will hopefully make this a less controversial topic. I have brought this up in friend circles and even outside of friend circles with perfect strangers and conversations tend to get heated. So I want to preface this with this. I am not telling you how to do anything. All I'm trying to do is give you not really other options but another point of view on certain things and especially some life experience that I've had myself that changed how I look at how I read fiction. In case you haven't read the title of this video today we're doing an unsolicited advice topic about let fiction be fiction. Once again you do not have to follow any of this if you feel like you are perfectly happy with the way that you read the way you do things. I am perfectly okay with that. Let's jump into the video. The first example I want to give you is a classic example of what I'm talking about when I say let fiction be fiction. Superman and I believe it's Superman too. I could be wrong. I still haven't looked it up because it's not that's not as important to me as what I have to say about it. It's the one where he flies I guess spoilers for one of the Superman movies. He flies around the earth in the wrong direction and turns back time. Reviews all over the internet now in the digital age and the age of the internet always bring this up as an impossibility. When I was younger no one brought this up. I think the only thing that I had ever heard as a kid when we went to go see the movie was my dad say well that's not possible. And of course it is not possible, which is the topic of discussion for this video. Let fiction be fiction. There's a couple things of note here. Metropolis doesn't exist in our world, neither does Gotham. In fact the DC universe and damn near every comic book universe in existence has their own timelines even some of them their own physics. Who's to say that in that world that is not possible? And that is my point and that's the point of the entire video today is letting a story that is already impossible be impossible. Now I also need to add that I'm not talking about continuity errors. Never in that movie is it said that it is impossible to fly backwards or to go the opposite direction and reverse time. That's never said. One example I used was this. If you establish at the beginning of your story or somewhere in the story that elephants lay eggs and then at the end of the story the elephant doesn't lay an egg, it has a live birth, that's a continuity error. So I'm not talking about continuity errors, I'm talking about our own expectations and what kills our joy when we are reading fiction. Because as I said before I am guilty of this as well. This changed for me a couple years back when I was reading something and I started to say something that I usually don't say which was that would never happen. In the universe of the world there was absolutely nothing wrong with this happening. So you hear a lot, I've never said this particular one but this person would not do this specific thing. If it is possible someone has done it. I promise you there is someone out there with the weirdest kink or whatever you want to call it, the weirdest thing imaginable they have done it. I mean there's necrophilia, there's bestiality, there's all different kinds of things. If it is possible in our realm, in our universe it has been done. It's a very solipsistic point of view to think that just because you would not do something or you know people who would not do something that the individual in the story would not do it. Which brings me to my next point which is let characters make whatever decision they want and see if you are happier at the end of the book. Once again we're not talking about continuity errors, we are talking about how characters react to things and what they do in reaction to those things because it is fiction. Main reason I'm making this video is to try and help some people who may be reading and constantly upset because they do not think that what is occurring in the story is possible. It's fiction and the way I look at it now is just like that. So I started doing some research going back when did I start having this mentality because when I was a kid I accepted a whole cloth whatever was put in front of me on a screen, of course I knew it was fiction, I knew it wasn't possible and of course that helps. I accepted stories, whole cloth, I didn't complain about any of this stuff, it wasn't until I grew up came of age whatever you want to call it that I started nitpicking things and that didn't even start until my I would say mid 30s when I met a editor who I worked with on several projects who could not stand in possibilities whether that be supernatural or any and we're going to talk about that that's the last point that I'm going to make. When I realized a few years ago I am now 42 I'm about to be 43 on August 18 mark that down on your calendars not just kidding but so for all for about eight years I had this mindset no that's not right it's about five years five years I had this mindset that everything in my fiction had to be plausible given the rules and physics of our world and all of that I didn't go out I didn't go beyond that and I was really limiting what I was able to write because it had to make sense there is an entire genre of books called bizarro fiction there's also weird fiction spec fiction not to mention sci-fi and fantasy and I seem to see this a lot even in sci-fi and fantasy where people will say that would not happen I it it it bothers me now looking back on it that I reviewed poorly so many books that should not have been reviewed poorly simply because of my own personal expectations for something if I thought something shouldn't happen then it shouldn't happen in the book which really limits my enjoyment of course as it would and likely it limits your enjoyment when you find things out of place in a book that you don't necessarily agree with we can even throw out politics religion any of that stuff just because you don't agree with it you are closed off to that idea and I say I suffer from the same thing because I don't read Christian fiction because my mind is closed off to that thing I was a Christian in one point in my life I gave that up and now I don't read those things should I be reading those things well it depends on me the individual so again do what you want to do I'm just trying to help those people who got stuck in a rut like I did where everything had to be fictional my final point here is the supernatural I see this all the time being the Stephen King fan that I am one of the number one issues that it's not an issue really but one of the the most prevalent comments on my videos were this book was good until the supernatural stuff started to happen I don't understand that I never have and that even back when I was you know working only in plausible and reading stuff and yet what usually upset me was when a character would make a decision that seemed to me to be a foolish decision that bothered me I never really signed I never really wrote off the supernatural in total because like I said I am a Stephen King fan I hear a lot that using the supernatural in your stories is a cop-out I don't agree with that I'm hearing that a lot especially these days but also especially these days I feel like we need more escapism we need more stories that are outside of the norm more stories that take us away from the world and the drama that we face every day and the supernatural is the easiest way to do that now I'm not talking about people who are like real life stuff is scarier than than supernatural stuff I tend to agree with you but at the same time I do not think that anything supernatural is a cop-out now pointing to things like let's say Stephen King's the outsider which was a huge problem for some people because once again he went supernatural my response to that usually is well yeah it's Stephen King everything eventually comes back to the supernatural even in some of the stuff that you wouldn't think like the Shawshank Redemption and a couple other things but what you don't see is you don't see people complaining about the supernatural aspects of say the green mile which seems interesting to me so we all pick and choose what we're going to get upset at who we're going to believe what fiction we are going to consider plausible so that's my point of view it's not really a plea I'm not begging you but if you're struggling with something and the only reason you're struggling is based on your own programming of what you believe is is possible or what should be in fiction I would ask you to simply consider the alternative to consider that stories fictional stories should be fictional they should be outlandish they should be overblown they should be unexpected if you're perfectly fine with what you're doing I have no problem with that whatsoever but I thought I would offer a different perspective to this whole thing and maybe someone out there will go hey let me try this and find out that they enjoy their books even more than they did to begin with because I don't remember a time in my childhood when I didn't when I when I didn't just accept a story for that for exactly that for a story and nowadays especially with all misinformation no matter what side of things that you're on the misinformation that we are willing to believe that makes no sense yet we are complaining about our fiction which is supposed to be a lie or as Stephen King said the truth in the lie finding the truth in the lie any so that's everything I have for you today I hope this helps someone if it even helps one of you this video is completely worth it if you have topics for future unsolicited advice videos let me know down there in the comments section also let me know whether or not you can just let fiction be fiction or if you're someone that if it doesn't go exactly how you expect it to go you are irate let me know all that stuff down there in the doobly-doo but until next time I'll hell the chair