Synthetic, But Consistent

I’ve talked before about the concept of synthetic-but-consistent. At its root level, it is the source of verisimilitude. Although it’s a phrase commonly bandied about by several disciplines to the point of meaninglessness, I prefer to raise it to its own categorical status. In other words, how does any given piece of writing, in addition to its clarity and substance, adhere to this mandate of synthetic-but-consistent?

Any work of imagination is fashioned out of whole cloth, synthetically, with its own enhancements and limitations. A writer can expound only on what is already there, but at the same time, such expansion is obligated to be enhanced. And that’s the problem. When the writer starts throwing in everything but the kitchen sink, it becomes, in the popular terms, “over-done”, “over-the-top”, and “just plain messy”. The extreme depth of expression is not the issue; the issue is the haphazard, ad-hoc mishmash of different elements.

These elements, a character, a prop, a plot device, or a stylistic manner, have to be consistent. For example, a character known for his gentle soul can’t start cursing a blue streak. A machine gun introduced at the beginning needs to get fired by the end. A character’s double-cross should have some foundation in prior events. A staccato dialogue marked by its rapid-fire rhythm cannot suddenly drop into a ponderous monologue. And so on.

This concept is fungible in creative endeavors. You will note that most fine art you see in museums is consistent in its internal rearrangement of external reality. For instance, Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, while seemingly nonsensical in its carving-up of time and space, is completely consistent nonetheless.

Most popular music acts have distinctive sounds. For example, you could probably listen to five seconds of U2 on the radio, and regardless of whether you had heard the song before, you would immediately know who it is. Most likely, that consistency of vision is why Bono and his boys play to sold-out stadiums, while you and I troll blogs.

I’ve said before that the most important aspect of fiction is attitude. Attitude, as “a mental position or feeling with regard to a fact or state”, ensures a consistency beyond color and sound and temperature. It describes a world-view. In that world, no matter how deconstructed and rebuilt, all aspects, as long as they adhere to the recognized, expressed attitude, will remain consistent.