Creating the Fictional World

In the last post, we discussed how to do a backstory but there is another technique which can help expand the realism and fascination of the continuous dream you’re crafting. I call it creating the fictional world (CFW).

What is creating the fictional world?

With every story, you place your characters not only in a plot but also a setting (or world). The world may be another planet, another time period, or the house down the street. Doesn’t matter. Just as you do backstory to develop your characters, you can do CFW to leverage your setting/world to deepen the impact of your story.

Backstory and CFW have many similarities but CFW is different enough to warrant separate treatment. Most importantly, CFW is not description. Description of your world has its place, of course, but CFW is more focused on how your fictional world influences your characters’ thoughts and actions.

How to do it

As with backstory, this technique works best somewhere in the middle of writing your story or, at very least, when you have a good sense of your plot and characters. Doing it beforehand can lead to a stilted feel as you try to shoehorn them into your world.

To consciously explore the world you’re creating, you can ask yourself:

What is distinctive about my fictional world? An answer of ‘nothing’ is not the right one. A completely generic setting means you’re losing an opportunity to enrich your narrative. If you’re having trouble with this, think back to when you first conceived the story. Why did you pick the setting to begin with?

What aspects of your world might intrigue the reader? Pick two or three of the most prominent.

How does my distinctive world affect the characters’ thoughts and actions? Are there morals, customs, values, unspoken expectations and even external events of your setting which can and should influence your protagonist?

An example

Let’s use my novel, Kimono Spring, to work through the technique.

What is distinctive about my fictional world? It happens in the 50s and is seen through the eyes of a child.

What aspects of your world might intrigue the reader? 1950s, Japanese-Canadian, seven year old girl.

How does my distinctive world affect the characters’ thoughts and actions?

My protagonist (the little girl) observes but doesn’t comprehend what is going on in the adult world. The reader understands more than the little girl. Possible scene: parents fight over discipline. Reader realizes the marriage is in trouble but little girl is just relieved that she won’t be punished.
Caught between two cultures when post-war hate of Japanese still strong. Possible scenes: the family experiences prejudice at work, shopping, etc.
The 50s’ pressure to present a perfect picture to the world. Possible scene: Mother trying to deny Japanese heritage to conform to 50s’ ideal.

Don’t go crazy about this

You can easily see that this could get out of hand. Don’t work this exercise with every item of your world. But try it for a few distinctive aspects. The huge upside in this approach is that it often gives you ideas of scenes to write.

A fully realized world will help you create a fully realized novel.

February 3, 2023January 29, 2023

The Green Book: Inspired By

The Green Book won the Best Picture Academy Award for 2019 for a story ‘inspired by’ true events. It was controversial with some challenging its depiction of American racism. That aside, the movie can provide an interesting writing lesson.

What does ‘ inspired by’ mean?

Movies seem to make three distinctions:

A true story is a pretty close to real life events, sometimes using transcripts or historical records.

Based on a true story allows artistic license to perhaps combine real life people into one character or alter the flow of events to increase the drama.

Inspired by a true story is a kind of all-bets-are-off movie. The real events can be a springboard for the writer to weave in scenes and characters which may not have existed. This is the category closest to, but perhaps not actually, fiction.

All this is fine as long as the viewer knows what he’s getting. But for the writer, the ‘inspired by’ category can cause problems, perhaps illustrated by The Green Book.

How does this apply to the Green Book?

On his 1960s tour of the Deep South, a black pianist is forced to stay in black-only accommodation, generally depicted as down-at-the-heel places. His white chauffeur is not confined to these choices.

The exception occurs when the pianist, his chauffeur and two of the chauffeur’s (white) buddies all stay at the same hotel. Now, I can imagine that white people might have stayed at black-only hotels during this era. However, given that segregation of accommodation is an important premise, I think that the movie makers made a mistake by not explaining away this seeming anomaly.

But I also wonder (just wonder) whether the ‘inspired by’ allowed the writer to get carried away.

A speculation

The incongruity just discussed could have been caused by information edited out in the final cut or because it was assumed that everyone knew white people stayed at black inns but not vice-versa. I grant what I am about to propose is pure speculation but bear with me.

Generally speaking, interest is heightened when the protagonist faces a challenge. After the pianist and the chauffeur have started to understand and even like each other, the chauffeur’s buddies offer him a job. To set this up dramatically, the pianist needs to overhear the other men discussing the offer and agreeing to meet later to finalize the details. It is only with this knowledge that he knows he’s in danger. So, the writer needs a setting where all four characters are present and a hotel is chosen, even given the jarring aspect.

Because the setting is at variance with the major premise of the movie and is not explained, it made me wonder whether the meeting actually took place or whether this was just the writer heightening things with some conflict. I.E. did he make it up?

Staying true to the spirit

A lesson can be derived for writers. Creative use of the material is of course important. This is true even in a memoir. However, in doing so, you need to stay connected to your setting, characters, and historical period. I understand the need to build a good story and applaud the effort. But you’ve gotta stick with the essence of the characters and settings you’ve created.

Depicting characters doing or saying things not consistent with who they are doesn’t make a better story. It might be better dramatically but it won’t ring true to the reader.

The Green Book is interesting in other ways. Next post.

February 11, 2022February 11, 2022

Putting The Past in Context

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Putting The Past in Context

Say you’re writing a historical drama where two noblemen of Henry VIII’s court. They engage in all kinds of nefarious plots to prevent the other from being appointed the Gentleman of the Stool. They scheme, poison, scandal-monger, and lie.

You may write a very convincing and even riveting tale of intrigue but it’s not going to catch the reader if he is puzzled as to why the two men want the position. Especially as the main duty seems to be wiping the King’s bottom on the toilet.

You need to contextualize the rivalry. Show the Gentleman of the Stool as the only courtier assured individual and private access to the King. To ask for favors, or turn the King against a rival. Then the rest of the story falls into place.

You may also need to contextualize the past even with more recent events. For example, the novel The Reader by Bernhard Schlink was first published in 1995 in German. A pivot point of the plot, set in World War II, is that the heroine goes to great lengths to conceal that she is illiterate. A literate 1995 audience may not understand why the shame was so great. The reader needs to understand how or why or if the context affects how open the secret is.

Putting context into the past

So, how do you do this?

Not, of course, by hitting the reader over the head by using a long passage of tell to provide the context.

But you might have one of the noblemen musing what he could do if he got the preferment he desired. Or show a boy being made fun of because he can’t read.

So take a look at the story you’re writing. On the one hand, being specific and tangible is a strength of any tale. On the other, it can be so unique that it is puzzling to the reader who has not been in that situation. Identify any things which might impede understanding of the story.

But also remember that readers can often pick up the meaning or context as they go along and take some pleasure in being able to figure it out. So, don’t go crazy with this context business. Only the really important bits.

Not just the past

Actually, contextualizing is appropriate in any situation where you think that your desired audience is not of the culture you are writing about. An LGBTQ story aimed at those outside the community may need to explain aspects of the context which might be unfamiliar to an outsider.

For example, in the translation of a Swedish (I think it was Swedish) novel, the hero says hello to a man on a ladder, painting a house. The painter almost loses his balance in surprise. The author kindly provided a footnote to explain that speaking to strangers was unusual in Sweden (Sweden?).

So, don’t go crazy but also don’t lessen the power of your saga by forgetting to provide the appropriate context.