Take Your Reader to Another World
By Keith Cronin | May 10, 2016 |
Donald Maass’ inspiring post last week showed us how we can tap into vivid personal memories to add new levels of delight (AKA “pixie dust”) to our storytelling. Later that week, Kathryn Craft’s wonderful post delved into how we can use setting to reinforce the emotional state of our characters. Today I’m going to look at some ways to use aspects of both of these approaches, with the goal of taking your readers to a world they’ve never seen – but you have.
Lessons from a loudmouth
Several years ago I stumbled across an indie film called Loudmouth Soup. The film is small in scope, focusing on a Hollywood dinner party attended by seven characters who come from various levels of the food chain within the film industry. Everybody has come to the party with an agenda (some hidden, some not so much), and a tense and often passive-aggressive dance slowly unfolds over drinks and dinner.
A few things make this film unusual. First, it was shot entirely in one night. Second, and probably most unusual, it had no script. (I know some writers who will hate this idea, but please, bear with me.) Instead, the director briefed the actors on their characters’ individual backstories, and then gave each character a set of goals, and then told them to basically do whatever they had to do to achieve them, while the cameras rolled. All the players were experienced Hollywood actors, so the director was calling on them to draw on their “insider” knowledge of those familiar shark-infested waters, and basically act like actors at a Hollywood dinner party.
Oh, and all while drinking heavily. The party may have been imaginary, but the drinks they served were real. So we get to watch a group of actors slowly getting drunk, playing the part of actors slowly getting drunk. Definitely a “meta” moment in filmmaking.
I enjoyed Loudmouth Soup, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a great movie (although I agree with much of this five-star review). I’ll admit, the unusual way the movie was made is probably its most interesting facet. If you haven’t lived in L.A. and/or been involved in the entertainment industry, much of the film might be a bit too “inside baseball” to be compelling.
But I have lived in L.A., where it seems everybody has an agenda, everybody is playing an angle, and everybody – from bank teller to studio executive – wants to be somewhere else on the food chain other than where they are right now. And that is exactly what these actors captured so well. Their knowledge of the film business allowed them to truly OWN the world in which the story was set.
For 96 minutes, those seven increasingly drunken actors whisked me back to L.A. and all its best and worst characteristics. I’ve seen few movies that evoked such a specific time and/or place so vividly – and so quickly.
So that’s what I want to look at today: how can we take our readers to a world we know intimately, and make it come to life for them? Here are a few ways – you can likely come up with even more.
Take your reader to work with you.
Even if Loudmouth Soup is not your cup of tea, a tried-and-true way to make your characters come alive is to show them at work. From John Grisham’s lawyers-in-peril to Janet Evanovich’s high-heeled bounty hunter, readers have shown a longstanding interest in what our characters do for a living. I suspect that’s because many of us spend the majority of our time at our jobs, so the highs and lows of our workdays play a major role in our emotional state of mind.
But the fact that we spend so many hours at our jobs can also give us deep and unique insights into our profession – along with an abundance of war stories – that we can use to add an extra dose of veracity and detail to our stories. And our unique experiences can allow us to take readers to a world they would not otherwise experience. Stephen King comments on this in his brilliant memoir/how-to, On Writing:
“Write what you like, then imbue it with life and make it unique by blending in your own personal knowledge of life, friendship, relationships, sex, and work. Especially work. People love to read about work. God knows why, but they do. If you’re a plumber who enjoys science fiction, you might well consider a novel about a plumber aboard a starship or on an alien planet. Sound ludicrous? The late Clifford D. Simak wrote a novel called Cosmic Engineers which is close to just that. And it’s a terrific read. What you need to remember is that there’s a difference between lecturing about what you know and using it to enrich the story. The latter is good. The former is not.”
Many writers have used their deep insights into specific professions – both exotic and mundane – to craft highly believable and emotionally compelling worlds.
David Bledin’s novel Bank captures the in-the-trenches grunt work going on behind investment banking. In what you might think would be a painfully dull setting, Bledin gives us a surprising amount of conflict, angst, humor, pressure, sexual tension, and actual physical danger – all while describing the life of a protagonist who spends all day sitting at a desk, endlessly tweaking Excel spreadsheets.
Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants captures the bizarre and often dangerous world of a traveling circus during the Great Depression. While Sara never actually worked for a circus, her extensive research and tremendous world-building skills make this strange and exotic setting come alive.
In his novel Everything Changes, Jonathan Tropper takes us into the frustrating and bureaucratic world of a “middleman” at the fictional Spandler Corporation. In describing his job at Spandler, Tropper’s protagonist says:
“We produce nothing. We sell nothing. We buy nothing. If we didn’t exist, Kafka would have to invent us.”
Not content to leave us with that terrific punch line, Tropper’s character elaborates:
“We call ourselves supply-chain consultants. We call ourselves outsourcing specialists. But our true vocation can be summed up in one word. We are middlemen.
We service the world’s largest companies in the overseas manufacturing of their products. We know where to go for everything you need. We have relationships with every possible type of manufacturing facility you can imagine, and many that would never occur to you.”
After going into painstaking detail about the materials his company is able to source for their clients, Tropper’s protagonist sums things up.
“I am a middleman. I hate my job.
I am the conduit between the client and the vast, stratified world of design and manufacturing. I translate abstract needs into reality, concept into construct. I am the voice of reason and experience. I bring to the vendor much-needed work, and to the client desperately sought product. I get yelled at a lot.
When you’re a middleman, everything is always your fault.”
Tropper does a wonderful job capturing a profession most of us have probably never heard of or thought about. And in addition to making it seem soul-crushing to a young man whose life is not turning out how he’d planned, it adds an extra layer of pressure and conflict to the *real* story in Everything Changes – a complex tapestry of family and romantic relationships being strained to the breaking point in ways both heart-breaking and hilarious.
I’m a big fan of Tropper’s writing, but sometimes find it hard to connect with his main characters. By delving so deeply into this character’s unglamorous day job, I think Tropper made this protagonist much more relatable than many of his other main characters, who have included a best-selling novelist, a producer for a Howard Stern-like talk-radio show, a high-profile magazine columnist, and a drummer from a one-hit-wonder rock band. (Okay, so maybe I can relate a bit more to that last one.)
Take your reader home with you.
Another way to take your reader into another world is to leverage your own familiarity with the places you’ve lived or traveled to, and imbue your settings with a level of detail and nuance that could only have been absorbed firsthand.
Florida native and lifetime resident Carl Hiaasen captures the sleaze and weirdness of Florida in a way that is simultaneously compelling, hilarious, and mercilessly accurate. One of my favorites is Stormy Weather, a story of predators swarming into South Florida after it is ravaged by a major hurricane, eager to exploit the victims of this disaster at the peak of their vulnerability. As a fellow survivor of Hurricane Andrew, I can vouch for Hiaasen’s eye for detail. And I can tell Hiaasen shares my outrage at the exploitative acts of these modern-day carpetbaggers, as he serves them up some viciously just rewards.
Annie Proulx has a gift for capturing the lives of people who live and work in remote and rustic worlds, whether it’s the icy coast of Newfoundland (The Shipping News), a sheep-grazing range in rural Wyoming (Brokeback Mountain), or a struggling ranch town in the Texas Panhandle (That Old Ace in the Hole). Although she was raised in New England and now lives in Seattle, Proulx has clearly done some moving around, and has actually lived in both Wyoming and Newfoundland.
An even more avid traveler was Ernest Hemingway, whose work was deeply influenced by the many places he visited and lived. The Sun Also Rises captures the essence of the time he spent in France and Spain; Islands in the Stream reflects a very different way of life in the Caribbean, influenced by the extensive time he spent on the islands of Bimini and Cuba. For Whom the Bell Tolls gives us another look at Spain through Hemingway’s eyes – and his ears. In this book, he adopts an unusual style of writing that at many times seems to be a literal translation from Spanish, a fascinating (and sometimes criticized) approach to immersing the reader even more deeply in how Hemingway’s characters think, feel and communicate.
Take your reader to another time.
Yet another way to transport your reader is to focus your story on what it’s like to live during a specific time or era. You might choose your childhood, your coming-of-age years, or instead focus on a social trend or shift you observed and/or experienced.
