World-building - Contemporary Realism - part 3

photo by vnwayne fan on Unsplash

Verisimilitude

The art of creating truthfulness and evoking believability in story-writing.

This is a significant part of the work of writing, even for realistic stories set in the now. (This is part III of this series, with spec-fiction and historical as parts I and II.)

As I work my way through drafts of (realistic) novels, my lists of questions to create believability grow—so much research for a setting that’s taking place “just around the corner.”

Internet

Yesterday, I found myself wondering about coyotes for the purposes of my story-at-hand: do they howl? What does that sound like? Within minutes I found video footage of two howling coyotes in someone’s (large and into the forest) backyard. Coyotes yip too, it turns out, and there’s been a study in the UK about people hearing coyotes and routinely mistaking the number of animals they are hearing: they hear only one or two, yet it sounds like half a dozen or more. Interesting. I had to jot a note about that last bit, even as I revised a brief passage to include yipping with howling.

Talking

Many times, I’ve talked with people about things they do. In my second published novel, The Half-pipe Kidd, the main character was a free-style cyclist with a half-pipe in his backyard. My youngest brother is an alt-sports guy, with a half-pipe in his yard, and he was my go-to.

I spent a lot of time watching video tapes of his riding, and/or friends riding, and then I wrote the passages with my character doing the same. Next step was to ask my brother to review my pages, and let me know what he thought of my descriptions: did they ring true?

Acting

Together we fine-tuned. The process of watching the videos, and letting myself feel the movement, wonder about it, write about it… each step was significant. Writing is much like acting. For every character in our stories, this is how it has to be. SIT in your character for awhile—until you feel it. My brother was able to pick out moments when I wasn’t in the right place. And I was grateful for his time and knowledge to build a jock’s world—a place I do not easily inhabit!

For my YA novel, Mud Girl, set in a home built out over the tidal Fraser River here in the most SW corner of Canada, I had to add high and low tides to the calendar I’d set up as part of my outline. At the time I began writing that story, it was inspired by a series of the remaining half dozen small river homes in that place. Now, they are gone.

When the tide was high, the water was close to being just under the house, and when it was low, the house would have thick oozy mud underneath, and along with the briny smell of salt-water, there were other smells—quite unpleasant. It was useful to me to know when such would greet the main character’s nose as she was coming home from school. Do the readers know? Unlikely, But it created a reality for me as I wrote. And repeatedly, I’ve found that such real details give me something to play off of—it contributes to story ideas, in much the way that where we live—our contexts—shape our very lives.

Details

I would drop my boys off at hockey practice nearby, and then take a walk as close to the house as possible, and scribble notes about anything I noticed. I took more notes than I thought I’d need. (And still had to return with new questions.) Whatever—whatever!—catches your attention, it is “catching” for some reason.

If nothing else, details help to build the world of the story in your mind. We absorb such pieces, and create our own belief in our fictional worlds, and this has immeasurable ways of creating layers to the work.

Such bits of research can feel at times to be procrastinating “real writing” time, or even just unimportant. True, often we end up not using details. Or it’ll be the briefest mention. But it can also be exactly those pieces that create the richness of the whole.

There are no short-cuts

The posts about journal-keeping and process-journaling are always significant. Train yourself to observe, and more—to write about the observation.

As we write, memories flood our minds. The more we can both visualize and feel our setting—our fictional world—the more we see, hear, smell, and taste it. The daily actions of jotting down notes keeps this part of our selves open and processing this world. Strong, resonant writing has a physicality to it; evoke that physicality in your work.

Map map map…

I’ve included words about maps in the other parts of this series. Mapping helps to solidify setting in your own mind. And if the project is long, or you are writing (and re-writing) over a long period of time, you might need maps to refer to. You might not anticipate a break in your work, but life does funny things at times, and if you have a handful of maps in your process journal, it can make the process accessible.

