Is authenticity something we can control?

[OddLove]

From a Psychology Today article.

...

• Authenticity is not the same as honesty, consistency, or being real.
• Authenticity is acting according to one’s true self and behaving congruently with values and personality.
• Authenticity is largely subjective; we feel it only when our appraisal of a situation justifies it.

...

To one author, writing authentically would be massively different from another author.

If author A has an ambitious goal of writing a best selling book, and they're writing a story in a genre they don't even personally enjoy, that is still in accordance to their own values and goals.

But author B might not share those values and goals, so from their own perspective, it doesn't seem authentic. If they knew author A didn't even read fantasy fiction, they might think something like "That person is fake as fuck."

Just a thought.

On the other side of the pen, I think an author could create a character who is genuine and true to themself, and acts in what the author considers an 'authentic' way, but a reader who has a whole different universe in their skull wouldn't see that character as authentic.

To me, that was a big struggle when I wrote some stories and found out that one of my favorite characters was annoying to some readers. It took me a few days to just accept we're all living inside our own worlds full of unique experiences and emotions, so there's no way another human will see our characters exactly how we see them.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

I don't think about authenticity when I write. To me being authentic is something I do. It's not something that happens in a story. Unless I was writing my autobiography, then I'd think about being authentic.

I do think about 'believability' of the characters, their actions and (sometimes) the scenarios. That includes making their decisions align with how they've acted so far, and if not, explaining why not by sharing more about the characters backstory.

 

[AG31]

The Greek word - Authentikos means original or genuine, so it depends on whether your work is original or genuine (from your soul). Most work in Literotica is original, not so sure about genuine. So authenticity depends on your definition choice

YMMV

I'm thinking of the appearance to the reader of being from the author's soul.

 

[AG31]

Let's also observe that authenticity and quality live on totally different axes. Implying or disimplying one doesn't imply or disimply the other, except to the extent that someone tried and failed.

Yes, indeed. I made that point in the older Authenticy thread that I reference in the OP. i gave an example of a Lit story that seemed very authentic to me, powerful, albeit not well written. Grandma Moses comes to mind for some reason... not necessarily apt.

 

[AG31]

people like me, with low emotional variability, writing high-emotion stories.

I think this is worth a thread of its own. Can you tell us more? Are you talking about empathy? Reaction to the loss of someone close? Strength of any emotion, like anger or fear or humor?

So if genuine feeling during the writing makes for a better story, it doesn't necessarily make for a more popular story.

For me it's one of the things that can make me very much like a story that's completely out of my area of erotic interest. If I didn't mention @AlexBailey's A T-Girl and a Tomboy in that earlier thread, I should have.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I think this is worth a thread of its own. Can you tell us more? Are you talking about empathy? Reaction to the loss of someone close? Strength of any emotion, like anger or fear or humor?

For me it's one of the things that can make me very much like a story that's completely out of my area of erotic interest. If I didn't mention @AlexBailey's A T-Girl and a Tomboy in that earlier thread, I should have.

One of the first threads I created was about how much people empathize with their characters. This probably sums up a lot of the question you're asking. I'm autisitc, which I don't think I'd explicitly come out as here at the time, just for additional context.

Yikes...

I have very little empathy for my characters, but I also struggle with empathy more generally. What I am good at is prying open the inside of someone's head (usually metaphorically) and parsing why they feel a certain way, what makes them believe something, how their internal logic works. I know generally how emotions feel based on my own experience, talking to people about how certain sensations feel for them, and reading.

I've spent most of my life breaking down social interactions and human motivations because none of it comes naturally to me. It requires a lot of focus and analysis, because humans are complex and often words, intentions, and body language doesn't match up. It also requires me to emulate a lot of those feelings and put a lot of thought into my intonation, affect, body language, facial expressions, emphasis, how long to hold eye contact, what have you, because I naturally will be fairly flat and expressive myself in a straightfoward fashion (when I'm not being a sarcastic know-it-all, anyway). I feel like that's helped me immensely in crafting characters with eye on expressing emotion in ways that aren't simply, "She got mad."

Which isn't to say I feel nothing for them, or treat them as meat puppets with no soul who exist as my playthings and naught else. On the contrary, I try to make up for my dificulty with empathy by really digging into character motivations, sensations, and emotions. I'm not sure if at good at capturing it as I used to be, but I'd like to think I can at least construct multi-dimensional characters that people can connect with. Self-inserting helps, but I try to max out details about myself to a small handful, and almost always more psychological/thinking rather than physical attributes, because nobody wants to read a story about the same person's neuroses and hangups across a dozen different MCs. Luckily, I have plenty of spare

I will also say I've known writers who are empathetic, but write incredibly bland characters and have prose such as, "That made him angry," rather than focusing on the visceral nature of the anger and letting the reader deduce emotional state from non-explicit cues. But that's more of a skill issue than anything.

