Light snow falls by the river, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
T is for Don’t Tell; Show
While telling may be more direct and economical in words, showing is more evocative, more vivid, more cinematic. And, ultimately, more engaging. This is what showing does; it engages the reader by luring them into the experience of the story. Telling simply imparts information to you without engaging your emotions. Showing, by its very nature, invites you to experience the event being described. Showing also reveals something about the narrator (usually the main POV character) through their observation.
Novice writers (and some professionals) often fall into the trap of info dumping instead of presenting information dramatically (i.e., showing it). Unless you’re Gabriel García Márquez, who can write superb exposition for pages, the best way is to dramatize your description. It takes courage and confidence to say less and let the reader figure it out. Exposition needs to be broken up and appear in the right place as part of the story. Story is paramount. Telling is one of the things beginning writers do most and editors will know you for one right away. Think of the story as a journey for both writer and reader. The writer makes a promise to the reader that s/he will provide a rip-roaring story and the reader comes onside, all excited. This is done through a confident tease in the beginning and slow revelation throughout the story to keep it compelling. Exposition needs to be very sparingly used, dealt out in small portions.
Telling has its place in narrative. Telling is very useful when you need to let the reader know about an event or action that you do not want to describe in vivid detail; for instance, a scene that isn’t critical. For example:
Sally raced to the airport to catch the plane.
Simple and succinct telling works effectively as transitional narrative. Instead of spending time with this rather mundane journey through city traffic, we can move forward in a sentence to where the action on the plane—the next critical scene—will occur. Telling sentences serve as bridges for critical showing scenes.
When you show your work to editors, agents and fellow writers and they describe it as “evocative”, “cinematic” or “vivid”, take heart—you are showing. If, on the other hand you receive a response that uses the word “padded”, you know you’ve been telling a bit more than you should.
U is for Unclutter Your Writing: Less is More
“Fiction by new writers often suffers from excessive length,” says author Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. “Inflated prose is frequently a contributing factor. Too many words are devoted to recounting basic events.” She’s talking about telling versus showing and info-dumping with description that slows action.
One of the best ways to unclutter your writing is to simplify it. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be a Spartan and write sparingly like Hemingway. The model of achieving “simple” within “complex” is as hard to understand as chaos theory and autopoiesis. So, I won’t bother. But I will talk about various writing components that would benefit from simplification.
Fluid writing lies at the basis of uncluttered prose. Here are a few suggestions:
Cut down extraneous words: when constructing a scene, it is wise to pay attention to cadence, rhythm, number of phrases or clauses and general length of sentences. Sentences in early works tend to be full of extra words (e.g., using “ing” verbs, add-ons like “he started to think” instead of simply “he thought”) that slow down narrative. Try reading your sentences out loud; this practice often helps you to find the clutter.
Use active & powerful verbs. Active verbs are the key to vivid writing; and, ironically, to uncluttering your writing.
Cut down the words in your paragraphs: pay particular attention to your intro chapters and cut down your words by at least 20%. Be merciless; you won’t miss them, believe me, and you will add others later in your second round of edits. Find the most efficient way to say what you mean. You are guaranteed to achieve this if you follow suggestion number 2.
Reduce redundancy: a common phenomenon with many writers, including those who write nonfiction, is that the introductory sentence of a narrative paragraph is often paraphrased unnecessarily in the very next sentence; as though the writer didn’t trust the reader to get it the first time. Lack of confidence and experience is common with novice authors and is something that you must learn to combat. Say it once and say it right the first time.
Show, don’t tell: Embracing this way of writing may be the single most effective way to reduce clutter and enhance the vividness of your writing at the same time. While showing may in fact add more words than simple telling, the way it is read (mostly in the form of action) makes up for the added words.
V is for Voices in Your Head
Your voice and story is expressed through tone, perspective, style, language and pace. All of these reflect your intent and are ultimately expressed in the story’s overarching theme. The overarching theme is ultimately the author’s theme, the “world view” of the story. The principal character and minor characters will carry variations on the main theme, each with his or her unique voice.
It’s important to give each character a distinctive “voice” (including use of distinct vernacular, use of specific expressions or phrases, etc.). This is one way a reader can identify a character and find them likeable — or not. In a manuscript I recently reviewed, I noticed that each character spoke in a mixture of formal and casual speech. This confuses the reader and bumps them out of the fictive dream. Most people’s speech is more consistent. Consistency is very important for readers; it helps them identify with a character. They will abandon a story whose writing—and voice—is not consistent. So, my advice to this beginning writer was to pick one style for each character and stick to it. Voice incorporates language (both speech and body movements), philosophy, and humor. How a character looks, walks, talks, laughs, is all part of this.
The story’s viewpoint can be told from several perspectives and which one you choose can be critical to how your story comes across. Different stories lend themselves to different narrative styles and points of view (POVs). David Morrell, author of First Blood, warns that some writers may “select a viewpoint merely because it feels natural, but if you…don’t consider the implications of your choice…your story might fight you until you abandon it, blaming the plot when actually the problem is how you’re telling it.” (Fiction Writer, April 2000). The choices are several:
• omniscient
• third person limited
• first person
• second person
When telling a story through the eyes of a single viewpoint character, it makes most sense to tell it through the main character, the protagonist, around whom the story usually revolves. She is the one who’s going to be chiefly affected by the events of the story.
