fiction

The Pandemic In Fiction

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

We know, inevitably, the Pandemic of 2020 (and sadly, 2021) is going to eventually work it’s way into fiction. Humans use fiction to make sense of things, humans use real events in fiction to ground them, and known things sell books.

But what will the Pandemic of 2020 do, specifically to American media and fiction? I asked myself that recently – and then found myself standing on a precipice of imagination, looking into the unknown.

The Pandemic of 2020 is, for America, an unmitigated disaster, with 200,000 people dead as of this writing. We’re humiliated in the eyes of the world, our politics in chaos, our social media clogged with conspiracy theories, and no end in sight. Right now the biggest source of Pandemic fiction is people lying about the situation or making up stories to grift money or excuse our failure.

How do we fictionalize this?

If we step back, the Pandemic of 2020 looks like a badly written novel. If you had composed this a decade ago, would anyone have believed it? America having the worst outcome in the world? The CDC losing face? 200,000 deaths? This would be a made for TV movie or hack novel at best.

I asked myself again, how do we fictionalize this?

So as I stared into this abyss of the unexpected, I’ve come to a few shaky conclusions. Perhaps this is in my own head as I try to cope with the insights as well as the Pandemic.

First, I don’t expect to see “Pandemic In Fiction” as a theme for awhile. We’re still in the middle of it, and crass and exploitative as some media is, I don’t see this becoming widespread. Also we’re sick of it, and there’s little market for it when you’re living it.

Second, I expect any fictionalization of the Pandemic of 2020 will be politicized or seen as politicized. You can tell the most honest researched story, and some hack pundit will decry it for hits and to push products. In time this may pass, but not for a few years.

Third, I expect to see many a fiction piece that are political fiction of the Pandemic of 2020. Some will indeed have agendas, pundit ranting aside, and you can expect plenty of apologia and non-apologia. It is my hope this is minimized in the face of harsh reality, because even if I agree, crass fictionalization of important things may not do any good.

Fourth, I expect fictionalization of the Pandemic will have no middle ground. It will be done in wild metaphor or fantastical parallels in world of magic and science fiction – or it will be tales based on real life. The uncomfortable middle ground where we mix hard fact and big dreams will be too ambiguous, too uncomfortable. We’ll want the abstract fantastical – or the painfully familiar – because that middle ground is where speculation runs and harsh truths emerge.

We’re ready for Godzilla and Alien Plague, or for two people at a coffee shop decrying the state of life. We’re not ready for fiction with enough fact that the speculation cuts us.

The near future of Pandemic Fiction is going to be not much different than we have now, a mess of politics and agendas, the fantastic and the on the nose, and people arguing over it. It is my hope in time we can confront our experiece and our history with the power of imagination, but for the short-term I fear a muddle is where we’re headed.

May we reduce the time we’re in that muddle so our writing may clearly illuminate the human experience, our lessons, our losses – and those responsible. Because we’re doing it half-assed now.

Steven Savage

The End Of The World As We Don’t Know It

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

My friend Serdar talked about about his disinterest in writing post-apocalyptic fiction at his blog. I wanted to add my own thoughts on this because most apocalyptic stuff and even post-apocalyptic stuff feels boring and inaccurate. As Serdar puts it, its best to take things as Mad Max like mythology, a sort of lesson or metaphor.

As for the rest of the apocalypses . . .

Most fictional post-apocalypse tales are boring, repetitive, and the same stuff. I’ve been watching enough bad-movies that took Mad Max and gave us so many battles in tight leather pants that it’s like 80’s hair bands went to war. There’s so many Zombie movies it’s a running joke that rarely explores the implications of having zombies. Most of our fictional apocalypses have been done so over and over again there’s nothing to learn or take from it – if there ever was much in the first place.

We’ve recycled our apocalypses and our post-apocalypses, so most of them are going through the motions. Most of the apocalypses are zombies, even if they lack zombies.

In addition, real post-apocalypses don’t fictionalize well.

First, some apocalypses are boring. We’re living through a low-level apocalypses now with COVID-19, and it’s not that interesting. Disasters are often not action-packed or dramatic tales, they’re the slow grind, the surviving-enough, the unending grayness of endings. Fiction doesn’t cover that.

Other apocalypses and post-apocalypses ignore or glorify the horror. We’ve had plenty of apocalyptic bombings and and disasters, we’ve had horrors and terrible mass deaths. So much fiction either grinds our face in the blood and turns it into a show, leaving us with that queasy sense of watching apocalypse pornography. Others try to ignore the horror, because it’s so horrible, building fiction around it until it’s drained of meaning.