Also loved reading everyone's responses. Truly appreciate the amount of thought and care that go into your characters.

As for the emotional variability, I just don't have as big of emotional reactions as other people. I'm not at all emotionally impulsive. I dunno if that's linked to my autism, I suspect it is to some degree, but people on the spectrum also have big emotions, so it's not like it's a universal thing. It might be related to my particular brand of spectrumness, more likely all the various PTSDs, lots of treatments, who knows at this point I vastly prefer it to the wild mood swings I see in other people, lemme tell you.

 

[AlexBailey]

Authenticity comes if the characters stay inside their given personalities. They act as described...
If they suddenly change tack, do something outside their given roles, the story loses 'Authenticity'.
If characters just follow the plot randomly. The story loses the feel of plausibility... As a reader you might say. "That seems strange, they wouldn't do that."

That part in bold

Authentic characters have backstory, even if you don’t tell it. Just like real people, their past and experiences affect how they respond to new situations.

If you drop them into an ideal situation that doesn’t challenge them they don’t have any reason to display any depth. Where does any dialogue come from? Trying to write dialogue with no depth is like trying to constantly come up with pickup lines.

If you put a character with backstory in a challenging situation their personality comes to life and ‘authentic’ dialogue nearly writes itself.

 

[SimonDoom]

My chief objection to focusing on authenticity is if it's regarded as a limiting factor. I'm 100% opposed to telling authors, "You shouldn't write a story if it doesn't reflect something authentic about yourself." Bollocks. Writers should write what they want. Great stories can be the product of artifice, something completely different from what an author feels and experiences in their own personal life. Authenticity can, in many cases, enrich a story. But nobody should take it as a barrier or limit. Authors should feel free to write stories and create characters that are fundamentally alien to their own values, experiences, and feelings. Don't limit yourself.

 

[Britva415]

the actors were actually authentically laughing and fucking around. And that's what the scene required

I don't think you can say "that's what the scene required."

We can say "it wound up working," and we can say maybe the reason it worked was because something authentic was captured, but actors struggling to not break isn't like criminals giving the finger to the authorities.

Maybe we can agree that the film editors found something which felt authentic to the audience in the clusterfuck which got filmed. And, sure, the actors' mirth was authentic, but it isn't what anyone was trying to portray, which makes it inauthentic to what the scene called for before it was re-worked in post production.

 

[StillStunned]

Maybe we can agree that the film editors found something which felt authentic to the audience in the clusterfuck which got filmed. And, sure, the actors' mirth was authentic, but it isn't what anyone was trying to portray, which makes it inauthentic to what the scene called for before it was re-worked in post production.

The final episode of "Blackadder Goes Forth" ends with the characters going "over the top": out of the trench into a hail of shrapnel and machine gun fire. The producers were stumped to find a way that fitted the dark comedy of the show without undermining the tragedy or being disrespectful of the dead of WWI. They shot the scene with the actors climbing out of the trench and the shells exploding, but it didn't feel right.

In the end, with minutes to spare, they decided to fade out to a poppy field. It was pure desperation, but when they watched the final product and realised they'd got it absolutely spot-on. Fans of the series generally consider it to be the perfect ending.

Does it feel "authentic"? Yes. But was it an "authentic" process? I don't think so. But that doesn't matter, because it works.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

It was pure desperation, but when they watched the final product and realised they'd got it absolutely spot-on.

Great stuff.

A little similar to how they ended up with the ending to Local Hero, if you know that film. The final shot was supposed to be the Peter Riegert character back in Texas, looking forlorn, but they thought it was too downbeat. They had no other footage and reshoots were out of the question. So they shoved on a shot of the telephone box, with no actors in it, added the sound of it ringing and Mark Knopler's stupendous score and...it transformed the ending into not something just upbeat but really moving.

We can say "it wound up working," and we can say maybe the reason it worked was because something authentic was captured, but actors struggling to not break isn't like criminals giving the finger to the authorities.

To be honest, I don't really see why not, especially given that it worked so well and was included in the final film. But let's not haggle the difference.

I think your point about acting is interesting, and instructive to AG31's question. Certainly when it comes to the erotica bit of literotica. Can one write an arousing scene if not actually aroused by the material? Or is it better - will it really hit the spot - if the writer is authentically aroused when writing?

Actors go to huge lengths to get themselves into the right emotional headspace, not so they're acting a scene but so that they are feeling those feelings authentically as they perform. It's worthwhile idea for writing erotica, I feel.

 

[AG31]

My chief objection to focusing on authenticity is if it's regarded as a limiting factor. I'm 100% opposed to telling authors, "You shouldn't write a story if it doesn't reflect something authentic about yourself."