The use of multiple viewpoints is common among writers and adds an element of richness and breadth to a story. With each added character’s POV, readers are more enlightened to the thoughts and motivations of characters in a story. When you have several characters telling the story, this is called a rotating viewpoint. A few points to follow include:
• Alternate or rotate your differing viewpoints clearly (scene by scene, chapter by chapter, or part by part)
• Don’t change viewpoints within a scene
• Separate different POV scenes within chapters with extra white space or some kind of graphic (e.g., ****)
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want’ and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Snowy marsh in spring, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Light snow falls by the river, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
Q is for Queries & Other Quests
A query letter is your letter of enquiry to a publisher/editor or agent regarding the possible publication or representation of your work. “It’s a writer’s introduction, our calling card and, hopefully, our foot in the door,” says Lynn Flewelling, author of Luck in the Shadows. “Some agents and editors glance at the letter but read the chapters first,” she adds. “Others read the query and reject the chapters unseen if the letter doesn’t sing. You never know, so write the letter like it’s the one thing standing between you and success. It just might be.”
In her book, The Sell Your Novel Toolkit, Elizabeth Lyon dissects the query into:
Lead: using a creative hook (direct immersion in the story; discussion of the period, setting or milieu; or presentation of the theme of the book) or business hook (with particulars about the book, comparisons with others, and author’s credentials and awards)
Body: short synopsis, either story- or characterization/theme-focused; brief biography with credentials, etc.
Conclusion: closing sentences; the “handshake”
Polish and be professional:
Ensure that there are no spelling or grammatical errors
Make sure your editor’s name is correct as well as the publication name and address
Use standard letter format and standard paper (keep it simple and professional) and stay away from fancy patterns or coloured paper
Keep the letter to one page if possible
Include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) for mailed queries
Include your name, postal address, email address and phone number
John Hewitt provides a good list of what NOT to do in a query letter. Here are a few:
Don’t mention who has rejected the piece before
Don’t apologize for any weaknesses
Don’t ask for advice, comments or criticism/analysis
Don’t gush about how excited you are about being published
Don’t go on about this being your first
Don’t include a lot of personal information about yourself
Don’t provide several projects in the same query, unless they are related and part of a series
Don’t query the same editor twice
Don’t discuss copyright information, or payment
Don’t include inappropriate off-subject samples
R is for How to Reject Rejection Letters
In a 1999 article in Writer’s Journal, Dennis E. Hensley, associate professor of English at Taylor University Fort Wayne and author of Writing for Profit, told the story of when his writing teacher in college tried to console him after a short story of his had been rejected for the umpteenth time. “Listen,” she had said, “you weren’t rejected, your manuscript was.” He didn’t quite see it that way. “It was my title, my lead, my characters, my plot and my ending,” he’d responded. “No one else had anything to do with it. If the story was rejected, then let’s face it: as a writer, I was rejected.” Rejection is still rejection. Thirty years later, Hensley adds that he still gets rejection letters and he is still not overjoyed to receive them. As time goes on and you become a more seasoned writer, you develop a business-attitude and an objective way of viewing rejection letters. The irony is that it is the beginner writer who is more likely to get rejections.
Think of rejection as part of a road to success. The bottom line is that if you have never been rejected then you haven’t really tried, have you? Rejection really is the first step toward acceptance. With anything that is worth doing, there is risk and there is vulnerability. So too in writing. In order to publish, you have to risk being rejected. In fact, count on it. YOUR WORK WILL BE REJECTED. The good news is that at some point your work will also BE ACCEPTED; count on that too.
My Bus-Terminal Approach: One way to see your way through rejection is to find ways to distance yourself from your story once you’ve sent it off and to see the whole process of submission-rejection-acceptance as a business. The very best way to do this is to submit lots of stories and to keep submitting them. With novels, this is a little harder to do but you can certainly be working on the next one once you’ve submitted the first. When I was writing short stories, I kept a list of what and where I submitted, along with the most important item: where to submit NEXT. At any given time, I made sure that I had at least x-number of submissions out there and each story had a designated place to go if it returned. As soon as a story came back from magazine A, I simply re-packaged it and sent it to magazine B. The critical part of the list was to have a contingency for each story: the next place where I would send the story once it returned. I was planning on the story being rejected with the hope that it would be accepted; that way, a rejection became part of a story’s journey rather than a final comment. I ran my submissions like a bus terminal. A story was in and out so fast it never had a chance to cool off. And, since I had five other pieces out there, I could do this with little emotion. I was running a fast-paced “story depot”, after all. All my stories had to be out there as soon as possible; if they were sitting in the terminal, they were doing nothing for me. This approach really worked for me.
S is for Get Sensual
Writers can provide readers with a rich spectrum of sensuality such as what a place smells like, the texture of an object, the taste of a food, as well as the nuances of light and sound. Readers don’t just “watch” a character in a book; they enter the character’s body and “feel”.
So, how do writers satisfy the readers’ need to experience the senses fully? Description, yes. But how cold is cold? What does snow really smell like? What colour is that sunset? How do you describe the taste of wine to a teetotaler? Ultimately, literal description doesn’t quite cut it. To have the sense really sink in and linger with the reader, it should be linked to the emotions and memories of the character experiencing it. By doing this, you are achieving several things at the same time:
• You’re describing the sense as the character is experiencing it—emotionally
• You’re revealing additional information on the character through his/her reaction
• You’re likely creating a more compelling link for the reader’s own experience of the sense
There are several tools a writer may use to achieve this. Here are a few:
• Use metaphor to describe the sense
• Link the sense to memories
• Use synesthesia (cross-sensory metaphor) to describe the sense
• Link the sense psychologically to an emotion or attitude
• Relate to the sense in a different way (e.g., a visual scene from the point of view of a painter)
The use of metaphor when used to describe an object or place through one or several senses adds a dimension of emotion, tone and direction. While all five of our senses can be linked to memories, two of them stand out. Smell and taste let us sample the chemicals around us for information.