You could even focus on a current social shift, or an era-specific experience that you’re having right now. That’s essentially what F. Scott Fitzgerald did when writing The Great Gatsby, capturing in real time the decadence, social upheaval and class conflict of the Roaring Twenties.
Jessica Keener’s wonderful debut novel Night Swim takes us back to what it was like to be a teenager in the ’70s, highlighting the many elements that made that era such a confusing and turbulent time to be alive: class, race, war, sex, drugs, music, and a growing epidemic of family dysfunction that nobody yet knew how to talk about.
You’ll see even more examples of era-specific storytelling in TV and film, with shows like The Wonder Years, That ’70s Show, and most recently Mad Men. Some great “time capsules on film” include Stand by Me (based on Stephen King’s novella The Body), Almost Famous, The Wedding Singer, and A Walk on the Moon. I’m sure you can think of countless others.
Focus on the feeling.
The authors I’m citing above are doing more than simply describing a job, place or time with technical accuracy. At their best, they are capturing what it *feels* like to work at that job, to live in those locations, and to navigate those social eras.
I think that’s what we need to focus on as writers: how working at that job made us feel, how living in that location affected us emotionally, how seeing/experiencing some era-specific trend (which could range from the civil rights movement and the Viet Nam War to online dating and selfie sticks) impacted the way we feel about the world – and about ourselves.
The great thing about this is that each of us will have our own unique viewpoint, based on our own unique experiences. So even if we’re writing in a crowded genre, we each have the ability to bring a fresh perspective to the worlds we create and share.
But my life has been boring, and I haven’t traveled or lived somewhere exotic…
I often hear people complain about leading average or unexciting lives. But I guarantee that we each have had unique experiences that have shaped us as people – and as writers. You may simply need to spend some time in self-examination, looking for what might be unique about your own perspective.
Perhaps you came from a large family, and you think nothing is unusual about that. But to somebody like me, who comes from a small family, I feel simultaneously overwhelmed and fascinated by the complex and conflicting dynamics I observe when I spend time with large families. You could hook me as a reader by capturing the nuance of those dynamics.
You might consider your job boring. But when novels about spreadsheet jockeys and middlemen can keep me on the edge of my seat, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some drama or conflict in a job you’ve held that you could leverage into a plot point or two.
Maybe you came from a small town, where nothing exciting ever happened – at least in your eyes. But in the claustrophobic constraints of a town so small that everybody knows everybody else’s business, I submit that there’s plenty of potential for drama and conflict.
And I don’t think any of us can claim that we’ve only lived in a boring or uneventful social era. We’re certainly not in one now, nor have we been during my 50+ years on this planet. So I don’t believe we have any valid excuses on that front.
Do all stories need this kind of approach? I don’t know. But if you’ve got some deep knowledge of a world that is probably unfamiliar to most, why not look for a way to tap into it?
How about you?
Are there books, movies or TV shows that knocked you out with how well they captured a specific place or time? How do you try to evoke your own unique memories or experiences in the fictional worlds you build? What are some other elements that can make the worlds in our stories more vivid, more compelling, and more real? Please chime in, and as always, thanks for reading!
Image licensed from 123RF.com
[coffee]
Author of the novels Me Again (originally published by Five Star/Gale), and Tony Partly Cloudy (published under his pen name Nick Rollins), Keith Cronin (he/him) is a corporate speechwriter and professional rock drummer who has performed and recorded with artists including Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons, and Pat Travers. Keith’s fiction has appeared in Carve Magazine, Amarillo Bay, The Scruffy Dog Review, Zinos, and a University of Phoenix management course. A native of South Florida, Keith spends his free time serenading local ducks and alligators with his ukulele.
Love this post, Keith! I think the key of what you say is captured in your first three words. The first job of a writer is to “take the reader,” stealing them for a time, transporting them to another realm and making them eager participants in lives outside their own. Part entertainment and, at its best, part education as well, a good book can give readers fresh perspectives, or at least cleared circuits, to bring back to their own.
I’ve been on a kick lately, fascinated by successful TV shows in which the work is essential to the story. I’m speaking not of shows set in workplaces with no real play in the plot, nor those where work is the real appeal (countless police and medical dramas), but those in which emotional arcs of characters are tightly woven into equally fascinating work dramas. Mad Men comes to mind of course, but lately (and belatedly) I’ve become obsessed with the world of The Good Wife.
