The Editor’s Clinic: Brave New World
By Dave King | February 19, 2019 |
One reason writers fail when setting their stories in a different world – in the past, in the present with a different metaphysics, in another galaxy — is by not digging deeply enough into what makes their world distinct. Any writer knows to change the technology their characters use, and the better ones manage to create a language with a different flavor to it. But to really put your readers into the heads of someone who lives in an alternate world, you need to change attitudes so deep that most people aren’t aware they’re there.
This morning’s author does well. The surface details are there, of course – the naming conventions of the narrator’s culture, the clay tablets, the reed boats. But notice too how comfortable WatchesEverything is with submitting to authority. He’s less abused by his teacher than other students, and he considers that a sign of favor. He hates and fears LovedOfGod, but he accepts that he has no choice about working for his family. While he’s not happy about any of this, he doesn’t have the sense of unfairness that someone modern would have in that situation. Since his decision involves possible danger to his village, he also has no hesitation in letting the village elders decide for him. Authority is a normal, accepted part of his life.
The piece includes some very nice period images as well – the sorts of metaphors that would naturally come to mind from someone in that culture. Seeing water buffalo as dreamy and distracted, for instance, or the terms of an agreement described as otters sliding on mud. The author also pays attention to all the senses. Clay tablets aren’t simply an awkward substitute for paper. They have a smell of their own, which a scribe might appreciate.
I found a few problems, as well. Like a lot of historical fiction writers, the author is apparently going for a language with a different feel and winding up at something that is simply stiff. Whatever language the characters are speaking, I’m sure it has contractions, so there’s no reason not to use standard, English contractions. The author relies a little too much on direct address, and sometimes gives into telling rather than showing – I’ve flagged these problems in my notes. And there were one or two places where the syntax got turned around for no reason apparent. You can give the impression of a language foreign by introducing a syntax alternate, but you need to be consistent about it.
But these problems – and a few other more routine ones – are easily fixed. And beneath them, the piece lets readers into the head of someone who lives a very different life from us.
And in case you believe this principle only applies to historical or science fiction, remember that to some extent, all characters live in their own world, with their own preconceptions and goals and understanding of life. The deeper you can dig into these individual worlds, the more your characters will come to life.
WatchesEverything pushed wider [1] the heavy door to the records room open with his shoulder.
Greeted by He inhaled the familiar,rather musty earthy odor of the room full of not-quite-dry clay of tablets and the tang of beeswax of the covers intended to seal pots holding counting stones,. The rains thickened the scents this day. Usually WatchesEverything scarcely noticed them after all these years.
[Paragraph added] hHe put the torch in the wall bracket and before pulleding the door closed behind him. It would soon be full dark. Even though this was the seventh day of the week and no one should be in the School, even though it would make the room full dark, still he pulled the door closed. He needed the torch anyway to see anything at all. in the room on a The day was so heavy with rain and clouds that there was very little light from the slit windows near the ceiling. The musty scent hung heavier this day; usually WatchesEverything scarcely noticed it after all these years.
He started to seat himself on the floor when a sudden push on the door sent him sprawling.
The intruder [2] struck the door again, then stepped through the opening. [Paragraph removed] “Well, Watcher, now that your patron is dead and his bones have been buried, are you going to stay here and rot? Or are you going to decide to scribe for my family?”
LovedOfGod. was tThe last person WatchesEverything had wanted to see just nowthen.
And his patron? Senior Father had indeed sometimes shown a fondness for WatchesEverything. Watching the flicker of the torchlight on LovedOfGod’s face, he wondered h [3] How had LovedOfGod had noticed that, when it had taken himself years to see that the sSenior sSchool Ffather liked anyone at all.? And Senior Father’s fondness mostly just meant All WatchesEverything had noticed was that he was ignored more often than the other students. That was a desirable welcome state of affairs, even after he had grown to ‘Elder Brother’ with more responsibilities.
Rising, WatchesEverything rose to face stood looking at LovedOfGod. He wished that he could have had time alone here in the familiar quietness of the records room. He wished he could just stalk out, push his boat into the marshes, then sit and watch the many birds that visited at this time. The season was turning, and . Soon it would be getting hotter. TThe colder weather birds would all be flying north as it warmed.