“Memory lies coiled within us like a magician’s trick handkerchief, and a simple smell or taste can pluck the tiniest corner and pull out the world,” says Fitch. “Smell is different from all the other senses in a very special way. A smell from your distant past can unleash a flood of memories that are so intense and striking that they seem real,” says Dr. Karl (Kruszelnicki), author of Great Moments in Science (1984). “This kind of memory, where an unexpected re-encounter with a scent from the distant past brings back a rush of memories, is called a ‘Proustian Memory’”.
Ironically, smell, along with taste, is often neglected in our own overt observations and in writing. By consciously attending to these two senses alone, the writer is assured of engaging the reader’s more deeply rooted sensuality.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want’ and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Snowy marsh in spring, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Snowing in cedar forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
P is for Plotting with Purpose
“Plot is the things characters do, feel, think, or say, that make a difference to what comes afterward,” says Ansen Dibel, author of Elements of Fiction Writing: Plot. I’ve also heard authors describe plot as all the nasty things they throw at their main character to stop them from getting where or what they want or need. Plot is motion. “Plot is a verb,” says Dibell. “For a reader to care about your story, there has to be something at stake—something of value to gain, something of value to be lost.”
Although plots will vary as much as individual stories, there are some basic elements and forms. Here are some:
• Cause and Effect: this is simply when one event leads to another. Many writers talk about scenes and sequels when constructing stories (see below).
• Thematic: this is where events are tied together by a thematic thread, a common relationship, a central event, place, character or theme.
• Lyric: this is when plot is organized like music, with a cyclical return to key images, events or themes that grow deeper each time (Finnegan’s Wake, by James Joyce, for example.)
• Hero’s Journey: this plot approach follows the mythic steps of the hero’s journey.
Plot structure generally follows a progression from scene (action) to sequel (reaction) and back to scene again. A scene has the three-part pattern of: goal, conflict, disaster. A sequel follows with this three-part pattern: reaction, dilemma, decision. Plot structure generally follows a thematic story arc. A seven-point plot structure goes like this: hoot, problem, backfill, complication, action, the dark moment, resolution. This step-wise plot approach reflects the three act elements of the “hero’s journey”.
Bill Johnson said that every story makes a promise at the beginning to the reader. Those promises, says Dibell, are mostly unspoken ones. And some are made indirectly through pattern. As the journey continues, problems build on the previous ones, always moving the main plot toward the final crisis. “The job of a middle,” says Dibell, “is to build toward and deliver crisis.”
“Detail on detail, incident on incident, character on character, the pattern(s) begin to form,” says Dibell. “…they’re what hold your story together, give it both diversity and unity.” Dibell describes plot as a tapestry of pattern, form, shape and color that share recognizable meanings. Which brings me to subplots, the threads that make up the story’s fabric.
Subplots are more common in long fiction, where they are used to deepen a story and add layers that make it more intriguing and tease out more depth to the story. Subplots may provide varying aspects of a theme, from community to individual as played out by different characters. Ultimately, subplots and how they are crafted, provide the writer with the means to transcend plot into what Dibell calls pattern.
Dibell describes “braided” plots, in which two or more subplots are woven together, and parallel plot lines, in which two plots share almost equal footing. This happens when strong protagonists carry each plot. Parallel plot lines often run counterpoint to each other in pace, tone and colour. Each plot becomes richer and stronger when contrasted with the other. And they are always connected in some way, in many ways. In Matrix Reloaded, Neo’s introspective and thoughtful plot with the architect of the matrix runs counterpoint with Trinity’s action plot as she sabotages the matrix and battles an agent. Both demonstrate conflict and tension but the tone and pace are opposite. This contrast only heightens each plot line. Notice also how the two plot lines are connected and eventually converge in the final scene where Neo saves Trinity’s life by restarting her heart. Earlier on, while Trinity is totally engrossed in her problems, Neo becomes aware of her struggle through the architect’s artful hint; this prompts Neo to choose his path to join her plot. His awareness is the bridge between the two plot lines. If you look carefully, you will find many other ways the two plot lines are connected, visually, mentally and viscerally and how they inevitably draw together in that riveting last scene; “how thoroughly,” Dibell says, “the story belongs to itself.”
Crawford Kilian, SF writer and author of Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, set down these ten commandments:
Nothing should happen at random
Plot stems from character under adversity
Give each character an urgent personal agenda
The plot of a story is the synthesis of the plots of its individual characters
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want’ and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Light snow by the river, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Snowing in a cedar forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
M is for Master the Metaphor & Other Things
During a brainstorming session, my business partner quizzed me on the major problems that writers face: “What are their Waterloos?” She was using metaphor to make a point. You don’t have to look very far to find examples; everyday speech is full of them: like “raining cats and dogs; “table leg”; and “old flame”.
Metaphor directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. It is, therefore, considered more powerful than an analogy, which may acknowledge differences. Other rhetorical devices in the ‘metaphor family’ that involve comparison include metonymy, synecdoche, personification, simile, allegory and parable. While these share common attributes with metaphor, each compares in a different way.
The term synecdoche substitutes a part for a whole or a whole for a part (e.g., the expression “all hands on deck” refers to the men; or the expression “use your head” refers to your brain). Synecdoche is a common way to emphasize an important aspect of a character.
Metonymy uses one word to describe and represent another (e.g. the suits from Wall Street). Metonymy works by association whereas metaphor works through similarity.
Personification gives an idea, object or animal the qualities of a person (e.g., the darkness embraced her; the creek babbled over the rocks).
Similes can imply comparison (e.g., His mind is like a sword) or be explicit (e.g., His mind is sharp like a sword). This is what makes the simile such a useful tool to the writer: you can choose to be vague, letting the reader infer the relationship, or be direct.
