This week, I started to rave on about how much I hated inaccurate history films. Then I told myself to shut up. You know this, or you wouldn't still be reading here, and I don't need to rant and waste your time. So let's talk about something more useful: writing stories that accurately portray real (or imaginary) people in a way that makes them part of the human species.

You know, don't you, that amnesia is basically a TV disease? In other words, it's never really been documented for a human to get hit on the head by a falling object (say, a small piano), stagger about a bit like Charlie Chaplin, and then exclaim, 'Who am I?' There's something called retrograde amnesia, where a person is foggy about the events leading to a head trauma. But they still know their names. Identity amnesia, like all TV diseases, is a convenient trope used to create an unusual but fun situation for actors to chew scenery in. It allows them to 'explore'.

Which is fine. Let them explore. But while they're exploring, make sure they don't turn into sentient shades of the colour blue. In other words, make them consistent. In the 1991 film Shattered, a man has TV amnesia from driving a car off a cliff in California. (This must happen a lot in La La Land.) He has a long, hard climb back to reality, made more difficult by somewhat arbitrary plastic surgery and the machinations of Greta Scacchi, the hussy. However, at no time does the character behave in an inconsistent way. In fact, it is his consistency that drives the story.

On the other hand, the same year, somebody made Regarding Henry. It was a better-known film because it starred Harrison Ford instead of Tom Berenger. But it's a vastly inferior product. The mean lawyer in this film becomes nice after being hit on the head. No work involved. Bleah. Don't do that.

When you create villains, do you attribute motives to them that no human being has ever been known to have? (We're looking at you, Bryan Fuller.) Do those bad guys think around so many corners you wonder how they have brain space left to remember their phone numbers? Stop that. Water runs downhill for a reason. Humans make mistakes, they do bad things, but they're following the line of least resistance. At least, in their personal worlds. Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to figure that out.

Ah. That reference reminds me to bring in the obviously dotty, such as the old Mission: Impossible series. I still love those shows, because their writers were the only ones I've ever known of who could make a thriller out of watching paint dry. Half of each episode involves the audience observing how Barney drills holes, measures things, puts in screws, takes out screws, paints walls, hooks up electricals. . . all the while convincing us that this is a life-or-death situation, even when we have no idea why he's doing it. It's an amazing achievement in the history of storytelling.

But even in Mission: Impossible, the psychology of the characters makes sense. They behave like human beings. Even the ridiculous dictators – you know, the ones so dumb they keep nuclear devices in a hotel safe with a timelock – have recognisable motives. They crave success, achievement, the love of someone. They fear exposure, failure. Some are greedy, others only powermad or crippled by an addiction to sadism. They are real, even if they are played by Ricardo Montalban.

Yes, your heroes may be saintly. But you've got to explain what makes them different from the others – even if that difference is only 'they read the Bible/Cervantes' or 'they had a really nice grandmother'. Saintly behaviour is human, too, and has its own logic. Use that logic instead of the default mode, and you'll be fine. Just make people consistent, and if they change, explain why.

Fantasy is no excuse for creating inhuman characters. Fantasy just gives us a chance to explore more widely. Take the story Operation: Outer Space, which I've excerpted in the Literary Corner this week. I read the whole book last night. It's not bad, really. I'd really recommend it. Not only is it a fun, snarky romp with Rocky Jones space furniture in, but it's a remarkable look at Grandpa's psychology. You see, the story takes place in the future, but it was written in 1954. The main character is a TV producer. There are TV commercials in there. Now, imagine Don Draper going to outer space while falling in love with a plucky woman named Babs. Roger shoots alien animals and almost dies on a beach. You've got it: this story is an unwitting analysis of how the Mad Men saw the world. You get it for free with your space opera, largely because the writer – Murray Leinster aka William Fitzgerald Jenkins of the Old South – was completely consistent in his view of humanity. No, we don't think like that anymore. That's what makes this book a precious artefact.

My objection to Shakespeare's Richard III is that it's a play with a dirty secret: it's a piece of propaganda. Often, propaganda makes itself obvious by attributing motives to people that they couldn't possibly have. Do you really believe that the former Secretary of State, a grandmother, would knowingly harm children? Seriously? If you believe that, I'm worried about you. Have you ever seen any of the entertainment films produced by UFA, the German film company, during the Nazi era? If you didn't know what was going on, you might have thought most of these films were harmless. But you might have been puzzled at the strange reactions and convoluted reasoning of some of the characters in the stories.

Have you ever seen the series I Led Three Lives? That clip is short, because this stuff is corrosive. It will rot your brain. Gene Roddenberry wrote an episode for this once. It's called Radioactive. Watch at your peril. In this story, the made-up Pod People also violate many of the known laws of physics.

So keep a sharp eye on those writers. Question their view of human nature. And don't make up Pod People. The sanity you save may be your own.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

23.01.17 Front Page

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