Good apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction exists, but it takes a person that can write, that explores, that understands the subjects. It is rare, because it is difficult.

This is why my current fiction, the Avenoth series, is what I call post-post apocalypse. I’m not interested in the end of the world (in this case, a devastating war that killed 3/4 of the planet) or the immediate post-apocalypse. Instead it’s about a rebuilt world, so we see the impact of the apocalypse and post-apocalypse, but are far enough in the future to see the meaning of it all. I want a tale of healed scars and a new society with memory, where we understand the past by looking at the present.

Besides, some of these post-post apocalypses have powerful impact. When the world is grinding away or the blood is spilling, it’s hard to see what it means in the whole.

But afterwards? Afterwards is when you can look back on the works of the past, and despair properly.

Steven Savage

Fiction Is More Stressful Than Nonfiction

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

As I return to fiction writing with my next novel in the Avenoth series, A School of Many Futures, I find it more stressful than writing non-fiction. I write a lot of nonfiction, and it’s relatively low-stress, yet fiction . . .

My experience with fiction writers reveals this isn’t universal – some are quite relaxed about making it, others knotted with anxiety. So I wondered, why is it more stressful for me – if I understand that, perhaps it’ll help others.

It didn’t take long for me to find out.

Nonfiction writing is . . .

Useful: It takes effort or vast ignorance to make a nonfiction piece truly useless. Oh, it’s possible, but a sincere effort will create something of value. Even if its from a limited viewpoint, at least that nonfiction piece matters to a slim slice of humanity.

Grounded: Nonfiction is grounded in the real world (or our idea of it). Research is available, data is available, previous examples are available. As I heard it once put “nonfiction all shares the same universe.” Research and reference and editing is much easier.

Organizeable: Most nonfiction work lends itself to patterns, outlines, and so on. This is because it is grounded in reality (we can refer to the structure of that reality) but also humans have been busy organizing reality for aeons. There’s plenty of reference. In fact . ..

Relateable: Because we humans share enough similar experiences, good nonfiction work can connect with readers easily.

Marketable: Let’s be honest, when you write nonfiction you sort of know the target audience. If you’re a specialist, even moreso. Sure, your coffee table book “Toilets of America in the 1800’s” may seem narrow, but at least you know your exact audience. Besides, you tell me that wouldn’t be an amazing gift for a plumbing professional or historical writer.

Now with this said, let’s look at fiction, using the above as a template. What makes fiction so stressful?

Unknown Value: Fiction is not real. We don’t know it’s value because of the diversity and unpredictability of people. Is this story going to deliver what people want or flop?

Ungrounded: Fiction isn’t grounded in reality. Even “modern day” fiction can be complicated by the fact we’re making things up in the real world, making it more stressful. I think this is why good fiction writers find hooks.

Hard To Organize: We’re making up something that never happened. How do we organize the unreal?

Potentially Distant: We’ve got to have people “get into” the fiction. But can we create a gateway for them to connect to our work when there may be no solid common ground.

Unsure Market: With so much fiction, with so many ways our stories can go, is there a market for our work? We don’t know. I know fiction writers who obsessively research, but that has to be exhausting.

In summary, nonfiction is something that is likely valuable and grounded in shareable experience, whereas fiction is unpredictable and connected in strange ways. In this, we can see how people managed to make fiction less stressful – they make it more (but not totally) like nonfiction. I can see this in my own writing.

This gives me a few ideas of how to deal with stressful fiction writing.

Value your work: Know why you do your work, what matters, and who it’s for. “It’s fun” is 100% fine.

Ground your fiction: Make sure your fiction is grounded in something, from solid worldbuilding to hard emotional truths. That makes it real, connectable, and removes anxiety – while inspiring you.

Organize: Plotting, pantsing, outlining, iterative improvement – there’s many methods to organize fiction writing. With that organization you have that confidence in what you’re doing, that sense of re laity. Note your method may be “whatever with plenty of iterative improvement” and that’s fine.

Connectable: Make sure people can connect to your work via emotional relevance, good descriptions, etc. When it’s connectable people care – and you get that sense of connection.

Market Decisions: Address marketing concerns head-on. Do you care? Do you want to sell a lot of books? Maybe you do intense research, maybe you just do your thing. Do it and go on.

I’m not saying make your nonfiction like your fiction. That’s ridiculous. What I am saying is take lessons from nonfiction, from organization to sense-of-reality, and apply it to fiction. If you can make a book of spacefaring dragons or cyborg superspies something a person “gets” as sure as a mouth-watering recipe, then you’ve done your job.

After all, be it real or imaginary, the goal is to have people get into and experience your work, be it fact or fantasy.

Steven Savage