I’m in awe, and more than a bit intimidated, at how the intricate hooks and twists of overlapping plot lines manage to enhance, not detract from, genuine emotionally investment in the characters. And while I can see that good acting carries the show, I know the actors only succeed because the writing is top-notch. The show has definitely given me plenty to ponder, and a high bar for which to aim, as I struggle to sustain a new protagonist’s emotional journey within a plot which demands a realistic and compelling work environment.
At any rate, thanks for offering such a thorough guide for where to focus and with such good examples. I may seek out Loudmouth Soup just to see how they pulled off that concept, which sounds fascinating. Cheers!
Thanks, John – I’m glad you enjoyed this post. My favorite “show about work” is definitely The West Wing, although recently I’ve become addicted to Madam Secretary.
Admittedly in shows like that, the work the characters are doing is extremely important, literally world-changing stuff, so it’s not hard to find the drama in them.
But I’ve never found a shortage of drama – or stress – in any job I’ve done, whether it was working a loading dock or touring in a rock band, running a shipping department or ghost-writing for CEOs.
As a result, I think every job probably has stress and/or drama built in. I just figure part of my wages are “annoyance fees” for putting up with it!
Smile. I agree with your assessment that all work has its stresses and drama. My favorite “work as stress” anecdote, despite the many “lives” (jobs) I’ve experienced over the years, is actually my partner’s. As part of a work study in college, he worked for a year in the university library, in the collections division. He says he has never since witnessed as much stress as his brief time in that department. Apparently the full-time associates were absolutely neurotic on obtaining items that would essentially be stored and rarely if ever accessed by anyone, for any reason. Yet somehow the office was fraught with tension, and petty grievances ran deep. He said the experience provided a great early lesson on keeping work in perspective.
I think my own recent fascination with workplaces integrated into stories stems from a realization at how often they are not, all those stories one reads in which characters don’t seem to have jobs, or whose jobs in no way affect their moods, sleep, or mental energies. It’s simply unrealistic. So I admire an author (or in the case of TV a team of writers) who tackles the problem head-on, placing characters in work situations that carry, and even propel, the story.
By the way, I just downloaded your book Me Again. Great opening chapter! I’m looking forward to taking in the entire tale. And thanks again for your post today. Take care.
Aw, thanks – hope you enjoy the rest of the book!
Outstanding post, Keith. You not only clearly explain writing personally, you show exactly how it’s done. The examples are great. (Thanks for mentioning Night Swim! Love that novel.)
Best of all is this: Focus on the feeling.
What you don’t know you can research. Coupling feelings to anything unfamiliar makes what is foreign accessible and real.
In my WIP, my protagonist is a maker of unique furniture. (Me? I can turn a screwdriver, that’s about it.) He visits a prison–a new one on me. So I visited one. The visual details helped but the scene is really about his feeling of being a prisoner even while standing on the outside.
At the end of the scene he walks away knowing he is ready to atone for his own mistakes, which leaves him feeling newly free.
Smack on, Keith. What are you working on now? Sounds like it’s gonna be good.
Thanks, Benjamin!
You bring up an EXCELLENT point: “What you don’t know you can research. Coupling feelings to anything unfamiliar makes what is foreign accessible and real.”
I’m certainly not stumping for the “write (only) what you know” mindset. My two novels are about a stroke victim with amnesia, and a mafia goon who becomes a TV weatherman. I have no direct experience in any of those areas, but instead explored ideas that captured my imagination, and did my best to flesh them out into something that *felt* right.
Sounds like you’re on to that approach in a big way. Good luck with your WIP!
Oh, and as far as what I’m working on, it’s a story about a guy who does some stuff with a thing. I know, right? Pretty amazing concept – I’m amazed nobody else has pulled it off before!
Wonderful article with great examples. I enjoy medical thrillers, science fiction that’s just around the corner, where you believe it could really happen if they ever found the technology. Michael Crichton is one of my favorites. His books are imbued with all sorts of fascinating details. I like historical fiction for this reason, for the author transporting into a time and place that I could never experience by myself. And I’ve really enjoyed the nonfiction books by Atul Gawande.
