Monday Musing: The Real World

Hello,

Welcome to the accidentally Tuesday Monday Musing.

I’ve been thinking about reality, and the reality of fiction. What makes a world real to a reader? It’s something that I’m constantly thinking about in my writing at the moment, and have been thinking about other works of fiction and the worlds that they created.

I’ve recently finished reading Flashman’s Lady, which like the rest of the series deftly mixes historical fact with fiction. George MacDonald Fraser researched fact and built his fiction around it. It’s a staggering feat to me. I utterly believe the world he is writing. It’s a beautifully believable world. If you’ve not read any of the Flashman Papers I heartily recommend them.

I’m currently reading Storm Front by Jim Butcher because I’m on a bit of an Urban Magic kick at the moment, having recently enjoyed Ben Aaronovitch’s River of London series. Storm Front is set in a modern-day Chicago and layers on levels of fantasy, mythology and magic. Which is what got me thinking about this topic, as I realised I totally bought his world, but can’t pinpoint the moment that I did.

Fictional worlds like Middle Earth, Westeros and The Discworld all feel like real places, brilliantly realised on the page. The Time Traveler’s Wife works around nonsense science that you believe as being a problem Henry suffers from.

In film, the world of Star Wars originally caught imagination because it presented its world as lived in and used, we were seeing the parts of the world that people like us would live in, we were seeing our lives mirrored in this galaxy far, far away. (which is why I think the prequels feel so cold to those of us that grew up with the original trilogy. Suddenly we’re in palaces and government buildings. Nothing is really as relatable to us in those films).

I’ve recently finished playing Bioshock Inifinte and my god there was a world that I believed I was in. From the opening level that allows you to explore the floating world of Columbia at your own pace before all the fighting starts allows you to feel at home and familiar with it. This is expanded later when you are joined by Elizabeth who has never seen the world before, her fascination with the world and it’s citizens is constantly refreshing and continuously brings you into LOOKING at the world, not just pass through it.

I love all these world, and so many more. As I create a version of the world we are familiar with I keep having to ask myself does that make sense? Will a reader understand the technology, am I being too vague, too specific, am I skewing things just enough to get the desired effect?

I believe that the key to this is to set out the rules of the world, that certain things exist or can happen and why, and stick to it. There’s nothing worse than a fiction that presents rules and then bends/breaks them for a quick payoff that feels hollow or undeserved. I’m reminded of a designer of panic rooms discussing David Fincher’s film Panic Room, stating that what he was grateful for was the world of panic rooms was established as being unbreakable, that no one could force their way into the room, and that this was maintained as an absolute in the film.

Rules are not always made to be broken.

I feel that my test-readers have been given a mini quiz when they are done reading. I desperately want my world to feel real, lived in, complete and for it to make sense. I hope it does, so far I nothing seems to have really caused any discomfort to my gallant guinea pigs.

Creating a believable new reality is the power of the fiction writer.

– Andrew

Healing The Heartache

Hello,

At the beginning of the week I blogged about the loss of 74% of my writing. That was 25,000 words lost in an instant because I was being a little careless. I can’t blame the computer, it only mindlessly did what I asked it to do. Ironically I get peeved at computers when they double-check meaningless activities: ‘Are you sure you want to print that?’

I had a rough night sleep on Monday, I was angry at myself for wasting a lot of work. I joked to a friend that I was more upset on Monday night at the loss of my book than I had been the last time I broke up with someone.
At least I think I was joking.

When I got up for breakfast on Tuesday morning I was sore and tired. My back hurt and my eyes felt foggy. I was still in a bad mood and didn’t want to think about my book and writing any more. The task of starting again seemed too great. I didn’t think that I would be up to the job.

This made me more angry at myself. Now I was angry for daring to think of letting this moment of idiocy ruin what has been one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling months of my life in a number of years. Yes, I was scared of re-writing what I had already done. Of course, I was worried that I would not be able to recreate what it had been. Obviously, I was anxious about the moment I would start again. I’m not a good starter of things, I rarely have that planned out. As it stands the first paragraph of my book is:

I think the exact words I said to my mum were, “Don’t fucking tell me what to fucking do.” I’m sure that the second ‘fucking’ was lost to her by the thunder of my door slamming. I’m not proud of it and in hindsight it was probably not a proportionate response to her saying encouragingly, “Evin, you really should be doing more to get a job.”

So, yeah.
I don’t think that will last beyond editing, but at the time it was all I had to get the ball rolling on the book.

The same principle applied to the rewrites. I had made a bullet point list of what I remember the key moments of the plot were and the order that they came in. I sat at my desk, took a deep breath, and started typing. It was difficult at first, I was conscious that I was trying to recreate something while trying not to copy exactly what it had been. I finished the day having written 5,000 words. I have been hitting that as a standard target each day since. I wrote 6,000 words yesterday because I had to finish what was happening.

I am currently at 18,000 words and in most places I am pleased with how it’s coming together. There are definitely places that are more concise now than they had been previously, and there are some moments that have been stripped right back and are less overwritten.

In essence I’m pleased that I didn’t wait, that I didn’t allow myself to become overwhelmed by rewriting. I’m pleased that I got straight back to it.

I would not recommend this process of writing.

– Andrew