“Humans are essentially storytellers,” Walter Fisher wrote in describing what he called the Narrative Paradigm (Fisher 265). Fisher wrote at length about the ability to persuade using stories rather than focusing so much on arguments. In his view, stories are more likely to pull people to one way of thinking or another, and smart people will use those stories. He also focused on the idea of narratives and what makes them believable. In all of Fisher’s work, there is a central theme—if one wants to persuade the reader, then the narrative needs to be realistic, coherent, and logically structured. From Fisher’s work, one can come to the conclusion that what influences the need for a narrative to be realistic is the extent to which the storyteller is using his or her story to persuade the reader on some point. If the author intends to use the narrative to persuade the reader, then the narrative must be believable and realistic in some respects. If there is no desire to persuade the reader, then the author is free to do with the narrative what he or she pleases, as long as the author’s narrative is designed to fulfill the stated goals for that writer.
Believable narratives are needed if the goal of the story is to persuade individuals. Fisher writes that storytelling can primarily be a tool by which the author makes a compelling argument to the reader. The author does this by showing the reader rather than by telling the reader about some important truth. Because the goal is to get the reader to believe what is being argued by the author, the narrative has to be believable. As Fisher notes, when people read documents, they are looking for structural coherence between what the characters say and what the characters do. If a character has proven himself to be violent and volatile, then a reader will not believe the story if that character’s words and conversations fail to reflect the reality that readers have constructed about that particular character. With this in mind, a structural and logical coherence is needed in order for people to be able to buy what the author is selling through a narrative, assuming that the author’s goal is actually to sell something to readers through this part of his or her work. In addition to needing this kind of structural clarity and coherence, one would also need to have in place a sense of fidelity to the values that people believe to be true and hold dear. Fisher makes a point that people tend only to believe those things that are central to their core beliefs (Fisher 57). Even the readers of a narrative do not want to be challenged too much, so in order for a writer to appeal to them, she has to make the narrative in such a way that readers see alignment between the words on the page and the values that they hold at the end of the day. Fisher’s argument, then, is that without these two elements or pillars of believability in place, an author has little chance of convincing the reader of anything because the reader will simply dismiss the story off-hand if it conflicts with his values or if it does not have the structural coherence that readers often demand in these situations. As he writes in his book, “The narrative paradigm is the foundation on which a complete rhetoric needs to be built” (Fisher 201).
Not every story is meant to be a persuasive one designed to make an argument to the reader. To the extent that a story is meant simply to entertain and does not have an ulterior motive, then the dialogue does not need to be realistic. In fact, people tend to be less entertained by unrealistic dialogue and stories. In A Wonderlandiful World, Shannon Hale wrote, “If I do my best, may this story be recorded and printed and zipped and zapped into hands and eyes and ears and minds and hearts everywhere, and may it no longer be my story but belong to each reader who drinks it in, to make them bigger or smaller as needed…to in every regard do just what a story is supposed to do, which is become whatever each reader needs most at that moment” (Hale 12). This is the essence of the alternative purpose that an author may have. He or she may be constructing stories so that people may take those stories, hold on to them, and bend them over time to fit the needs of the person receiving the story. These are the entertaining stories that live over time, and there is no need for the narrative to be realistic because people can find meaning in unrealistic stories in some instances. The only way that a realistic narrative is needed is in those circumstances where the author has written the story for the specific purpose of serving as a placeholder for an argument that is better made through a story than through more direct means. On way that storytelling serves to make an argument is in seen in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, where she writes, “You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire” (Lee 20:48). The author is making the point about the equality of men, and how different races should be treated equally. She does so through the story of a man defending another man in court, which allows the reader to easier access the important points about fairness and equality that she intends to make.
The thing that determines the need for a narrative to be realistic or unrealistic is the purpose of the story and what the author is seeking to accomplish with his narrative. As Fisher notes, some stories are meant to be the best possible form of argument, convincing readers to adopt some view or understand some point of view without having to beat them over the head with that view. This is seen in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” where the characters are relatable and the author is able to communicate his points about social isolation as a result” (Gardner). Fisher notes, then, that the narrative must jive with the reader’s values, and it must strike the reader as being logically coherent. At the same time, there are stories that are not written for the purpose of persuasion, and when those stories exist, it is not necessary for there to be a realistic narrative. The extent to which the storyteller hopes to make a persuasive argument with his story dictates the need for the story to be told in a realistic way at the end of the day.
- Fisher, Walter R. “Human communication as narration: Toward a philosophy of reason, value, and action.” (1989).
- Fisher, Walter R. “Narration as a human communication paradigm.” Contemporary rhetorical theory: A reader (1999): 265-287.
- Gardner, Janet E., et al. “Literature: A Portable Anthology.” (2013).
- Hale, Shannon. A Wonderlandiful World. Little USA.
- Milton, Joyce, and Harper Lee. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Barron’s Educational Series, 1984.