Simile: His love was like a slow dance
Metaphor: Love danced in her heart
Allegory is an extended metaphor in which an object, person or action is equated with the meaning that lies outside the narrative. In other words, allegory has both a literal and a representative meaning.
The kinds of metaphor you use (extended metaphors particularly) rely a great deal on your narrative voice, the type of story you’re telling, and the language you’re using. Here are two from Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye:
His hair was bone white.
I got the drunk up [the stairs] somehow. He was eager to help but his legs were rubber.
The metaphor is often tied in to the overall theme or plot line of the story, providing tone to the story and sometimes foreshadowing.
N is for Now It’s Time for Revision
Ten things you should consider when revising your first (and subsequent) draft(s).
1. Let your work breathe: once you’ve completed your draft, set it aside for a while. This lets you make objective observations about your writing when you return.
2. Dig deep: now that you have the whole story before you, you can restructure plotlines, subplots, events and characters to best reflect your overall story. Don’t be afraid to remove large sections; you will likely add others. You may also merge two characters into one or add a character or change a character’s gender or age.
3. Take Inventory: it’s good to take stock of how each chapter contributes to plotline and theme; root out the inconsistencies as you relate the minutiae to the whole.
4. Highlight the Surges: some passages will stand out as being particularly stunning; pay attention to them in each chapter and apply their energy to the rest of your writing.
5. Purge & Unclutter: make a point of shortening everything; this forces you to use more succinct language, replacing adjectives and adverbs with power-verbs. Liken it to writing for a magazine with only so much space (check out Chapter U for more ideas). Doing this will tighten prose and make it more clear. Reading aloud, particularly dialogue, can help streamline your prose.
6. Point of view: this is the time to take stock of whether you’ve chosen the best point of view for the story. You may wish to experiment with different points of view at this stage and the results may surprise you.
7. Make a plot promise: given that you are essentially making a promise to your readers, it is advisable that you revisit that promise. Tie up your plot points; don’t leave any hanging unless you’re intentionally doing this, but be aware that readers don’t generally like it. Similarly, if you’ve written a scene that is lyrical, beautiful and compelling but doesn’t contribute to your plotline, nix it. But keep it for another story; chances are, it will work elsewhere. The trick is to file it where you can later find it.
8. Deepen your characters: the revision process is an ideal time to add subtle detail to your main characters. A nervous scratch of his beard, an absent twisting of the ring on her finger, the frequent use of a particular expression: all these can be worked in throughout the story, in your later drafts. Even minor characters can shine and be unique. When you paint your minor characters with more detail, you create a more three-dimensional tapestry for your main characters to walk through. This heightens realism in your story and involvement of your reader.
9. Write scenes: use the revision process to convert flat narrative into “scene” through dramatization. Narrative summaries read like lecture or polemic. They tend to be passive, slow, and less engaging. Scenes include action, tension and conflict, dialogue and physical movement.
10. Be concrete: Rosenfeld describes your novel as a world in which your reader enters and wants to stay in for a while. You make it easy for her by adding concrete details for her to envision and relate to. Ground your characters in vivid setting, rich but unobtrusive detail. Don’t abandon them to a generic and prosaic setting, drinking “beverages” and driving “vehicles” on “roads”; instead brighten up their lives by having them speeding along Highway 66 in a Mini Cooper, while sipping a Pinot Noir.
O is for Outline or Synopsis?
A synopsis is NOT an outline. Both are useful to the writer, yet each serves a very different purpose. An outline is a tool (usually just for the writer) that sketches plot items of a book. It provides a skeleton or framework of plot, people, places and their relationships to the storyline. It permits the writer to ultimately gauge scene, setting, and character depth or even determine whether a character is required (every character must have a reason to be in the book, usually to move the plot). To put it basically, the outline describes what happens when and to whom, while the synopsis includes why.
Elizabeth Lyon, author of The Sell Your Novel Toolkit, suggests that a synopsis should usually include these seven items:
• Theme
• Setting and Period
• Plot summary
• Character sketches
• Dialogue
• Emotional turning points
• Subplots
The theme, explains Lyons, “provides a rudder for an entire novel.” She suggests condensing it into one sentence or phrase: to have a friend you must be a friend; cooperation lies at the heart of evolution; love is the true source of human wealth; there’s no place like home. You can also portray your theme in a single word (e.g., forgiveness, revenge, trust, prejudice, evolution).
Lyon suggests that the plot summary is like a skeleton upon which to flesh out character and theme. Two things you need to consider are that 1) you must summarize the complete novel (beginning, middle and end) and 2) you should not confuse a plot summary (essentially an outline) with a synopsis, which incorporates more than plot. “The best-written and most impressive synopses,” says Lyon, “are those that make it clear that a story is character driven.” Lyon recommends that you limit your sketches to the main characters that drive principle theme in the story.
The first sentence of my synopsis of Collision with Paradise focuses on the main character:
When Genevieve Dubois, Zeta Corp’s hot shot starship pilot accepts a research mission aboard ZAC I to the mysterious planet Eos, she not only collides with her guilty past but with her own ultimate fantasy.
While the sentence conveys information about the plot, it is given from the viewpoint of a character’s motivations and feelings. The reader is informed at the outset that character development is at the heart of the story.
