Slice of Life and how it goes into every book pt.1

 Slice of Life Writing Part 1: helping to believe the unbelievable   

When discussing this “slice of life” genre, it’s easy to think of “coming of age” works, as well as works set in the youth of struggling characters. However, there is more to slice of life than you may realize, for one, every book will deal with this genre.   

It is defined by Oxford Languages as:  

“a realistic representation of everyday experience in a movie, play, or book.” 

https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/ 

So, adding some slice of life to any book is a great idea. Adding some realistic elements (such as having basic needs, hunger, having to use the washroom, being tired and needing sleep, etc) will make your characters more relatable, and will allow your readers to believe your story and keep them in the story. This means, it will allow your readers to suspend their beliefs (in whatever they might believe) because your story has aspects that just make so much sense.  

For example,  

Her stomach growled, she hadn’t eaten in a few hours and it was clear. She was sure her hunger would wake even the winter dragons who slept through the summer days. She cried out, as her foot landed on a small, hard rock, and her body was suddenly falling forward.  

As you can see from the excerpt, hunger is a realistic aspect as is tripping over rocks. These make the reader relate more to the character despite not knowing how she looks or her personality. It also allows you to find other unrealistic aspects such as dragons more believable due to these moments where you recognize elements from our own reality. Writing a book is constant co-operating with the realistic and unrealistic. When you give your reader aspects of the realistic, it allows them to suspend their beliefs and believe the unrealistic. Give them small comforts and they will be willing to accept some uncomforts. 

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