Implausible events that happen in real life

Fiction authors must find the way to make their stories realistic. The relation between the narration and the universe’s rules is fragile. When a reader encounters a reason to believe that what Roland Barthes called “reality effect” is broken, the work’s objective – to present a fiction story as if it were real – is lost.

But there is the opposite equation: What happens when reality seems unreal? What happens when we experience something that feels like a dream?

The feature story “The bravest woman in Seattle” by Eli Sanders made me think about it. In the following passage, I found an example of it.

“One of the detectives, a woman named Dana Duffey, would call one day while Butz's partner sat in St. Louis at one of Butz's favorite places, a bar and restaurant overlooking the Mississippi River. Detective Duffey would tell her: "We have him." (And—no joke—fireworks would go off right at that moment across the river, an accident on the part of some worker preparing for a later show.) ...”

The passage has two messages:

1.      That a detective called Butz’s partner and told her that Teresa Butz’s murdered had been found.

2.     That something unreal –the fireworks going off at the moment she receives the good news- happened in real life.

This makes me think that fiction authors must create plausible stories, while journalists must find improbable events in daily life stories in order for readers to engage with their work.