LovedOfGod obviously noticed that WatchesEverything was taking a mental holiday, because he suddenly swore. “Dreamer! “Why did they name you WatchesEverything?” LovedOfGod said. “They should have called you Dreamer.! Or WaterBuffalo. You spend more time dreaming than they do chewing their cud.!” [4]
Again, WatchesEverything did not answer. He pushed back the desire to trip his long time tormentor. He wanted to barricade the door with LovedOfGod inside the room until it was time for school the next day, but he knew – he Kknew [Italics added] – that he was going to accept the position of scribe for his tormentor’s family. He couldn’t delay tThe decision could not be evaded much longer since he was years yet from being old enough to be a School Father.
It had been comparatively peaceful at the school in the two years since LovedOfGod had been dismissed. It was a shame that LovedOfGod blamed WatchesEverything for his dismissal. Each time they met, whether by accident or by LovedOfGod’s contrivance, LovedOfGod made sure that WatchesEverything felt hisLovedOfGod’s displeasure, if not his contempt. WatchesEverything knew to the bottom of his being that LovedOfGod would never change. There was little to gain by aggravating him purposely.
“I will speak with your father in a few days, LovedOfGod. I have responsibilities to put upon me by my Village Father that I must see to first.”
“Your Village Father!? Another old man that you bow to!. GuidedByGod wants you at our house within four days. The sickness that ha‘s come upon our scribe leaves our business in a muddle. He says you are to be there next week or he will find another scribe.”
“I will speak with my Village Father about this, LovedOfGod. Perhaps this can be arrangedworked out.”
“Worked outArranged, nothing! Father says be there on next week’s secondfourth day!.” [5]
LovedOfGod slammed the heavy door with a crash that surely threatened its leathern hinges.
HeronFlying was waiting by WatchesEverything’s reed boat when he reached the river’s edge.
“I saw him coming going into the school, so I decided to wait for you here.”
“Wise move, HeronFlying,” [6] WatchesEverything told his younger friend., ”He has no respect, even for the dead.”
“You ha‘ve known that longer than you ha‘ve known me.,” was the quiet reply.
Since that This was so, but he didn’t want to think of such things now. WatchesEverything sought to change the subject. [7] “How is your sister doing?”
“Mother says that the babe will come any day now. WhiteHyacinth is in constant discomfort and is lettings everyone know that she wants this over. She ha‘s told LovedOfGod that she wants a wet-nurse for the child, but LovedOfGod appears to be ignoring her. He seems to think she‘s just exaggerates and whinesing to get his attention. Mother is nearly at her wits‘ end.”
WatchesEverything felt a twinge of the old hurt that WhiteHyacinth had never paid any attention to him, but it was more easily put aside these days. Since her she had thrown hysterics at seeing his dog in the school, he had realized that she would never have accepted him as husband, much less would she have been willing to live in the Marshes.
“Let u‘s go now, then, HeronFlying. I‘ am anxious to be gone from here.” And he had his future to arrange.
HeronFlying jumped at the sudden splash of the blue bird that speared a fish just beside their boat. The bird was in and out of the dark water so fast that HeronFlying was not sure of anything but a streak of blue. He shifted his pole to the other side. “Those birds startle me every time, WatchesEverything! Do you think we might see one of the great herons today?”
“There should be herons, and even the heavy beaked white storks. They are still here. It should be a few weeks before they fly north from the marshes.”
It was a relief for both of them to chat and observe the birds and turtles as they poled their way to to the Great Hall.[8]
Built on one of the larger, more solid islands that made upstood among the village of individual homes, the Great Hall was much larger than the ordinary dwellings built of woven reeds that e. Each small house was built of and on a construction of reeds which shared its own floating island with a small garden. Often water buffalo shared the island, as well.
After tTying up, WatchesEverything and HeronFlying entered the Great Hall. The openwork reed window over the door to the long hall let in very little light this heavily overcast day. The nearness of sunset made the darkness nearly impenetrable — t. The small fire near the end of the hall only drew the eye, deepeninged that darkness within. The forms of the men in their dark robes seemed nothing more than lumps leaning along the sides of the building.
At the center, between the fires, WatchesEverything stopped, in front of the fire, facing his Village Father. [Paragraph removed.] “My Fathers, my Brothers, I come seeking advice.”
“We will listen.”