I couldn't agree more. I actually think authenticity, as I tried to define it, is quite rare, and may often be present only in an author's first book. It's certainly not a requirement for a good or even great book.

But if an author feels absolutely impelled to write about something, they should dither around trying to figure out what the audience wants. They should just write it as well as they can.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I couldn't agree more. I actually think authenticity, as I tried to define it, is quite rare, and may often be present only in an author's first book. It's certainly not a requirement for a good or even great book.

But if an author feels absolutely impelled to write about something, they should dither around trying to figure out what the audience wants. They should just write it as well as they can.

So basically your definition of authenticity is: "The author wanted to write this, and had 0 motivation other than that?"

 

[Cagivagurl]

they are going to react iThat part in bold
riter is keeping it real
Authentic characters have backstory, even if you don’t tell it. Just like real people, their past and experiences affect how they respond to new situations.

If you drop them into an ideal situation that doesn’t challenge them they don’t have any reason to display any depth. Where does any dialogue come from? Trying to write dialogue with no depth is like trying to constantly come up with pickup lines.

If you put a character with backstory in a challenging situation their personality comes to life and ‘authentic’ dialogue nearly writes itself.

I don't disagree entirely.
Once characters have been developed, they take on personality traits. Just like real people, the difficulty is maintaining their personality in a changing environment...
Nobody knows exactly how they are going to react to certain situations until you are actually in them... You can hope that you would be able to maintain your ethical stand, but.... If somebody offered you 10million to just slip that little pill into somebody's drink... You don't actually know... 10 million is life changing...
Yes... no... Maybe....
So people do change over time. The problem for the writer is keeping it real... They have developed a character with aa personality, they might be greedy, or jealous, or just plain nasty...
Those traits don't change unless something deep and meaningful happens...
If characters just change to suit the plot, then (And this is solely my opinion) Then the story loses authenticity.
My earlier point is authenticity comes if a story is able to feel real... Readers like myself like to fall into the story, I pick a character I like and for the story, I become that character...
If the character changes for no reason... Then it spoils my immersion...

I'm not sure I've explained that properly, hopefully you get it... Not expecting you to agree, merely see from my perspective.

 

[AlexBailey]

I don't disagree entirely.
Once characters have been developed, they take on personality traits. Just like real people, the difficulty is maintaining their personality in a changing environment...
Nobody knows exactly how they are going to react to certain situations until you are actually in them... You can hope that you would be able to maintain your ethical stand, but.... If somebody offered you 10million to just slip that little pill into somebody's drink... You don't actually know... 10 million is life changing...
Yes... no... Maybe....
So people do change over time. The problem for the writer is keeping it real... They have developed a character with aa personality, they might be greedy, or jealous, or just plain nasty...
Those traits don't change unless something deep and meaningful happens...
If characters just change to suit the plot, then (And this is solely my opinion) Then the story loses authenticity.
My earlier point is authenticity comes if a story is able to feel real... Readers like myself like to fall into the story, I pick a character I like and for the story, I become that character...
If the character changes for no reason... Then it spoils my immersion...

I'm not sure I've explained that properly, hopefully you get it... Not expecting you to agree, merely see from my perspective.

Oh, I wasn’t disagreeing at all, just giving what you said a thumbs up and adding a few of my own thoughts.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

I pick a character I like and for the story, I become that character...

I have to say I have never heard of anyone reading like that (which probably says more about me than you). I find that totally fascinating.

Can I ask: do you have to make a conscious choice to do this or do you find yourself just doing it naturally? And is it an erotica thing or do you do it with any kind of fiction?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

One of the challenges of "authenticity" is that everyone has a different definition of "normal".

Many of us have had at least one experience that if we wrote about it in a story some reader would cry foul and claim that it's just made up porn stuff. Yet it happened.

I think I've mentioned previously, one of my male friends lost his virginity in a MFF threesome. I suspect that is a pretty rare occurrence, but then again so is winning the lottery or getting struck by lightening.

With the obvious exception of the stories I've written with a super-natural element, I try to aim for plausible, even if not likely.

 

[Cagivagurl]

I have to say I have never heard of anyone reading like that (which probably says more about me than you). I find that totally fascinating.

Can I ask: do you have to make a conscious choice to do this or do you find yourself just doing it naturally? And is it an erotica thing or do you do it with any kind of fiction?

Yes, I love to immerse myself in a story. Regardless of genre. I don't read erotica for sexual stimulation. I read for pleasure, that comes from nicely developed characters, interesting dialogue, drama, and interesting plots...
My preference is stories told in first person, if I like the main character. For the story I can let myself be transported into the events unfolding...
A different world, situations I might otherwise never visit...

 

[liliput1]

Readers like myself like to fall into the story, I pick a character I like and for the story, I become that character...
If the character changes for no reason... Then it spoils my immersion...

