The Dichotomy of Verisimilitude between Books and Movies
By: Lawrence Martin
Tags: Fiction, Script, Scriptwriting, Movies, Fiction Writing

By Lawrence Martin

drlarry437@gmail.com

[Note: “Plato’s Podcasts” is the author’s invention, a format chosen to express his views. You won’t find this interview on any radio station.]

Plato: This is Plato’s Podcasts, for Radio Station WLOV in Cleveland, with another interesting podcast. Today I am interviewing Larry Martin, a retired physician who lives in The Villages, Florida. My interview is about his recent blog post, “The Dichotomy of Verisimilitude Between Books and Movies.” Welcome, Larry.

Larry: Thank you, Plato.

Plato: Give us a little of your writing background, please.

Larry: In my medical career I was a non-fiction writer, mainly about medical topics. Just before retirement, five years ago, I started writing fiction. To date, I’ve written seven novels and a bunch of short stories. It was a big learning curve, to go from non-fiction to fiction, but enjoyable.

Plato: OK, and you write movie scripts as well?

Larry: No, not yet. No scripts.

Plato: So, what’s with this blog title? I don’t want to sound stupid, but what the heck is “Dichotomy of Verisimilitude”?

Larry (with a slight chuckle). OK, I admit my title is pedantic, but purposely so, to get readers’ attention.

Plato: Or turn them away?

Larry: Well, I hope not. Anyway, it refers to the fact that movie scripts routinely misrepresent reality — that’s the verisimilitude –whereas most printed fiction does not. So there’s a big divide between the two, and that’s the dichotomy.

Plato: I see. Now, if you wanted a fifth-grader to understand your title, what would it be?

Larry. Umm, good question. How about this? “You Can Get Away With Unreal Stuff in Movies but Not in Books.”

Plato: OK, I’m getting your drift. Can you be more specific?

Larry: Love to. I’m in a critique group here in The Villages, called Wannabes, so-called because everyone wants to be a better writer. Great group, we read our stuff weekly, usually no more than a couple thousand words, and members offer their critiques. Almost all the fiction writing is what you would call realistic fiction, as opposed to fantasy. So if something is flat out wrong, or makes no sense in the real world, we’ll point it out. Almost invariably, the writer will recognize his or her mistake and change the passage.

Plato: Examples?

Larry: Sure. One story read in our group takes place in 1930s New York. The protagonist gets an infection, and the doctor gives him a shot of penicillin. Well, the writer is informed penicillin didn’t exist in the 1930s, so she recognizes her mistake and fixes it. Here’s another one. The protagonist is abducted by gangsters, given an anesthetic to keep him quiet, and is dumped into the trunk of a car. Two hours later he’s taken out, fully intact. Totally unrealistic. The anesthetic given would certainly have killed him in the car trunk. This is pointed out and the writer changes the drug. Now, it’s more realistic.

Plato: OK, medical stuff, but what else?

Larry: Oh, lots of other stuff. We have a retired marine, a retired police chief, retired cyber specialist, and other members with special knowledge. Everyone points out flaws in fiction that’s read, and the author makes changes. No one wants to publish an obvious error that will distract the reader. You would look stupid if you write, from a scene taking place in 1989, “Jill googled the internet to get more information.” Google and the internet didn’t exist in 1989, so that has to be changed. But often the mistake is more subtle, though no less glaring, such as misunderstanding how professionals and institutions work. Can I offer another medical example?

Plato: Sure, go ahead.

Larry: In the story as read in our group, Sam tries to kill his business rival Ben. Despite four bullets, Ben survives after major surgery, albeit on life support in the hospital. Determined to finish the job, Sam calls the hospital’s ICU, says he’s Ben’s cousin, and asks the nurse, “Is Sam going to make it?” The nurse replies, “He’s on life support, but the doctors think he’ll pull through. We’re hoping he can get off the breathing machine in another two to three days.” Sam asks for visiting hours, thanks the nurse, and hangs up. Do you see a problem here?

Plato: Well, I assume the nurse wasn’t allowed to give out that information to Sam.

Larry: Right. Totally unrealistic, unless your goal is to portray the nurse as either incompetent or in cahoots with Sam, but that was not the plot line. The passage just shows some ignorance of basic hospital procedure.

Plato: So, what’s this all got to do with the movies?

Larry. It’s very different in the movies, and here I include streaming series on television, very popular these days. With the Covid-19 pandemic, my wife and I have watched a lot of streaming shows, and I am amazed at the insane inaccuracies and plot holes in these scripts. Stuff you’d never get away with in a novel, at least not if it’s subjected to a critique group or editorial review.

Plato: I’ve seen some of those shows and have myself wondered about the plots. What has bothered you?

Larry: In the Netflix series The Politician there are several glaring plot holes. I’ll give you just two. A high school student tells everyone she is under treatment for cancer, and gets sympathy for this diagnosis. For various reasons her school friends are skeptical. They manage to get a blood specimen from her, which they send out for analysis. The results come back, “no cancer,” and the story takes a new turn. This is nonsense. No such blood test exists. Put that in your prose writing and you’ll get an earful.

Plato: And the other one?

Movie Poster for Netflix series “The Politician”

Larry: One of the male characters, a U.S. Senator, is having affairs, while his wife lies in the hospital, where she’s been for three years. In a coma! Let me repeat. She’s been in a coma for three years. One day she suddenly wakes up and, wouldn’t you know it, she looks great. No tubes, no weight loss, hair coiffed, just perfect. She puts on her clothes, goes out to make a speech about her plans. Crazy! If this scene was read in our group, we’d tear it apart.

Plato: Do you have any examples not, well, not medical?

Larry: Yes. The Netflix series Ratched is the fictional back story of Nurse Mildred Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. In that 1975 movie Ratched is portrayed as a cold, heartless tyrant. The Netflix series depicts her bizarre career before Cuckoo’s Nest, and has lots of plot holes. Here’s just one. Ratched is determined to hurt a young man living in a Catholic nursing home. He has PTSD following a horrendous crime he saw her brother commit, and she wants to make sure he cannot testify in court. She somehow manages to take him from the nursing home to a hotel room. There she drugs him, ties him to the bed, and does an icepick lobotomy — through his forehead.