The emotional turning points are the focal events that are directly linked to the theme of the story. These are the “so what” parts of the story plot—where the character reaches an epiphany and, as a result, changes—and are ultimately linked to the climax of the story.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want’ and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Light snow falling by the river, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Snowing in the Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
J is for a Hero’s Journey
The Hero’s Journey is essentially the three-act structure of the ancient Greek play, according to Ridley Pearson (Writer’s Digest, 2007). The three-act structure was handed down to us thousands of years ago and consists of Beginning, Middle, and End (otherwise known as Opening, Development, Conclusion or “the decision to act”, “the action” and “the consequences of the action”).
the Hero’s Journey duplicates the steps of the rite of passage and is a process of self-discovery and self-integration. The Hero’s Journey is a concept drawn from the depth psychology of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and the scholar and mythologist Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Jung proposed that symbols appear to us when there is a need to express what thought cannot think or what is only divined or felt. Jung discovered reoccurring symbols among differing peoples and cultures, unaffected by time and space. He described these shared symbols as archetypes. Ultimately, the hero’s journey is the soul’s search for home. It is a long and tortuous journey of the soul seeking enlightenment-redemption-salvation only to find it by returning “home” (though, often not the home previously envisioned). It is a journey we all take, in some form.
Assigning an archetype to a character allows the writer to clarify that character’s role in the story as well as to determine the overall theme of the story itself. Archetypes are therefore an important tool in the universal language of storytelling, just as myth serves the overall purpose of supplying “the symbols that carry the human spirit forward.” (Joseph Campbell). Seven useful archetypes include: hero; mentor; herald; threshold guardian; shapeshifter, shadow; and trickster.
K is for Write About What You Know
The advice, “write what you know” isn’t about literal truths; it’s about what you know inside. As SF author Marg Gilks says, “You know more than you think.”
In an article in Writing World, Gilks discusses how a writer can use her own knowledge and experiences in everyday life and translate them into something far from ordinary. You start with universal experiences.
Get emotional: What excites you; what frightens you; what angers you, makes you sad, happy. These are emotions we all feel. When we give our characters experiences similar to our own, we breathe life into both character and experience and provide the reader an anchor for her heart.
Get sensational: You know how it feels when the sun shines on your face or the rain drenches you. You know how it feels to have your knees shake with fatigue after a long climb on a hot day or the invigorating freshness of a cool lake in summer.
Get people around you: My neighbor has a funny way of focusing his gaze slightly off me when he talks, as if he can’t look me directly in the eyes. When the paperboy approaches my house to deliver the paper, he strides with a lilting gait as he listens to hip-hop on his iPod.
Drawing from what you observe and know of the people around you is one of a writer’s most treasured resources for character description. I always carry a notebook with me no matter where I go, even if it’s only to the grocery store. Doing research is another way of “knowing” something. Once you have done the research, you certainly know about a subject, rovided you’ve done a good enough job.
A writer is like a magician. You play upon what readers all “know” then surprise them with the unexpected. Unleashing your imagination and letting it soar while grounding yourself in the realities of universal truths is the stuff of which stories are made. This is what most of us mean when we say “write what you know.”
L is for Long Form, Short Form
Figuring out what you are writing isn’t always as easy as you think. Many of us when we begin a story may think we are writing a short story when we are actually writing a novel; or vice versa. I had several editors of magazines tell me just that: “This feels more like a novel than a short story” they said—and rejected it. So, what are you really writing? Or, more to the point, what should you be writing?
A short story only has 5,000 words to get your story across while a novel has over ten times that many words to do the same. It follows then that the short story format is a simpler one. Novels provide a sense of change, growth and solutions to problems and conflicts. Short stories must be more succinct, contain fewer characters and subplots, have less complicated story arcs and a single theme. A short story is a poem to a novel’s prose. A short story is a statement to a novel’s argument.
“If the novel is a landscape, the short story is a close-up,” says Shelley Lowenkopf in a short story workshop entitled Telling Tales. Lowenkopf adds, “The short story is an event, a moment in time, captured as if by accident … The short story doesn’t have the luxury of depicting change; the closest it can come is awareness.” A short story, more than a novel, has the power to transport, disturb and enlighten.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want; and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Snowing in a cedar forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Snowing in the Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
G is for Defining your Genre & Going Beyond It
Although genres are not precisely definable, genre considerations are one of the most important factors in determining what a person will see or read. Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites.
For a long time people considered that books and movies that are difficult to categorize into a genre were likely to be less successful commercially. This is no longer the case, thanks to online bookstores like Amazon, that are able to ‘shelve’ books under multiple categories for people to find. In fact, having your book cross several genres (called “cross-genre” or slipstream) may even provide an advantage in that your book will occupy not just one but several niches—akin to placing your bets on several horses rather than just one.
So, if you haven’t figured out what genre your writing falls under, start figuring it out now; your future publisher and marketer will want to know because they, in turn, have to tell their distributor and bookseller where to shelve the book. This is why you need to do this, no matter what you think of categorizing your work; the alternative is leaving it to Jack in the marketing department who may not have even read your book, but used the cover picture to figure it out. Yikes!
The key to this exercise, whether your work falls under one or more categories, is to understand your work well enough to be able to categorize it. And, by all means, break the rules of categorizing—just know why you are.
H is for House or Home…Creating Memorable Settings
Setting fulfills most of the core aspects of a story. Without a place there is no story. Setting serves multipurpose roles from helping with plot, determining and describing character to providing metaphoric links to theme. Setting, like the force in Star Wars, provides a landscape that binds everything into context and meaning. Without setting, characters are simply there, in a vacuum, with no reason to act and most importantly, no reason to care.
Settings can not only have character; they can be a character in their own right. A novelist may often find herself, when portraying several characters, painting a portrait of place. This is setting being “character”. The setting functions as a catalyst, and molds the more traditional characters that animate a story. Think of any of your favourite books, particularly the epics: The Wizard of Oz, Tale of Two Cities, Doctor Zhivago, Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, etc. In each of these books the central character is really the place, which is inexorably linked to its main character.
Settings depict the theme of your story through metaphor. The setting and all the objects in it are described to your reader through your POV character. This gives you an excellent opportunity to show the mood, temperament, judgment and bias of your character and their place in their world.