Although I know several pilots, it was Elizabeth Wein who gave me the thrill of flying in Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire. I know a few of my friends complained about “too much flying details” but I loved them. I wonder when she’s going to write a book featuring change-ringing (church bells).
Thank you, Vijaya. I share your love of Crichton, and am amazed at the range of topics and eras he has so deftly handled, from The Andromeda Strain to Eaters of the Dead, from The Great Train Robbery to Jurassic Park.
I think it’s a sign of great writing when an author can go into exhaustive detail without losing our interest. Tom Clancy basically created an entire genre doing that.
And John McPhee does this brilliantly in his non-fiction, covering an incredibly wide span of topics, from the everyday to the bizarre. I need to check out Atul Gawande – he’s not familiar to me. Thanks!
To me the crux of this article is right here: “I think that’s what we need to focus on as writers: how working at that job made us feel, how living in that location affected us emotionally, how seeing/experiencing some era-specific trend (which could range from the civil rights movement and the Viet Nam War to online dating and selfie sticks) impacted the way we feel about the world – and about ourselves.” You did a great job of building on Donald’s and Kathryn’s posts from last week. Kudos and thanks!
Thanks, Keith for the great post. I published late in life and wondered about jumping into this exciting world of writing.
But reader reviews and your article reassure me that I’m on the right track. What amazes me is the discovery of how I can weave what I know, where I’ve been, and how I’ve worked into my stories.
And even though I blend in some truths, I find my imagination takes off and I go to places that also end up on the page. What a fabulous life we live as writers! We may not get the monetary rewards we deserve, but we have the exhilaration of creating.
Thank you Diana, and amen to the “exhilaration of creating!”
As you observe, there’s a lot of discovery involved in creation. Good luck with your journey!
I read Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell recently. It’s a YA set in the 1980s. Since I was a teen in the 80s, I ate it up (though I never was a fan of The Smiths).
I’ve been using my experience as a navy brat from ’66 to ’84 to write my middle grade novels. I can pull in details few others would know about, like the navy beach and cool rubber rafts we could rent for 50 cents.
It’s hard to believe that young readers are now interested in our history, but I’m thrilled to take them to a time when a pack of Topps baseball cards was the highlight of my week, or Pop Rocks were the greatest way to annoy a teacher. Ever.
Since my navy brat days, I’ve served in the Navy as well, making three cruises, once around the world. I love Tom Clancy, but his description of the “always professional” sailors onboard his ships needs a bit of refinement.
Now I work as an engineer in the auto industry in and around Detroit. That provides me with plenty of material as well. I’ve worked in or visited more plants and shops than I can remember, each with its own personality.
I guess I have no excuse. I’ve done plenty. Been everywhere. Now to take my readers there.
LOL at the Pop Rocks reference, Ron!
Sounds like you’ve got a deep and varied experiential well to draw from. Can’t wait to see the stories you come up with!
Hey, Keith:
I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, the All-American City (it was called) and a “great place to raise a family.” Most boring place on the planet, in other words. So we all thought.
But one of my buddy’s dad was always home during the day, something we considered odd, since all our dads left for work every morning.
He also usually had five TVs on at the same time, scattered around the house. And the TVs were always tuned to sports.
We just figured he was really into sports. It wasn’t until later it dawned on us he was a bookie, and in fact was connected. (Something I confirmed when I returned to town as a PI. But that’s a different story.)
There is always — always — something in our mundane lives that is screaming for our attention to recognize its inimitable uniqueness.
As for capturing the feeling? I think the best technique is always to understand what the reader will expect to feel, then offer them something else, something unexpected, “the thing beneath the thing.”
Great post. Makes me want to read a lot of books and watch a lot of films instead of getting my work done today.
Thanks, David. Great point about “the thing beneath the thing.”
And hey, if my post can keep just one person from getting their work done, then I can consider my mission accomplished. :)
Not sure you will see this, David; but got a chuckle on your Columbus comments.
I lived in Columbus for 5 years after my time in the Air Force, and my partner for much longer (he’s a native Buckeye). While living there, the prominent Columbus marketing tag line was “Columbus … more than you dreamed.”
