Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A How can I convey an absolute truth from the author to the reader without a mentor character?

There are sometimes moments in works of fiction where the author needs to convey something to the reader without ambiguity. Let's say the situations around the characters get so weird that the auth...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Andrey‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:38:13Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/35561
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Andrey‭ · 2019-12-08T08:38:13Z (almost 5 years ago)
There are sometimes moments in works of fiction where the author needs to convey something to the reader without ambiguity. Let's say the situations around the characters get so weird that the author starts to worry that the reader will think it is all a dream. The author needs to convey an absolute truth to the reader saying it is not, getting past that hangup and moving further.

The way I see this most commonly done in fiction is with the mentor character. Gandalf always tells the absolute truth about the universe. Even if Bilbo Baggins meets Gandalf in a weird situation if Gandalf says this is not a dream, the reader will believe it's not a dream.

Another such devices I commonly see is using small children. If a small child likes a character they are not evil. It's that simple.

Now in my work I don't have a mentor or a small child available. What is another way I can signal the reader that something is absolutely true, and they do not need to worry about it?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-04-26T13:52:48Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 17