I is for Interviews and other Weird Experiences
As a writer of either fiction or non-fiction, you will at some time require information from a real person. Depending on the nature of your research and its intended destination and audience, you may wish to conduct anything from a casual phone or email enquiry to a full-blown formal face-to-face interview. This will also depend on who you are interviewing, from a neighbour to a government official. The pillars of good journalism include:
thoroughness
accuracy
fairness and
transparency.
Here are some tips on what to do:
Do your research ahead of time: read up on your subject and include both sides of an issue (if that’s relevant). This helps you to respond intelligently with better follow-up questions.
Ask open-ended questions: avoid yes and no questions and get them to elaborate. Asking “why” solicits explanation, which will give your article depth.
Ask for examples: this provides a personal aspect to the article that gives it warmth and makes it more interesting.
Ask personal questions: what’s the worst thing that can happen? They can simply say no; the up side is you may get a gem. The personal angle from the interviewee’s perspective gives your
article some potential emotional aspect that gives it human-interest.
Ask the interviewee for any further thoughts to share: it’s an innocuous question, but can offer-up more gems. What it provides you with is the possibility of getting something you might not have thought of, sparked by your conversation.
Here are some tips on what NOT to do:
“There’s no rush.” Never reveal your deadline. Think about it; what do you normally do when there’s a deadline? Right…say it’s sooner than it really is.
“I’ve never covered this topic before.” This kind of information is inappropriate and may make your interviewee uncomfortable (worrying about your unproven abilities to properly interview her instead of focusing on her). Besides, it’s not what you know but what you learn that counts.
“I’ll be using what you say extensively.” Don’t assume and make promises you may not be able to keep, until after the interview.
“I don’t get it.” If you don’t understand something, get clarification rather than make a negative remark that tends to stop them dead in their tracks.“You can review the piece before it’s published.” This is something that can be dealt with over the phone to confirm facts; the source doesn’t need to see the whole piece before it’s published.
“This is going to be a fantastic article!” Keep your tone professional; there’s nothing wrong with being positive, but you should maintain a professional attitude that inspires confidence in the interviewee.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want; and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Snowing in cedar forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Country road in early spring, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
D is for Get the Dope on Dialogue
One of the most important devices to spice up narrative and increase pace is the use of dialogue. There’s a reason for this: we read dialogue more quickly; it’s written in more fluid, conversational English; it tends to create more white space on a page with less dense text, more pleasing to the reader’s eye. Dialogue is action. It gets readers involved. Good dialogue neither mimics actual speech (i.e., it’s not usually mundane, repetitive or broken with words like “uh”) nor does it educate the reader through long discourse (unless the character is that kind of person). Good dialogue in a story should be somewhere in the middle.
While it should read as fluid conversation, dialogue remains a device to propel the plot or enlighten us to the character of the speaker. No conversation follows a perfect linear progression. People interrupt one another, talk over one another, often don’t answer questions posed to them or avoid them by not answering them directly. These can all be used by the writer to establish character, tension, and relationship.
E is for Exposition
In fiction, exposition breaks away from the ongoing action of a scene to give information. It can be one paragraph or go on for several pages. Exposition often provides contextual information critical for the reader to buy in to character-motivation or the ideas promoted in the story. It gives a story its perspective and larger meaning by linking the reader with the thematic elements. If scene is action and plot, exposition feeds reflection and theme. Exposition can appear in the form of background, setting, back story or overview. It is most often expressed through a POV character’s reflection and observation.
Exposition is something every writer grapples with in a story. Where to put it? When to add it? How much is too much? How little is too little? Working out when to explain the plot and when to leave the reader to draw their own conclusions can be tricky for even experienced writers, says author Elsa Neal. Ansen Dibell, author of Elements of Fiction Writing: Plot, describes exposition as “the author telling the reader something—telling, rather than showing.” Telling is much less effective and interesting than showing. It follows then that exposition is much less dramatic and less vivid than a scene. This is why you need to break exposition up into small bite-size pieces rather than a huge caloric meal of information. A good rule to follow is to minimize exposition as much as you can.
Okay, it’s good to add exposition. But there is a way and a time to do it. You need to balance the show-and-tell part of your narrative and to maintain a rhythm in your pace and tone. This means doing several things:
restrain yourself and keep your notes to yourself
arouse then explain
build exposition into the scene
put exposition in between scenes
let the character explain—but be careful!
Use interior monologue
F is for Finding Your Muse
In over twenty years of writing both fiction and non-fiction I really hadn’t given much thought to writer’s block until recently, when I was challenged on it. This is not to say that I never experienced it. I did; I just kept on writing. “What?” you say. “Then, you didn’t really have writer’s block.” Well, I did, but only for that particular project, and only for one aspect of that particular project. The key is to have multiple projects and recognize that each of these has multiple tasks aside from writing (e.g., editing, research, discussion, etc.) that you can work on.
For instance, besides Novel A, whose plot had me stumped, I was working on two short stories and a non-fiction article. I was also actively posting science articles, essays and opinion pieces on my blog. In addition, I was writing news articles for an online magazine and doing my regular stint at the environmental consulting firm, writing interpretive environmental reports. I kept on writing.