To this day, when returning to visit his family, we joke with our own amended tag line of “Columbus … more than you dreamed … less than you hoped for.” ;)
And yet I hasten to add it is just a joke. I actually like Columbus a great deal. Though I was quite ready to move when we did, it’s a nice city with a lot of charm (and a handful of bookies apparently).
I once met a transgender man who was the subject of a film. He was marrying a young woman who was also transgender, meaning the bride had grown up male and the groom had grown up female.
The groom had done that growing up in the greater Columbus area — Hilliard, to be exact — and having had a gay brother I know how hard it can be for kids who don’t fit the middle American mold.
I asked the groom if he missed Columbus. His answer: “The most beautiful thing I have ever seen is Columbus, Ohio, in my rearview mirror.”
Now, I happen to agree with you, John, that the city has changed a great deal, become much more cosmopolitan as the university has become more competitive with the better schools in the Midwest (read: Michigan), and has a great art scene, music scene, restaurant scene, etc.
But I bet it’s still hard for those kids who sense very early they are different.
Thanks for the homeboy moment!
I love this “thing beneath the thing.” And trying to give our readers something different than what they expect. Writing is HARD work!
Amen to that, Carol!
There’s a funny GIF floating around the Interwebs of a desperate-looking guy lamenting that “writing is HARD” that I’ve always related to, which I used in a WU post about a year and a half ago:
https://staging-writerunboxed.kinsta.cloud/2014/11/11/the-five-stages-of-new-writers-grief/
And it never seems to get easier, dangit!
Awesome post, Keith. Got me thinking.
Once of my favorite shows is the American version of The Office, which started as an English show and was remade over here.
Once of my favorite episodes involves Steve Carrell’s character going to a business class and making a speech about the importance of his office paper distribution company to a roomful of students with laptops.
Although the circumstances are a modern day dilemma the sentiments are as old as human existence. The need for an illusion of constancy, in a world without safety nets.
Thanks, Bernadette. That’s a great observation about The Office – I remember that scene. I love Steve Carrell, an actor who has the ability to be simultaneously funny and tragic (see the movie Dan in Real Life for one of my favorite examples).
The Office was SO good at capturing those all-too-real (and often cringe-worthy) tragicomic moments. Great show!
When you enter the world of a book a connection has to form between the contents of the book and the reader: scenery, characters, occupations mentioned, emotions. Your post is great in its emphasis of the importance of those things. And it underlines that write what you know might just be the key to success. Thanks.
Beth, you make a VERY important point: it’s all about making a connection with your readers.
This post is timely for me because I am reading a book now that is so well written, I am in awe at every paragraph and yet it is on a subject most people wouldn’t be interested in, or know about (falconry). The book is: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. It describes the year Macdonald spent training a goshawk. Somehow she saw the goshawk’s feral temperament mirrored her own grief (her father had just died) and as a way to cope with her loss, she takes on Mabel, a wild goshawk and begins the extraordinary task of taming her. She turns to T.H. White’s chronicle, The Goshawk, to guide her, so Macdonald’s book becomes not only a biography of a crazy falconer (White), but also a history of falconry, and birds and nature. Before I read this book I knew nothing about hawks or falconry; now I feel I know them intimately.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough for WRITERS. The prose is poetic and lyric; her use of similes and metaphors is so fresh and breathtaking you will find yourself, like me, re-reading every paragraph several times to savour the true craft of writing.
Wow, after an endorsement like that, I’ve GOT to check that book out. Thank you, Sally!
Great post, Keith. Dick Francis mysteries are a great study of immersing a reader in unusual worlds of work. Francis was a champion steeplechase jockey before picking up the pen. His protagonists range from jockeys and breeding farm managers to painters and wine dealers, all carefully researched but also engaging. The mystery always involves the character’s occupation, which draws the reader in deeper.
Ooh, I used to LOVE reading Dick Francis novels. I need to get back to his stuff.
You’re right, Christine – he was a master at bringing us into to the equestrian world – even city slickers like me who know nothing about horses. Great recommendation – thank you!
Love all the advice, but most especially the last part, where you challenge us to examine what we consider “boring” about our lives and realize that to others it might be anything but! :)