R is for Reality

Reality check time, or at least some people sure need it, or so I have noticed.

Reality check: A word or phrase used to bring a person back into the life of those around them, sometimes used to smash hopes and dreams.

Don't get me wrong, I love ignoring reality. I write after all. I'd much rather spend my days not working but staying at home and playing in the fantasy worlds in my head. My characters are far more entertaining than part time minimum wage work at the deli. But I can't stay away from reality for too long because then I would become out of touch and that leads to more problems.

Reality can also help us as writers. Even when doing speculative fiction in worlds very different than our own having at least one foot in the realm of reality can help make a story stronger and for readers to want to read it. Readers like to have a link to reality in a story, no matter how fantastical the world involves.

Reality checks can also be good for character development. I love a character who dreams, who yearns for something more but the end result doesn't have to be the complete success of the dream in the way they expected/desired. In the book The Forest of Hands and Teeth, she dreams of finding the ocean and while those in her village think she needs to focus on reality, she follows her dream but the end result isn't what she expected.

So, while dreaming can be good, there needs to be more as well.


What do you think?
Do your characters get a reality check at some point?