Ifistic

Or: What I write doesn’t have a name, so I made one up

I know. Who needs more words to describe things? Why can’t I say I write dark fantasy or psychological thrillers or all the other category glob of words people recognize. Well, I do say that. But future readers may notice my tendency to genre-hop. One story has a setting that would classify it as science fiction, another is a historical fiction, another is a high fantasy, another is a steampunk — however, they all have a common style and subject matter.

What is the genre I write? Ifistic.

The word Ifistic is derived from a classic question writers use to come up with ideas for stories: “What If…?” Specifically, it is the word if (denoting a hypothetical or conditional situation), combined with the suffix: — istic (meaning a characteristic of, or having a quality of). At a basic level, Ifistic is a fancy way of saying a thought experiment of how the world would work (or have to work) under certain conditions.

More specifically, an Ifistic story is characterized by:

• Hyper-literalism
• Subjective Reality

While fantastical elements are easy to throw in, not all ifistic stories need be in the traditional definition of fantasy. Many of my own stories pull ideas from cultural idioms, religious documents, famous quotes, psychology, neurology, science, history, mythology, and…well, anything goes.

However, there are some specific rules to Ifistic:

1. The story’s rule is a literal interpretation of a figurative concept

“Fools!” said the man, stamping his foot with rage. “That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I’d better have been drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams — dreams, do you understand, come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.”
— The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

You want to write a story about an angel falling from heaven swept up as the Romeo of a modern tragedy? Neato! Pick a different genre.

Let’s take a tangent for a moment: What is “a story’s rule?” A story’s rule (alt. a mythos seed) is the core concept that defines the story’s reality and stands at the very heart of defining the world’s mythos. No matter how you change the story, the POV, the place in time, or the characters, the rule (or rules, as you can have more than one) stays the same.

Ifistic draws its rule from figurative concepts, often everyday sayings and hyperbolic claims, and makes that concept the reality. Not a high level, “this story is about murder” sort of reality. Actual, “Murder is my name and I’ve lived in Chicago since 1833” reality. Anthropomorphic metaphysical entities and “Be careful what you wish for” are a common trope. I personally enjoy idioms.

2. Everything a character says is “true”

“ Every path is the right path. Everything could’ve been anything else. And it would have just as much meaning.”
— Mr. Nobody

What to write a story about a politician where lies just slip off their tongue? Neato! Write a different genre.

In Ifistic, lies don’t exist because everything a character says is “true.” And by “true,” I mean some given definition of true.

• A character can believe something that turns out to be wrong, but their conclusion is still correct if applied to a different context.
• A character can speak in double entendre or be interpreted incorrectly — whether intentional or not —so that one understanding is false while another is true. They may know they are being misinterpreted, but that isn’t their problem, is it?
• A character can lie without knowing what they say is true.
• If two characters say opposite things, they are both correct.

How do you avoid a paradox? You get clever about word play. And always remember — half the story is what you don’t say. I will make no claim that this is an easy task. But if you glossed over the fact that writing isn’t supposed to be easy…well, good luck in your endeavors.

Of course, there is one catch…

3. The only absolute truth is you can never know it

“So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?”
— Life of Pi

Is your story a lovely slice of good vs. evil, the Fire Nation vs. the Avatar, the dark side vs. the light side, etc.? Neato! Pick a different genre.

Now let your facts loving heart scream alongside my cling to realism in the soupy sea of uncertainty. You don’t know what’s real in ifistic, you only know what your characters think is real. But a story isn’t complete just because thirty-six people told you their own version of it. Perception is biased, memory is flawed, emotions skew moral values, 50% of your chosen POV are colorblind, and compasses don’t work on the moon.

Welcome to the world of Schrodinger. The cat is both dead and alive. Whether what happens in the story is right or wrong or possible or impossible is irrelevant. Things exist. People exist. Readers will read what they read.

That’s the point. To which I further add…

4. No one is special

“Sir,” I said to the universe, “I exist.”
“That,” said the universe, “Creates no sense of obligation in me whatsoever.”
—Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Is your character ever told they’re the perfectly puffed cornflake prophesied to end all pain and suffering? Neato! Pick a different genre.

Ifistic focuses on ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances equally unforgiving and selfish as ordinary people can be. People can cause problems for themselves just as often as they cause problems for other people. Success is not guaranteed. Survival is not guaranteed. Friends may not come nor are they obligated to stay nor are they promised to be helpful, and at the end of the day, a character might find themselves alone with one hand pinned between a rock and a hard place, and the other holding a knife to cut it off.

Ifistic is a rather cruel genre. If cruel means apathetic, that is….

5. There is neither a beginning nor end

“This is the lesson history teaches: repetition.”
— Gertrude Stein

Yes, the universe will not last forever. As an engineer, I’m very conscious of the technicalities of both science and math and what infinity is/isn’t. But Ifistic doesn’t really fit standard concepts of time. Our universe can be destroyed, and the genre simply carries over into the universe that will replace it.

In ifistic, the story you’re telling doesn’t truly begin. It doesn’t truly end. It’s always been and always will be. Your story is but a fragment, an arc, an episode, in the grand tale of echoes — your MC’s life is but a humble chapter. Indicating your story was neither the first nor the last of its kind is sufficient to pass this rule.

6. Worlds collide

“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”
― Of Mice and Men

By now, you’ve probably picked up the potential realms of conflict. If everyone is both right and wrong in an ambiguous reality you can never truly know, the core conflict defaults to a clash between these world views. Knowledge is not only power, but currency. Idle words founded upon ignorance warp into a granted curse. Being right or wrong or refusing to be either has a cost.

That’s the point.

Ultimately, characters have the unspoken power to define their reality. Every. Single. One. But at the same time they are limited by it. A mind can neither comprehend nor conceptualize things they have not been exposed to. Furthermore, they cannot control the reality of other people. This is where culture clash comes into play, the introduction of someone/something to challenge it.

Maybe characters come from different countries and cultures, maybe they’re different species, maybe one is a cosmic entity and the other is a speck of dust, maybe they’re some other worldly creature, maybe they’re simply family members with differences so extreme, they have little reason to talk to each other. So will the characters face the foreigners to confront the fact that they know very little and sacrifice their current self for knowledge, or will they content themselves in shutting out the new world in hopes of protecting their own? Is that really so obvious an answer as it sounds?

Ultimately, Ifistic can be seen as a sub-genre of existential horror where characters are busy trying to survive an indifferent universe which treats all as absolutely equal. Whether or not the story itself is written as horror is subject to writer preferences. Abstract cosmic entities like the Grim Reaper simply do their job. There is no greater good or pure evil; things simply are. Characters are conscious creatures capable of choice; if they do not wish to participate in the story, the story moves on without them and they are free to live in whatever other-world someone may write someday.

So what do you think? Does it sound like a genre you’re interested in? Does it sound like a genre at all?

Leave your feedback below!

Kai Austin is a writer, full stack developer, and generalized nerd who may or may not be a robot. You can keep up with his projects and musings on his facebook page: Here.