“I have told you before about my school brother who was dismissed from our school for disrespect of the Senior School Father. LoveOfGod blames me for being ejected. Now he works as his father’s scribe. He has been telling GuidedByGod that I would be a better choice because the school fathers taught me more than they taught him. This school brother was never a friend to me. Now he tells me that his father, a wealthy and important man, wants me to come to scribe for him and his family. I have been given until next week’s fourth second day to accept his offer. I believe that LovedOfGod plans harm to me, because he has never liked me. You know how I was chafed but held my peace. I did not only my own duties, but many of his – most, if the School Fathers were not in the room. [Paragraph Removed] I have heard many times heard [9] from this friend beside me, HeronFlying, how LovedOfGod has made threats against me. HeronFlying has this knowledge because LovedOfGod is married to his sister, WhiteHyacinth.“
“LovedOfGod blames me for being ejected from our school. Now he works as his father’s scribe. He has been telling GuidedByGod that I would be a better choice because the school fathers taught me more than they taught him.”
“Why does he threatenis that, WatchesEverything?”
“He claims that they the School Fathers favored me. While there may be some small truth to that, I did not know it. I only knew that he only wished to do as He wanted. [Paragraph Removed]
“You all know that I went today to attend the burial of the Senior School Father’s bones within the school yard wall. LovedOfGod came to me in the library storeroom after the burial and told me that I have only two more days to accept their offer. He has hinted before at trouble for me and for our village if I do not appear on the fourth second day. That is why I seek advice.”
“Again you show judgement, WatchesEverything. I believe you are right. I need to be with you to discuss your employment with GuidedByGod. He is known as one who will keep his word, but the agreement must be clearly understood. Otherwise the terms could slide around like an otter on mud. Leave us, and
“Llet us discuss this matter among ourselves.”
NOTES:
- Is the door already open? If so, why? This seemed like a distraction.
- The second door strike is also distracting.
- Show him doing the wondering.
- Very nice, period-appropriate metaphor.
- It’s the seventh day. Unless they have a nine-day week, the second day would not be four days away. And if they do have a nine-day week, you should mention it.
- A little too much direct address.
- Show him changing the subject.
- Two things. You slip into HeronFlying’s point of view here. And WatchesEverything’s love of the marshes is a key part of his character. If you are going to showcase this part of his character on the trip to the Great Hall, you need to do it in more detail.
- This is the only place where you put the adverb before the verb. If this were a grammatical quirk of the langauge, it would happen more often.
So what’s your favorite example of deep worldbuilding?
Also, are you finding what you want to know from these clinics? What would you like to see me cover?
Remember, you can submit a passage from your own work for review. You can find the guidelines here.
Dave King has been editing for nearly 40 years now. He is co-author of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, a former contributing editor to Writer’s Digest, and has contributed more than 100 articles over the last 12 years to Writer Unboxed. He lives on 25 acres in rural Massachusetts with his business partner and wife, Ruth Julian, who also edits his work. His other day job, at least on Sundays, is as the organist at a Lutheran church in Greenfield, Mass.
Thanks for this piece, but I have a comment/question. You write that whatever language a characters speaks, you are sure that they use contractions, so there’s no reason to avoid standard English contractions. I think this might be an overly broad assertion. It is my understanding German does not include contractions–a challenge to me as I’m writing a novel in first person with German-born protagonist and I want to convey to the reader that he is not a native English speaker. I’ve avoided contractions whenever he and other German characters are in dialogue or when conveying his internal reflections. I’ve been consistent about this. However, if I adopted the German style of syntax with the verb at the end of the sentence, the text would be unreadable, so I’ve only deviated from standard English syntax very judiciously.
It’s a complicated question. German does, in fact, include contractions, but in different places from English. “Zu dem” becomes “zum,” for instance.
And there are times when leaving the contractions out makes sense in context — someone speaking English as a second language is less likely to pick up on them. And when the language itself contains a bit of formality (like German), it can help to drop the contractions.
But in this case, you had two fluent speakers of a foreign language very different from English in relaxed conversation with one another. To not use contractions would make that conversation feel more formal than it actually was.
As I said, you can give a sense of a foreign language by playing games with the syntax. But those changes are most effective when the changes in the syntax represent a consistently different way of thinking that is captured in the language.
To use German again (I speak a bit myself), you’re right about the verb placement, not only because it would the English unreadable make, but because for fluent German speakers it most natural sounds. But German also contains a precision that isn’t normally found in English. You can use that precision to capture a flavor of the language.
I wrote an article here some time back that goes into a bit more detail.
Wonderful opening and editing, too. Immersive POV brings us deeply inside this protagonist’s world.