I’ve mapped houses, small towns, parts of cities, gardens, work places. Once, a series of wharves for a MG mystery novel. (LOTS of mapping for a mystery novel, I discovered.) An old small-town museum. A number of parks. I end up drawing building plans often, even furniture lay-out…

Real towns/places and made-up

A friend of mine reads the fiction of Sandra Birdsell, born in a small town in Manitoba. For a number of her books, Birdsell created a fictional town, “Agassiz,” but my friend, reading the books, recognized his birthplace of Morris, Manitoba (Birdsell grew up there) and often felt he could see familiar corners and even ‘town characters.’ Is this Birdsell’s intent? Or circumstantial?

He could also feel the land in her work—and this is significant. If you do use a real place, even with another name, know that those who hail from those parts will recognize it—even if it’s a gut response to the region. The flora and fauna, and more.

The fact that Birdsell created a fictional name for her town might indicate that she’d like to be arm’s length. Or… ? How natural is it to set your stories where you grow up?

For my town in The Half-pipe Kidd, I pushed together the town I grew up in, and the town I lived in at the time of writing—two places a ten minute drive apart.

Re-naming an actual place gives you a physical basis for a setting, along with latitude (literally and figuratively. Literally, with longitude, too.) You can connect factual pieces with created bits. It’s a choice: this allows you to look up actual weather and climate information and to re-create a believable physicality; the fictional of it will give you freedom to create further, expand. (Though people might still be convinced they recognize Ms Blande from the corner store… )

Whether fictional, fictionalized, or real, the goal is to depict realistically.

Other questions: is it urban? rural? suburban?

A condo? farmhouse? Vancouver special?

Lighthouse? Floathome? Renovated church or barn?

You can begin from “realistic,” then stretch.

Logic and consistency

Even though we are not talking about speculative work, every story/cast of characters/setting has its own internal logic. For realistic fiction, much of “logic/consistency” has to do with matters of power and human “rules.” Consider human hierarchy—how is that functioning in your story? How does hierarchy affect your characters and their needs and goals—goals both conscious and subconscious?

What is your main character struggling with? How does this struggle affect the story? Does this “carry” throughout, or is this thread dropped somewhere along the way?

Is the climate rainy or _________ (fill in the blank)? How does this affect the story? If it suddenly stops raining, is that an “author convenience”? Or, given the internal logic of “story takes place in rainy climate,” what would be the “fallout” of that? (No pun intended, not whatsoever! Here in Vancouver on rainy-grey day number 118…)

What are the “rules” of this place? (Review the other pieces in this series—it does all work together.)

Beyond

Beyond “world” is the way in which you want to evoke it in order to build the story.

All world-building is story-building. After I did the first post on spec fiction, there was an interesting discussion in the comments about how it’s so easy to get caught up in this process of pre-writing to the point of never getting around to writing the story. But this is the point to world-building—to build story. If it’s not doing that, on some level, move on to writing.

As you write, as you evoke your characters and their story, look around your created world. What do you see? What would the characters notice about this place?

It’s a wonder-filled thing how your work can take off when you allow yourself to live—immerse—in this place of your imagination. It’s as if it sets off a series of permissions for you to go deeply into your story.

I find this can be the point at which I can relax, and let the story come to me—as if I’ve set up enough now and the show can begin. Time to record. You’ll know the moment when you get there. (And if you don’t, keep going anyway!)

In the comments, please share what this is like for you. Both the process and this time of “reward.”

Generic vs specific

It’s easy to think that the more generic, the more accessible it is for the reader to think, “Ah! This is just like my town!”

But every place—real and imagined—has some bit of distinct character. And in evoking the details, even the most unique, there is a pulling in of the reader. Somehow, when readers absorb a unique detail, it’s not distancing; more likely, it causes them to consider their own unique details/places. This connects and engages the reader in ways that the generic just does not.

Last words

If you cross the borders of speculative, historical, and realistic fiction creating, you realize that you are doing similar work to create a believable world regardless of genre.

Our so-called “reality” is also a construct. Something to keep in mind as you build.

**In the upcoming week, I’ll be guest-posting for TREE, one of my fave newsletters on Substack. Subscribe and enjoy long after next week: