Patrick Swearingen: "Dear Chuck Wendig: Friendship, Adventure, and The Feels"

Dear Chuck Wendig,

Friendship, Adventure, and The Feels

by

Patrick Swearingen 

            The troubles and interests that readers encounter in science fiction and fantasy often coincide with each other. Good science fiction and fantasy will introduce troubles and interests using the same themes. These themes must of course be relatable to the reader’s own troubles and interests.

Friendship is one of the themes throughout science fiction and fantasy that produces relatability in characters, as well as creating troubles and interests for the reader. Readers find an interest in friendship because they enjoy the bonds formed between characters. It allows readers to compare their own friendships, and even share the book with their friends saying, “This scenario reminded me of our friendship.” However, this theme also speaks to the troubles that readers have. Many people have a fear of being alone, or at least not having close friends. Thus, friendship in fiction draws on these troubles to create the sense of fantasy, something that might be unreachable for readers. Even if people have friends, they might have fear the fear of losing them, or that their friends are not as close as they let on to be. In either case, science fiction and fantasy stories that explore the depths of friendship, both the negative and positive experiences, create a sense of interest and trouble for the reader.

Another theme that produces interest and trouble for readers is adventure. They can relate the adventures of the characters in science fiction and fantasy to their own life. If the character is forced to make a decision, readers relate this to decision making in their own lives. If the character overcomes a great feat, readers relate this to their personal successes. This relatability with a character’s adventure create interest for the readers. Similarly, the same works for the difficult times in a character’s adventure. If a character fails a trial in their adventure, readers relate this to their own failures. This creates a sense of trouble from the adventure theme. However, readers do not just feel a sense of failure, they also can experience the character overcoming this failure, thus relating to the reader’s own ways of dealing with difficult times in their lives. It allows readers to confront their failures from a new perspective. The adventurous theme is attractive to readers because they can relate to the adventure through the interest and troubles portrayed by similar situations.

One of the most powerful themes seen throughout science fiction and fantasy is commonly called, ‘the feels.’ The feels is more or less when a character goes through an emotional event, usually depressing. When immersed in reading, a reader will begin to feel the same way as the characters in the story. They will feel empathetic towards the characters, so much so that they feel the emotions themselves. The interest and trouble with this theme arises from escape that comes with feeling a character’s emotions. By feeling empathy for a character, the reader is further immersing themselves in the world of the story. The immersion is of interest to those who want to escape their real lives for a time. ‘The feels’ can likewise convey a readers troubles. If the reader is experiencing a similar emotion based on real situations, they will relate strongly to the character and their troubles. It creates more relatability to the book and its characters, ultimately creating a better read. Whether the reader wants to escape boredom, depression, or just needs a break, having scenarios that allow them to feel intense empathy for characters creates an interesting story.

In order to create successful stories, authors must make their works relatable for readers. This relatability is created by including themes that both interest and trouble the readers. The themes I relate to most are friendship, adventure, and ‘the feels.’ These themes both create interest and trouble for readers, and are thus relatable for many people.