Your point today, Dave, is fully adopting the mindset of a character in a different time and culture. Good point. Here, the MC’s social position and the situation in which he feels trapped are nicely laid out.
Yet I was missing something. This character is not thinking about the wider world in which he lives. While a broad view or rebellious spirit might not be true to this scribe, his limited set of concerns also limited, for me, my sense of investment.
I wished for the tremors under an ordinary world soon to be shaken by an earthquake, a static social norm set up like a bowling pin to be knocked down. Am I asking too much?
To put it differently, Dave, how does the anticipation of global change square with the authenticity of a character who, at first, does not feel empowered, or perhaps even see the possibility of things being different?
Well, thank you, Don.
And I don’t think you’re asking too much. I suspect that the story is eventually going to include some world-shaking event, if only because you don’t create a 5000-year-old world just to tell a cozy, domestic story. (The author mentioned the age of her story in her cover letter.) And it should be possible to at least hint at what’s coming even within the limited scope of this opening scene.
Unfortunately, this scene is all I’ve read of the manuscript. So perhaps if the author is reading these comments, she might take note. Or even chime into the discussion?
I have long been fascinated with the need for a written language: Why, When, Who?
There was a transition period between pictographs and cuneiform, both of which required expert scribes.
This is that story, with boys to experience and respond to their need.
(This book is not finished. I had to re-edit my first)
Thanks, Suzanne.
What do you think of Don’s suggestion? Is there a way you could work the need for written language into the first scenes?
I’m still kind of leaning toward keeping that twist until later, allowing readers to settle into WatchesEverything’s mindset before you transform it with the creation of written language.
I’ve just read your comments again, since there is a lot there. And I may have misunderstood. If you mean that you’re looking for hints that his personal world is about to be shaken, then . . . that does raise some interesting questions.
When I was first starting out as an editor, I worked on a novel, set on a different planet, that involved an army inquisitor — rather like a JAG, but with religious overtones. He was investigating a situation where a couple of soldiers from a small squad, drunk and making mischief, had killed a harmless, mentally-challenged local boy. Unfortunately, the boy’s grandmother was a trained warrior (think ninja/shieldmaiden), and she was coming for the soldiers who had killed her grandson.
For most of the story, you’re immersed in the inquisitor’s mindset, trying to pull justice out of a chaotic mess of vengeance, vigilantism, and coverup. (According to the laws of his culture, if one soldier dishonors his squad, the entire squad is punished, so some officers are trying their best to deny that the whole thing happened.) Through it all, the inquisitor feels like the only honest, honorable man in the entire situation.
Then, after the grandmother is killed in an attack that leaves a fair number of bodies (including the original killer’s) in its wake, the legionary commander asks the inquisitor to claim in his report that the grandmother was mad and blame her for the whole thing. The inquisitor, who met the grandmother at one point and knew that she was not only sane but in the right, realized that the coverup, and the dishonor, went all the way up to the leader of the legion.
And he realized that, if he were to follow his sense of honor and justice, which had been the core of his character for the entire novel, he would have to condemn the entire legion, 25,000 soldiers, to their deaths. So he did the only thing he could do — he walked away from the situation, and from his career. He just quit, packed up, and became a vagabond.
That is a character who has his world shaken to its core. But the reason that transition was so gobsmackingly effective that I remember it thirty years later is that readers had no hint there were any problems with the Inquisitor’s world. They accepted his view of things as thoroughly and deeply as he did, so when his world was turned upside down, so was theirs.
I’m not certain this dynamic applies here. As I say, I don’t know the rest of the story, and the scribe’s life is a lot less interesting at the outset than the inquisitor’s. But if the author is planning that kind of world-bending transition, then immersing readers into the scribe’s world deeply enough that they take it for granted can set up the eventual transition.
I know, TLDR. But what can I say? I love this stuff.
Again, maybe the author of the piece would like to chime in?
This opening brought to mind an older novel. Walter Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. Maybe it is the monestary opening. The first paragraph does what Donald suggests — puts the story in a context that is larger (much larger) than the main character. Here’s that paragraph
Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice’s Lenten fast in the desert.
Talk about a setup for the rest of the story. I think all who write should read this masterpiece. Also, the life lesson in this book is amazing and a basic truth.
First, I’m glad to see there are other readers who fondly remember The Blessed Order of St. Lebowitz. I loved that book when I first encountered it, and it’s still worth reading today.
