When You Have to Tone it Down

I've talked at times about how, as I make Without Moonlight, I have to constantly make choices on what to include and what not to from …reality.

By that I mean that true, documented (and even photographed) events from the nazi occupation of Athens during WWII are so grotesquely extreme (in violence, in brutality, in sheer depravity) that were I to illustrate them, the audience's suspension of disbelief for my story would be shattered: "Come on now, this is cartoonishly evil, no way this is real," is the general reaction to such imagery or premises as the ones I'm talking about.

Even in the sanitized stuff I have included, I had a couple of people questioning whether I was being too extreme, and I had to PQ actual photographic evidence to convince them that I wasn't blowing things out of proportion to villify the nazis in a hamfisted, awkward fashion rather than "good writing".

I seriously, sincerely, don't blame them. I wish that they were correct 100% and that I was simply overdoing it with the evil or something. But they aren't, and I constantly have to question myself "will this be believed? Should I tone it down a bit? Should I give a 'light' version of this so immersion won't be broken?" and so on.

And that doesn't hold only for atrocities. There are many things that life throws at us which wouldn't 'fly' in a work of fiction, webcomic, movie, or novel. Mark Twain said it best: "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't."

So that leaves us, as creators of historical fiction and the like, with a conundrum:

When truth is stranger than fiction, how much of that can we afford to include in fiction?

There is no one right answer, of course. Just like some readers have questioned whether I exaggerated some scenes or elements in my WM panels, so have others told me that I sanitize them too much and should show them exactly as they happened, even if people don't believe what they see is not "dramatization" or exaggeration.

In my opinion, it depends on who you intend your target audience to be.

When I started making WM, I wanted it to be a stimulus that might intrigue people to look up parts of modern Greek history further, on their own. A gateway to modern Greece's legacy, if you like. What I did not want was the reader to be so appalled or shocked that they'd stop clicking to the next page. I wanted people to get a good, solid feel of civilian experience of WWII (and the occupation) in Greece, I wanted to depict accurate cultural and historical events, but I above all wanted people to still feel compelled to follow a story that was bound to be grim and hard by nature.

So I show the shocking stuff, but toned down to "plausible evil", if you like, for a work of fiction that can be read by people who know nothing about Greece and the sheer scale of horror people experienced during that time.

If the story's audience was intended to be a lot more aware of what they are in for, then I'd sanitize a lot less.

If the story's audience was intended to be of a certain age, I'd sanitize a lot more (or well, I wouldn't make it for such an audience, but theoretically).

So this is a grim illustration of needing to consider toning down Truth to make it fit in Fiction. There are other things too, like CIA trying to use psychics to spy on the USSR or a Norwegian captain fighting a British ship asking the British captain for ammo so he could continue fighting that same British ship.

Transcribing events like that into stories that want to be realistic and reflecting history rather than being urban fantasy or horror is tough!

Have you ever had this experience, as creator or audience?

Don’t forget you can now advertise on DrunkDuck for just $2 in whichever ad spot you like! The money goes straight into running the site. Want to know more? Click this link here! Or, if you want to help us keep the lights on you can sponsor us on Patreon. Every bit helps us!

Special thanks to our patrons!!











Justnopoint - Banes - RMccool - Abt_Nihil - PhoenixIgnis - Gunwallace - Cdmalcolm1 - PaulEberhardt - dragonaur - Emma_Clare - FunctionCreep - Eustacheus - SinJinsoku - Smkinoshita - jerrie - Chickfighter - Andreas_Helixfinger - Tantz_Aerine - Epic Saveroom - Genejoke - Davey Do - Spark of Interest - Gullas - Damehelsing - Roma - NanoCritters - Scott D - Bluecuts34 - j1ceasar - Tinchel - PhillipDP - Teh Andeh - Peipei - Digital_Genesis - Hushicho - Sad Demon Comics - JediAnn Solo - Kiddermat - BitterBadger - Palouka - cheeko - Paneltastic - [https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/L.C.Stein/]L.C.Stein - Zombienomicon - dpat57 - Bravo1102 - The Jagged - LoliGen - OrcGirl - Miss Judged - Fallopiancrusader - arborcides