Sometimes I think I’m more interested in the hypothetical
than in reality.
Case in point: when I was a child, I went through a phase
during which I mowed through reams of grid paper, drawing up blueprint after
blueprint. I can still vaguely recollect designing an elaborate building
intended to be a residential summer camp for children. There was also a
fantastic artist’s loft, a multi-storey mansion complete with secret passages,
and a weirdly pragmatic office building. I loved creating the designs, but I
never felt the urge to bring them to life. The dream of a career in architecture
or interior design did not grip me. I just enjoyed looking at how spaces might
work and ruminating on how people would exist – together or individually – in the
environments I’d thought up.
When I was very young, I also did something that I am told
is painfully common in girls: I dreamed up designs for wedding dresses. Of
course, I grew up and got one of my own (it was lovely), but I found that my
manic single-minded attention to the planning of this event in my life was
motivated by a strange sense of obligation rather than any true interest on my
part. When I get stressed out, I tend to deliver monologues to any unfortunate
person who makes the mistake of asking me how I am. In retrospect, I believe
that it was this quirk that was responsible for most of my Bridezilla moments.
Whether that’s true or not, one thing is certain: when I now
read a romance that culminates in a wedding, I am profoundly uninterested in
the event itself. I wonder if, perhaps, my husband and I had slipped off to the
Justice of the Peace instead and kept the idea of a traditional wedding lodged
in my head as a purely hypothetical experience, would I still be interested in
reading fictional versions? All I can say is that I was not always so
uninterested in depictions of the “big day” as I am now.
So I’m sitting here pondering this (hypothetical) insight
into myself, and it occurs to me that this may explain my choice in
professions. As a novelist, I can create environments, worlds, people,
families, scenarios, employment situations, friendships – whatever I like,
without any commitment. I can roll around in an ocean of What-Ifs to my heart’s
content. And when I’m done playing in one sandbox, I can walk away and go
create another.
Consider the phenomenon that is fiction writing. Generally,
the process begins with a What-If that has niggled its way into the author’s
brain like a badger. What if there was a door to another world in the back of a
wardrobe? What if a boy discovered he was really a wizard? What if a governess
fell in love with her employer, only to discover his mad wife was locked in the
attic? What if there was a chocolate factory that really was as magical inside
as any child could possibly imagine it?
Once the question has been asked, the author begins
construction. This part of the process can take many forms. Some writers prefer
outlines and character sketches and copious background research. Others prefer
starting at the beginning and then stopping once they’ve reached the end. Some
even start in the middle and work in bits and bobs until the whole is gradually
fused together. It doesn’t matter much how this step is accomplished, since the
end product is the same.
There are buildings and towns and planets that didn’t exist
before. There are people with families, friends, loves, hates, pets, and pet
peeves who have been hypothesized into existence. A world is created, designed,
populated, and observed – and then the novelist presents his or her grand What-If,
complete with all the trappings of a fully indulged imagination, to the reader.
I wonder if this means that the novelist by definition must
then be the sort of person who cannot commit to one particular lifetime – the sort
of person who feels compelled to try out all the possibilities without ever
settling down to one path. Instead of living these possibilities, bouncing
around their real lives aimlessly until they are introducing themselves at
parties as magician-physicist-pilot-archeologists and living in their mothers’
basements, they can allow these wild conjectures to come to life through their
writing alone. So many authors have day jobs – I suspect that coworkers might
be surprised to learn that quiet, helpful Mary in Accounting goes home and
writes BDSM vampire novels in her free time, or that George in Shipping has a
healthy fan base for his epic sci-fi alien war games series.
Would Stephen King actually like to live one of his novels?
Doubtful. He strikes me as the sort of rational person who appreciates the
merits of not being slashed to ribbons. He is simply indulging, developing, and
sharing his What-Ifs with the rest of the world. The reality is not necessary
(thank goodness).
Perhaps fiction writers are gypsies in a world of
possibilities and What-Ifs. Novelists must have talent, determination, and
passion for their work in order to successfully bring those possibilities to
life through pen and paper.
The most critical element by far is that they must enjoy the
journey.
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