Fields and Fence Lines (Part Four)

Geez, I got'a lot of limits, don't I?

This time around, let's talk about imagination. A rather essential tool in a writer's tool box. I have something of an imagination, but like everything else, it definitely has its limits; it's fence lines. And it's a pretty small pasture, in fact.

Now, I've written twenty-three books, so I'm not going to complain about my imagination. Still, when I hear of people filling notebooks with story ideas and bemoaning the fact that they'll never have enough time to write all the stories they have in their head, well, I'm not in their league. I've had just enough story ideas to fill my time writing for the last 15 years, with only a few to spare, and they're spares only because I couldn't get them to work.

The funny thing is that there is not a shortage of stories that you could put your own stamp on. Millions of them. The trouble is that almost all of those stories don't interest me. And that's the key. If I were doing this for money, i.e. producing a product, that wouldn't matter. I would write the stories that research would tell me were selling in the moment. I'd write to market, and call it a job.

But as an amateur, I can afford to be picky, telling only the stories that, for one reason or another, interest me. And, as I said in my last installment in this series, I have to live with the story I'm writing in my head for six or more months, so it has to be one that I don't get bored thinking about for that long. It needs to be at least a "B" story for me.  And given how picky I am as a reader, you can see how small this pasture is.

Another limit of my imagination, and my stories, perhaps because I'm a son of an engineer, is that the stories I write have to have at least one foot in reality. They have to have a solid element of realism in them. I have no interest in writing wild, mind-blowing, impossible, or absurd stories. And that pretty much includes writing pure magic. I'll sometimes hide a science-ish explanation behind something that appears to be magic, at least from the character's point of view, but I never wave my hand and just say it's magic. I feel that's cheating.  

Because I don't have a visual mind, my settings have to be vaguely familiar, at least to start with. I have to be able to envision them - not in any great detail - but get an "impression" of them in mind. For this reason, I'm not going to be able to invent weird, alien worlds, or characters for that matter. Instead, I strive to make my worlds realistic and relatable, familiar, and yet unexplored. While I have given my readers islands floating in the air, I usually find a way to make my settings similar to my favorite historical period; the fifty years before I was born. I like to mix the old with the new, the familiar with a twist. For example, my cars are usually an electric powered Model T (well a bit little more modern, but you get the idea) and societies are powered by solar energy and stored in high capacity capacitators. My weapons are mostly non-lethal. 

I usually write my stories set in modest utopias with a nostalgic air. I avoid religion in my stories and many of my stories are post-political; an united world administered by a bureaucracy with all the rules long established. One can say that when it comes to worldbuilding, I've imagined a world I'd like it to be and have largely ceased looking for something new. I just innovate around the edges these days, voluntarily limiting my imagination, having found what I want.

As for the details of my worlds, since I can't conjure up more than an impression of a scene, much less a world, I construct them from I know from life and perhaps more importantly, from some sort of impression of the real world from my readings. For example, I have an impression of the South Sea Islands of the Pacific from reading books set in them. I used those impressions to set my Taef Lang stories in, but I dotted my south seas with islands, so that you're never out of sight of an island or two in order to make it more interesting, and more convenient for things to happen. Plus, I used all those sea stories I've read for my settings on the boats. And this method, using what I know or have read, and then designing the world to suit the story I have in mind, is true for all my worlds. 

Once I have a world in mind, no more than an impression and mood, I proceed to build it out, one concrete object after another, as I, and my characters move through it. While I can't quite picture scenes, I can imagine what items might be expected to be on stage, so to speak, and add these items to the scene, not so much "seeing" them in my mind, but rather knowing they would be there, and then constructing them in concrete terms as I go along.  This is pretty much how I paint my pictures as well; constructing the scene as I go along, from little more than an "idea" rather than a picture.

Another limit is that I write the stories I want to read, the way I want stories to read. For example, I don't care to write dark, grimdark fantasy, or horror stories, if only because I don't want to live with them in my head for months. Nor do I have any desire to read them. And there are no doubt many other types of stories I either don't have an interest in, or the imagination to write. 

And on the other hand, there are some stories that would, in theory, require less imagination than I like to use in creating my stories. For example, contemporary fiction. For me it's a been there, done that (even if I actually haven't) feeling that doesn't interest me. Historical fiction falls into this category as well; though more because of the need to conform to known facts, and having to do the research necessary to make the story fit history accurately. I'd rather invent what I need for the story, unconfined by history, then be handcuffed in storytelling by existing facts, especially since my favorite period corresponds to the early 20th century, where too much is known. Plus, there are too many wars to work around.

Characters are also limited by my imagination and personality. I do not base my characters on any real people, and so, not being a student of humanity, my characters are rather limited. Save for my narrator, I don't go deeply into their thoughts and motivations, though I try to make them more than plot devices. Even my narrator is only pleasant, but bland character, without deep thoughts and powerful emotions. The variety of my characters is also limited. I look on them as actors under contract in the old movie studio model. Like it or not, I seem to have this stable of actors in my head. They play different roles, with different names, in different stories. But like the stars of the old silver screen, even as they play different roles, there remains the essential, individual character of the actor in every role. And thus, my characters and the narrator of my stories, no matter which one, are rather similar to every other ones in all of my stories. 

And while some people can see some of my attitude in my stories, I can assure you, I'm not the narrator, nor do I want to be. Any similarity between me and my narrators is a result of the limits of my imagination, and the fact that I approach writing organically; my stories are written as if by the person experiencing the story. Essentially I am telling the story as the character, but like an actor, that character is not me. Anything anyone might see of me in the character is just the residue of the actor playing the role.

So, summing things up. I have just enough imagination to write a story or two a year, and no more. I keep my stories grounded in reality, using as much as real life imagery as I can to fill my stories and, hopefully, make them seem real, while avoiding enough everyday reality to transport my readers someplace else. And when I've found what I'm comfortable with, be it characters, the world, the technology, and the society, I don't go further. I'm content to graze within the pasture of my limits.