Second, you’re right that the opening shows someone with a dark-age monk’s concerns transported to Utah, which throws readers into the middle of an intriguing world.
Dave-
One of the things I’m looking for in these posts is an editor to take the place of mine. I’ve worked successfuly with an editor through the first three books of my medical suspense-thriller series but she is retiring.
It’s interesting and educational for me to see the different editing styles/formats used.
In today’s writing I found the use of the character labels and formal names awkward. The multiple(10?) long names/titles clogged up the reading experience for me.
Additionally I did not recognize what primary conflict or significant stakes were in play. Did I miss a hint about what compelling or urgent circumstance existed?
The task of the world-building is challenging. Eased readability and a hint at major conflict would help keep me reading.
Best deep world-building? Tolkien jumps to mind.
Thank you!
Tolkien, for sure, but C.S. Friedman is a standout for world-building in her Coldfire trilogy, imo.
I enjoy the way you dissect the submissions and explain what works for you, what doesn’t, and where to improve. This one was a great example.
As the Fellowship of the Ring is about to enter the Mines of Moria, Aragorn tells them not to worry because Gandalf “is surer of finding the way home in a blind night than the cats of Queen Beruthiel.” It is the only mention of Beruthiel in the entire Lord of the Rings. But at the time Tolkien wrote that, he knew who Beruthiel was, when she’d lived, what her cats had done, and how much her story had been altered as it passed down through the ages. That kind of astonishing attention to background detail led one critic to observe that, if Middle Earth didn’t exist, it ought to.
And yet, in another way, Tolkien was not very good at the kind of deep worldbuilding I’m talking about here. His world’s landscape and history were imagined in intricate detail, but his characters’ assumptions and attitudes toward life would have been very familiar to his readers. Yes, they were more royalist than we are today, but when Tolkien was growing up, there were still absolute monarchs in the world, and Victoria was not entirely a figurehead. I’ve heard the Hobbits described as English people with furry feet — the Shire could be the Cotswolds — and the Ents, with their lack of contact with women and slow deliberation, are essentially Oxford dons.
The best example I’ve encountered of capturing a different attitude in writing is C. J. Cherryh’s Wave Without a Shore. It’s the story of a planetary colony of practicing solipsists. Everyone believed that they were the only person who existed, and that everything they saw around them was the product of their own imagination. Thing is, if something happened that was so startling that they could no longer believe their own minds had produced it, they stopped believing in their own existence. They believed they were the product of someone else’s imagination. As you can imagine, this is a tricky state of mind to capture, and Cherryh does it well.
This was a good writing sample of world building. There was a lot going on it. Thanks, writer for sharing it.
In this short piece, we were told twice that WatchesEverything was a teacher’s favorite but hadn’t been aware of it. We only need to learn this once.
When LovedOfGod calls WatchesEverything by a shortened name, is her being disrespectful or friendly?
I assumed that GuidedByGod is LovedOfGod’s father. If that is correct, then bravo to you for slipping it in there seamlessly.
WhiteHyacinth would never have accepted him as (her) husband? Not not add ‘her’ to the sentence? And, create a new color or flower for her name?
Use of caps. I saw ‘Marshes’ and ‘marshes’ used to point to the same place, I think. And, LovedOfGod only wished to do what ‘He’ wanted to do, implying that LovedOfGod is a divinity or royal personage?
WatchesEverything used to be romantically interested in WhiteHyacynth until she had thrown HYSTERICS? You may want to rethink a man saying a woman is being hysterical or having hysterics, anything that connects crazy with womb. That is just my advice for things you write for the people on this planet, living today.
You raise some interesting points, Tina. I do think that LovedofGod’s shortening of WatchesEverything’s name is an insult, but that might become clearer with more context.
I’m particularly interested in the focus on WhiteHyachinth’s hysterics. You’re absolutely right that if a woman today hears a man refer to her having hysterics, she should immediately punch him in the throat. But that wouldn’t have been true in WatchesEverything’s day. And that raises the question, how do you hit the balance between being historically accurate and not offending modern readers.
I wish I had a clear, easy answer. But the best I can do is to point out that, if you have a character who holds views that today would be offensive, you need to make that character sympathetic in other ways. Readers need to understand him or her, even if they violently disagree.
I once wrote a piece that might at least further the discussion.
https://staging-writerunboxed.kinsta.cloud/2016/06/21/jaime-lannister-and-sympathetic-monsters-a-look-at-a-master/