Creating a Believable World

In the last post, I Love The Handmaid’s Tale, I maintain that the characters work because they are in a world which rings true. How is this created?

What makes a story believable?

Science fiction writer John Wyndham’s gift was a unique ability to consistently create complete worlds. He wrote Day of the Triffids where everyone is blinded. I wanted to stop reading (too scary—see rule) but I couldn’t put it down. Similarly, the Midwich Cuckoos (filmed asVillage of the Damned)is the chilling story of alien children set to take over the world.

Wyndham’s genius is to present the reader, early on, with one unbelievable event. The plants which blind people in Triffids or the birth of the alien children by human mothers—Midwich. If you accept that event, everything else rolls out logically as the characters adapt to the change. Gangs of blind people enslave the few sighted ones to lead them to food; the alien children are in a special school because they’re too brilliant for ordinary education.

And thus a compelling and believable world is born.

So how do you make your fictional world as gripping, even without aliens?

How to make your fictional world realistic

One approach is to creating a realistic world is covered in my post, Creating the Fictional World. Below is another which is similar but different enough to warrant mention.

It helps to have a picture in your mind of a typical scene in your novel, whether main street, Wall Street, or fantasy. Doesn’t have to be fully formed and don’t bother writing it down. Just have it there as we walk through the following discussion.

How does the world affect/influence your main characters?

• Pick a few characters (not a lot) and decide how the world influences their behavior. Is there pressure to conform in your small town world? Does the protagonist feel he has to live up to the world’s mythic figures?
• Think of a scene which would show this quality to the reader. Write it.
• As the novel develops, ask yourself this question again and write the scenes which illustrate the world’s influence.

How do your key characters react to the world?

• Consciously try to get into your key characters’ heads
• Work through the major events in your novel and consider how each of these characters might react.
• For example, in Handmaid’s Tale, June/Offred and other Handmaids are ordered to stone a man. How is Aunt Lydia feeling? Perhaps satisfied but also trying to suppress her underlying misgivings. How is June feeling? Repulsed by it but knows she can say nothing. How is another Handmaid feeling? Perhaps she has been completely hoodwinked and allows her most animalistic urges to find expression. They are going to act differently because they feel differently. How do you show that?

In this way, you can help to build a credible world into which your reader can sink.

Will this guarantee a compelling world?

I really, really want to say, “Absolutely,” but I know I can’t. Whether this works depends on a myriad of things—the setting you’ve chosen, the characters in it, the plot, your mastery of the craft of writing. In other words, the whole shebang.

But being aware that the world you create can and should affect your characters will help to create a continuous dream for your readers. What we all want.

I Love The Handmaid’s Tale

I don’t pay to get scared—a rule I live by.  I don’t go to scary movies, I don’t bungie jump, I don’t escape to escape rooms. Yet I watch the dark, creepy and scary TV series, The Handmaid’s Tale.

Why?

Well, aside from deep psychological reasons I won’t go into, because The Handmaid’s Tale portrays a completely credible world (Gilead) in which I must immerse myself.

 I’ve discussed this idea in Creating the Fictional World. Here, I’ll discuss how the writers have created this believability.[1]

Two characters in the Handmaid’s Tale

I want to focus on two characters—Aunt Lydia and the Commander, Fred Waterford.

Aunt Lydia

Aunt Lydia, portrayed by Ann Dowd, prepares fertile women for their new and unwelcome role as the Handmaids to Gilead’s elite.

But Aunt Lydia is not a one-dimensional bad guy. She uses a cattle prod to keep the Handmaids in line but argues a disfigured girl should receive a treat. She demands the Handmaids stone a ‘guilty’ man but seems genuinely happy at a pregnancy.

Normally, in fiction, we have trouble with a character that possesses such opposing traits.

Despite this, the writers of the show have made Aunt Lydia credible and compelling. The character has bought completely into the Gilead system. Because Aunt Lydia truly believes what she is doing is righteous, any promptings to be human (compassionate, kind, empathetic) are sternly suppressed as shameful weaknesses.

This rings true because history shows that unbelievably cruelty is possible under the sway of an ideology. During World War II, SS concentration camp officers believed that killing Jews and others, while difficult, was nevertheless for the greater Nazi good.

Aunt Lydia, like the SS officers, does her duty—even if or perhaps especially when, it is distasteful (inhuman).

The Commander

But while Aunt Lydia is caught in a system not of her creation, the Commander helped to shape Gilead’s laws.

Joseph Fiennes plays Commander Fred Waterford, a high-ranking government official. Like Aunt Lydia, he believes in Gilead. But the rules are for the likes of her, not him. He acts as all elites have in history—providing themselves with exemptions not available to the general population.

Thus, despite Gilead’s credo that sex is for reproduction only, he takes his handmaid to a club where the elite indulge in sex for pleasure.

Yet at other times, he invokes the law. He has his wife’s finger cut off for advocating that girls should be taught to read. And is tremendously remorseful later while maintaining it had to be done.

You see, there it is again. Characters acting inconsistently. But it totally works.

Why does this work?

Some might be thinking, “Well, real people don’t always act consistently.” Absolutely right. But say in the novel you’re reading the protagonist is calm, reflective, and logical. Then she suddenly abandons her job and husband for a wild party in India. As a reader, you’d be taken aback unless the writer provides a credible reason for this personality change. Because fiction has rules, albeit often unspoken, that writers must usually respect to produce a story satisfying to their readers.

I think The Handmaid’s Tale works because the characters act in a world which itself rings true. And they act consistently within that world.

So, how do you create a believable world in which characters can live? Next post.

[1] For those who don’t know the story, IMBd has short summaries.