Why the boy in the balloon is a lesson in fiction writing

October 16, 12:48 PMSF Boomers ExaminerSuzanna Stinnett

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Here’s why we responded so strongly to the boy in the balloon - and why the episode which dominated social media and mainstream media for a few hours on October 15th is actually a superb lesson in fiction writing.

A strong subconscious suggestion

The event began for me with an announcement from the kitchen – “Holy crap! Oh my god!” There, on the tele, a shiny silver spaceship hurtled along with the wind above the Colorado landscape. See, the announcement sets everything in motion, taken as truth, or at least as a story worth engaging: “This little boy got in the balloon and let it go, and now it’s seven thousand feet in the air with him in it! Look! Check it out!”

The mind struggles toward comprehension. What on earth? How could this be happening?

Questions direct our imagination

And those questions then set the stage for everything we are about to feel. The imagination is compelled to answer what the news reporters can only hint at.

So we watched, frowning and staring at the image of the balloon, with the airplane circling (which made it appear to be moving much faster), filming, and showing the ground below. What we began to imagine as we watched, tells who we are.

Some maintain a solid barrier to belief

Not everyone was sucked in, of course. Plenty of people were simply annoyed, finding it ridiculous and unbelievable, but on social media, I saw them being denounced: “Don’t you get it? The boy could die! Don’t make jokes about it! This is not going to end well! I’m so scared I can’t watch!”

Many of us are swept along

What many of us imagined was a small child in the dark, either curled up in a ball, shivering, or perhaps listening to the wind in wonder as he sailed through the sky. Some of us thought he must be having the time of his life.

We also imagined the worst and fought that image – how will he land? How can he possibly emerge from this safely? Our best imaginations worked up a powerful scenario of triumph and relief, as somehow, the balloon could descend and land gently enough to save the child’s life.

Imagination supersedes rationale

Meanwhile, the scenario of the balloon speeding and twirling through space was so compelling that most of us did not manage to scrutinize the image. If we had been less emotionally involved, we might have begun to conclude that the balloon was too small to carry any weight at all. The way it sailed was not possible with an additional forty or fifty pounds of weight under it. That point was driven home in a subsequent brief interview of Kate Board, the only female Zeppelin pilot in the world. She explained that she could see right away that there could not be any weight under the helium balloon.

But that’s just not what we experienced. “Little boy, little boy, little boy,” -- that’s what our hearts were saying.

So much for the media and deceptive people

I’ve put aside the end of the story as it unfolded through the media. I saw enough to realize that there are deceptions going on, the depths of which I don’t care to plumb. The boy is unharmed – at least by this adventure. To know any more about the scheming father and their past escapades is nothing more than a thorn in my psyche, and I don’t need that.

Here’s the rub

What interests me is the captivation so many of us entered, ready and willing to form the story. This is what I find worth exploring. As a fiction writer, and an observer of human behavior (redundant!), the few hours of concern on October 15^th were worth it.

The lesson

The fiction lesson, then, is this: What is hinted at, but unseen, compels the imagination to engage the story. We could not see the boy, hard as we tried when the underside of the balloon could be viewed. We hunted for details, the imagination working all the while to fill in the blanks. Is that a door on the basket? Is it open? I think it’s open. Someone said they saw the boy fall early on, is that true? How could that have happened? Where is he?

Make great fiction: Paint a scene, introduce questions, maintain mystery.

I’m going to go work on my book now .

This is America.

I'm Suzanna Stinnett.