Writing Right with Dmitri: The Rules of the Game
Created | Updated Mar 25, 2012
Words, words, words. That's what we're made of. Herewith some of my thoughts on what we're doing with them.
Writing Right with Dmitri: The Rules of the Game
Last time, I nattered on about moral issues: how we reveal our personal sense of right and wrong by the way we treat our characters and describe their actions. When you come right down to it, the moral compass of our stories does more than reveal a personal objection to, say, littering and/or cussing1. The moral compass of our stories also contributes to the landscape our characters move through. The do's and don't's go to make up the rules of the fictional universe. We've talked about our universes before in terms of the parameters we set for action. Let's talk for a minute about how our preferences, moral and otherwise, set up the causality of the fictional universe.
In a way, it is true that the universe of any fictional work, be it film, short story, novel, or even online game, constitutes a parallel reality. No matter how closely the narrative resembles events in ordinary life, there are bound to be some differences. How you choose the rules depends on your intent, your audience, and your personal taste, but the rules you choose will lay out the options open to your characters.
You've probably heard of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, even if you've never watched the film or TV series. There are lots of internet sites discussing the rules, ethical norms, and even physics of what is called 'the Buffyverse'. For example, in this particular fictional universe, when a vampire begins to attack you, not only does he sprout fangs, but his entire face morphs into a monstrous mask. When you thrust a stake through his heart, the vampire does not expire in gouts of blood (because this is US television, and there are children watching, and blood is, well, disgusting) – oh, no. The vamp goes 'pop' instead, becoming a cloud of picturesque but harmless dust. A similar programme, the UK's Ultraviolet, decided that the vamps exploded more dramatically, often setting fire to the neighbouring vegetation. In the Buffyverse, a vamp thus dispatched is gone (with very few exceptions). In the UV-verse, you can't actually kill them. Their dust has to be stored in a refrigeration unit to keep them from reconstituting. (This smacks of obsessive-compulsive behaviour, but it is a British series, after all.)
Fans are remarkably savvy about the rules of a universe. If you're not consistent, they will let you know about it. 'But in episode eight, you said the superhero couldn't hypnotise anyone. In episode ten you had him hypnotise his gf. What gives?' The honest answer, of course, is 'Er, I forgot.' Admitting you pay less attention to your work than the fans do, however, is Not On. So you quickly write in a paragraph where you explain that Robustman the Magnificent went to Tibet between episodes eight and ten. During that time, he communed with a very wise tulku, who initiated him into the art of benevolent hypnosis. He will only use these powers for good, of course. Result? Satisfied fans, and you breathe a sigh of relief.
Fixing Things
This sort of ad-hoc universe repair is of hoary antiquity. We probably all know the ancient urban legend about the 19th-century penny-dreadful writer. As the story goes, the writer got run over by a hansom cab and was laid up in hospital. Back at the office, the staff were trying to come up with the latest episode of the newspaper serial. Unfortunately, the writer had left his character in a dreadful mess: he was tied up, surrounded by hostiles, and about to be flung off a cliff, or some such. Nobody could figure out how to get Jack out of the pickle. So the editor visited our author on his bed of affliction, and demanded that he put his enormous fictional powers to work in rescuing his hero. The writer sighed, and took pen and paper in hand. He wrote a single sentence.
The astonished editor read, 'With a single bound, Jack was free.' Aha. I don't recommend we try this at home.
What are We Doing Here?
What kind of universal rules you set up will not only reveal a lot about you, determine what kind of audience you attract2, and force your hapless characters to go around walls rather than through them, these rules will also determine where on the spectrum of dark/light, frivolous/serious, etc, your story is. The world of Mr Magoo, the animated myope who blunders through city life with perfect safety, even though he mistakes his dog for the cat and can't see past his nose, is a very different world indeed from the one Jack London creates. Mr Magoo would last about an hour out in London's Yukon before something ate him. In the hands of the cartoonists, however, Mr Magoo always triumphs over modern life.
This is, of course, the reason why some of us fail to get too excited when readers write us hate mail. 'You have offended me with this story,' they say. Well, that's okay, go read somebody else's. In a world of 7 billion people, we have the sneaking notion that somebody, somewhere, wants to go to the place we've described. Obviously, millions of readers want to go to Dagon Alley. (This writer doesn't. Not ever again.) But there might just be a few people who want to go here:
When peace broke out, everyone took to the sea.
The dividend was ships. Destroyers plough–shared into freighters, carriers morphing into the cities they had always really been, with convenient airports, submarines used for exploration and environmental policing, moving craft, stationary craft...
Statelessness became a viable option, and I needed a job. So I took my shiny new rainbow passport and went trolling the net for offers. – 'Kalima'.
Pick your place on the spectrum from light to dark. Cross-reference it with how much humour you want to allow. Throw in how permanent the death of a vampire is. Salt to taste, toss lightly. See what happens.
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