I let the plot of Novel A sit for a while as I continued to write. That didn’t mean I couldn’t work on Novel A in other capacities: copy editing or polishing language, for instance. The point I want to make is that it’s helpful to have other things on the go mainly because this will let you relax about the project that has you stumped. And you need to relax for it to resolve. It’s a little like looking for the watch you misplaced; it will find you once you stop looking for it.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want’ and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Snowing in the Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Country road in early spring, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
A is for Alien Architecture: Building from Scenes to Worlds
Most writers will tell you that the scene, not the sentence or word, is the smallest component—the building block—of a story. The scene forms an integral part of a larger plot structure that consists of a series of dual scenes and sequels. Dwight Swain, author of Techniques of TheSelling Writer, breaks these down further into:
Scene: goal, conflict, disaster
Sequel: reaction, dilemma, decision
What’s important to remember is that the world you build is part of the story. It isn’t just a lot of “interesting” detail. As I mention in Chapter H for “setting”, the world you build, like a character in your story, plays a role in defining and supporting its theme. The major qualities of your world are, therefore, best derived for plot and thematic reasons—which come from “story”. The rest—the details—are things you can find in books or websites, or get from experts in your local university, etc. Don’t let science intimidate you but ensure that you get it right by using your resources and verifying your information with an expert. Use your local libraries, universities, colleges, and online resources. Interview scientists, technical people and other writers. That’s part of being a writer too.
B is for Blazing Beginnings
In an April 2001 article of Writer’s Digest, JoeCardillo (director of Southern Vermont College’s creative writing program) suggested that the three elements of hooking a reader resemble the steps he uses to train his Samoyed puppy: 1) arouse interest; 2) delay, then 3) reward.
The writer arouses interest in the reader by providing enough detail to get the reader to ask questions. Now they want something. You tease them with the delay; that keeps them reading and turning the pages. It also gives them the chance to try to come up with the answers themselves. In some books it can be a game between reader and writer; can the reader come up with the answer before the writer provides it? The reward comes in stages. Don’t answer all the questions at once. Parcel them out slowly. That’s what the book—the story—is for.
There is no beginning without an end. In a workshop at the 1998 Surrey Writer’s Conference Elizabeth Lyon, author of The Sell Your Novel ToolKit (2002), suggested that the beginning of a novel should “reflect the entire book. There should be a tie-in [between] the beginning and the end.” This is sometimes called “framing” a story, where the principal thematic problem is given in the beginning and then resolved in the end.
Bill Johnson, author of A Story is a Promise, describesit as a promise tothe reader. The beginningof a book sets up acovenant between writerand reader, a covenantfor a journey they willtake together towardresolution. Johnson describesthe story promiseas doing three things,similar to Cardillo’s three steps (arouse, delay,reward). Johnson calls them setting out a story’score dramatic issue (the promise), movement,and fulfillment of the promise.
C is for Charismatic Characters
Your characters have a dramatic function, a role in advancing the plot and/or theme; they need a reason to be there. Your characters are the most important part of your book (more so than the plot or premise). Through them your book lives and breathes. Through them your premise, idea and your plot come alive. Through them you achieve empathy and commitment from the reader and a willingness to keep reading to find out what’s going to happen next: if the reader doesn’t invest in the characters, she won’t really care what happens next. Dramatic function aside, in order for your character to be memorable he needs to have a charismatic personality. He needs to show qualities that make him distinctive. All memorable characters show some character development (as story arc) from beginning to end of story. The more your character changes over a story, the more she will be noticed.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want; and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
A snowy day in Ontario (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Trickster wind kicks up clouds of snow, ghosting trees (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In Part 1, I introduced and described the concept of giving voice to the Other in eco-literature through the literary device of character-coupling. Character-couplings manifest in story through theme, plot approach, narrative form, and ultimately the writer’s own intentions. Particular techniques used by writers of eco-literature include the use of time, language, POV, narrative style, the senses, archetype, symbolism and metaphor, such as personification, synesthesia, and synecdoche.
In the seven examples provided below, nature’s avatars coupled to a protagonist represent the greater natural world; it is often the greater natural world that is ultimately Othered, and achieves a voice through its avatar (e.g. the quiet ‘voice’ of the polar bear in Colleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole represents the quiet ‘voice’ of the Arctic, itself Othered by the loud voice of the greater human world).
1. Use of Language, Time and Displaced Narrative in Cli-Fi Allegory: Inuk Woman and Polar Bear
Coleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole uses simple language, and displaced narrative linked to silent action to convey an immediacy of moment and character and to create empathy. Murphy’s spare and focused narrative achieves a timeless, dreamlike quality that plays strongly on the emotional connections of the reader; it elicits immense empathy for the Other in a deeply moving saga on the tragic dance of colonialism and climate change.
The story begins in 1535, when the Inuk widow Hummiktuq risks her life to save a lost one-eared polar bear cub on an ice floe and adopts him. She names him Angu’ruaq. We soon learn that Angu’ruaq is timeless when we encounter him in scenes over the centuries from the Franklin Expedition in 1845 (who he helps by bringing them food) to 2031 when Angu’ruaq—old, hungry, his fur yellowing—returns to the breathing hole where long-dead Hummiktuq rescued him. By then the glaciers have receded and the ground is slush. The constant thumping of the Circumpolar Oil platform can be heard in the distance. There is no mistaking Angu’ruaq’s archetype as Other. When someone says to wildlife biologist Qi’ingaqtuq (who is tracking Angu’ruaq), “I hope you find your bear,” she responds, “It’s not my bear—bears belong to everyone and to no one”; Angu’ruaq is the quintessential homo sacer. Under Agamben’s biopolitics he is both sacred and cursed, both beneath the law and outside the law, a meaningless bare life that may be killed by anyone but not sacrificed (Agamben, 1998).