I tend to do the reverse and wonder which character is the most biographical - which one the author inhabits or which one is based on someone the author knows.

I try to project myself as a friend to one or more of the characters. When they make stupid moves or finally confess their deepest fears I end up saying, “oh honey…”

That said, when our friends have unpredictable reactions to situations it triggers curiosity. It’s a mystery to be solved, and if the author never resolves it then it becomes dissonant. Which is more or less the same reaction you are describing but with more steps.

 

[nice90sguy]

I see people refer to "authenticity" a lot. But I really have no clue what it's supposed to mean.

I take it to mean "could actually happen." - there are millions of stories, movies, etc where there is no pretence at (my meaning of) authenticity, and where asking if the story is "authentic" misses the point.

Etymologically, it derives from "author", where it used to mean approximately, "not a fake/not plagiarised/not passed off as ones own work".

e.g. "This is an authentic Chippendale chair". I don't use it in this way.

 

[AG31]

So basically your definition of authenticity is: "The author wanted to write this, and had 0 motivation other than that?"

It comes across as if the author wanted to write it. I wouldn't go so far as to say 0 motivation other than that.

 

[AlexBailey]

I agree, "not-always," but I think they (we) can a lot of the time.

I also think they aren't necessarily the same thing. I believe an author can produce something which a reader perceives as authentic without it necessarily being the author's authentic life experience. And vice versa: Sometimes readers don't believe or feel moved by what the author put genuine blood sweat and tears into from the bottom of their heart.

I think it's a lot like acting. Actors get praised for "authentic performance" for roles which are light-years away from their real-life world, and flamed for acting too much like their own real-life self. Different people relate to different elements of the human condition.

I watched The Usual Suspects recently. There's a scene where five criminal guys in a police line-up are goofing around and not taking the proceedings seriously because they had bad-boy attitude out the ass. Turns out, that's how the editing salvaged a disastrous day of shooting. For that scene, the actors couldn't stop breaking. Something kept making them crack up and the more they lost it, the more they kept losing it. So every take had someone snickering because they couldn't help it, or deliberately over-acting to make the other guys crack up.

I guess my point is, what the viewer perceives feels pretty authentic: These come off like a bunch of irreverent crooks with "fuck pigs" attitude. It seems authentic. Whereas the reality is the director and the actors were nowhere near doing that on purpose. The fact that an unserious shoot could be turned into an effective scene with a feeling and atmosphere very different from what they were aiming for highlights the gulf between what's authentic for the artist versus what's authentic for the audience, sometimes.

Thanks for bringing up The Usual Suspects. I love that movie but it’s been years since I watched it. Reading this thread prompted me to find a YouTube interview with the director.

That chaotic opening scene does a lot to setup the story but it sounds like it also did a lot to set the actors into their roles, all in a way that feels very authentic.

(spoiler below)
It’s a cold open. There’s no meandering backstory, no following different characters as they go through their usual business. It drops them into a stressful situation where their personalities are displayed through actions. They’re a bunch of asshole criminals. The cops are exasperated with the circus while the unreliable narrator falls through the cracks, becoming the one voice they try to follow.


Cold opens like that provide a way to show rather than tell about characters. If you have a married couple where the husband is a rich abusive asshole, rather than doing a whole narration about something that happened between them in the past, just drop the couple at a table in a fancy restaurant - maybe for their anniversary. The guy can be showing that hes two faced by putting on airs of being romantic while being a complete ass to the restaurant staff and the valet. Maybe he could even apologize to his wife for something he did, trying to buy her off with a tennis bracelet or some such thing. The tension between different traits of his character and how the abused wife deals with it would be shown naturally. Once the couple gets home the reader would already be primed for their dynamic and possibly some of their history without dragging the reader through any big info dump.

As a reader it feels more authentic to connect with the emotions of the scene rather than taking the author’s word for their backstory.

 

[Mastered_again]

A line I wrote in one of my stories:

Its perfection belied any authenticity.

I believe it still applies. Don't strive for perfection in writing, stay true to your characters and all their flaws..

 

[Writer61]

Can fiction ever be completely authentic? Aren't we really talking about plausibility/realism?

 

[anthrodisiac]

It comes across as if the author wanted to write it. I wouldn't go so far as to say 0 motivation other than that.

But unless the author is being forced against their will, of course they want to write it, otherwise they wouldn't. But they could be writing it because they want to grab cash by trying to jam into a suddenly popular topic, and their only real motivation is trying to profit on a fad. Is that authentic?

My point is that it's an extremely hard thing to pin down, whether an author is writing from a place of authenticity. The term is so slippery when applied to "something that is authentic to the author, not the story" that it's purely a vibe people get from the story, and it's rarely about the author themselves, but how the reader interpreted the story. One reader might felt that it was the author being true to themselves, and another might feel that the author is a shill. Same exact story, totally different interpretations.