Told sparingly, often through humorous dialogue, the tale of the young polar bear—and by extension the warming Arctic—plays out through the point of view of various characters. Murphy’s effective use of displaced narrative (e.g., protagonist’s ‘story’ told by other characters) provides varied perspectives of how others view the Other. Some are disparaging and all are akin to gossip. This ironically achieves incredible reader empathy. Throughout the play, the bear does not speak; yet it wields tremendous impact through its silent actions. The bear has no POV and no voice—except in the very last scene five hundred years later in the oily waters of the Northwest Passage. Angu’ruaq—skeletal, desperate with hunger and covered in oil—boards an eco-tourist cruise ship and is fatally injured by cruel actions of eco-tourists aboard. As he struggles from drowning, “gasping for breath, gasping as he tries to stay afloat in the black, oily water,” Angu’ruaq thinks he hears Hummiktuq and “cocks his one ear, hoping to hear Hummiktuq’s voice on the wind … then he raises his foreleg as if reaching for help…but there is no help”. No one sees him. No one on the cruise ship (except for one little girl) cares as he slips under the dark waters—possibly the last polar bear in the world; even as—in terrible irony—cruise ship patrons cheerfully watch a fake mother and her cubs on a fake ice floe, like some fake ‘reality’ show.
No one weeps for the bear. But the reader weeps. We weep for him and we weep for his world destroyed by apathy.
2. Use of POV, Senses and Symbolism in Cli-Fi Allegory / Fable: Girl and Bear
The Bear by Andrew Krivak is a fable of a post-anthropocene Earth told through the point of view of a young girl—possibly the only remaining human in the world—and the bear that guides her. Unlike the polar bear of The Breathing Hole, who remains silent and is clearly victimized by humanity’s actions, the black bear of The Bear lives with agency in a post-anthropocene world; he proselytizes and tells stories to instruct the girl on living harmoniously with Nature. His actions and elegant use of speech reflect his archetype as mentor in this story. This is foreshadowed in the fairytale the girl’s father recounts to her of a bear that saved a village from a cruel despot through cleverness and a sense of community.
This fable about humanity’s deliverance to nature’s dominion flows like a river under ice, revealing profound depth beneath spare yet sensual prose. Krivak does not name the girl, father or bear; allowing each to clearly symbolize ‘what we are, what we could be, and the natural world.’ Krivak gives the bear the power of direct voice through its ability to speak with the girl. Soon after the girl meets the bear she asks him how it is that he can speak. He tells her that long ago all animals could make the sounds she and her father made to communicate, but humans stopped listening and the skill was lost. He suggests the real question is how she can understand him. He then tells her that if she is patient enough, she too will hear the trees.
As the story progresses, the girl transcends from lonely last human in a post-human world to one of Nature’s beings, living as part of the natural world. In this way, the girl embraces the society of the Other and casts aside her previous identity with the Othering society.
The transition begins with her found ability to understand the bear. Near the end of the story, she is an old woman who communicates with all of Nature; “they came to her without fear of dominion and ate with her the plants and seeds and fruits she grew and picked.” The woman rejects her human trappings—the old house and its books, her parent’s grave, rising each morning with the sun and laying to sleep with the setting sun.
A descendant of the bear returns to bury her on the mountain, a place “where end and beginning were the same … the sky beginning to pale behind him like the world itself being born.” This fable celebrates humanity’s potential to participate humbly with the natural world and to embrace the Other by engaging with it and respecting it.
3.Use of Fractal Association & Archetype in Dystopian (mundane) Cautionary Tale: The Windup Girl and the Cheshires
Paolo Bacigalupi’s biopunk science fiction novel The Windup Girl makes effective use of trickster archetypes in character-couplings of Windup girl and Cheshire cats to illustrate Nature’s silent power to herald change. The fractal associations of gene-manipulated Windup girl with manufactured-come-wild cats illustrate how Nature—when pushed—navigates the predatory world of a 23rd century post-food crash Thailand. By then global warming has raised sea levels, depleted carbon fuel sources, and destroyed the wilderness through genetic manipulations. Thailand struggles under the tyrannical boot of ag-biotech multinational giants—predatory companies who have fomented corruption and political strife through their plague-inducing and sterilizing genetic manipulations.
Anderson Lake is a farang (of white race) who owns a factory trying to mass-produce kink-springs—successors to the internal combustion engine) to store energy. The factory covers for his real mission: to find and exploit the secret Thai seed bank with its wealth of genetic material. Emiko is an illegal Japanese “windup” (genetically modified human), owned by a Thai sex club owner, and treated as a sub-human slave; gene rippers built her sensual and obedient—even when abused.
When Emiko meets Lake, he cavalierly shares that a refuge in the remnant forests of northern Thailand exists for New People like her; Emiko embarks on a quest to escape her bonds and find her own people in the north. Like Bangkok itself, both protected and trapped by the wall against a sea poised to claim it—Emiko cannot escape who and what she is: a gifted modified human and herald of a sustainable future—vilified and feared by a humanity obsessed with the road set before it. Just as with the unintended consequence of cheshires (modified cats that wiped out regular cats), Emiko heralds in a post-modified world created through reckless greed and lax environmental protection. When she meets an old generipper after the floods have destroyed Bangkok, he admits, “Someday perhaps all people will be New People and you will look back on us as we now look at the poor Neanderthals.”
Bangkok’s cheshires are genetically created “cats” (made by an agri-giant as a fun “toy”) that wiped out the regular cat Felis domesicus. As with Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat, these crafty creatures have adapted to Bangkok’s unstable environment. The shapeshifting cheshires exemplify the subversion of good intentions gone wrong, when Nature plays the trickster.
Emiko and the cheshires serve both trickster and herald archetype; genetically created by the very people who despise them. Humanity understands that on some level those like Emiko and the cheshires are the future and they the past. As Bangkok drowns, Emiko meets an old generipper, dying from the gene-hacked casualties of cibiscosis and blister rust; he claims god-status to her and she responds, “If you were my God, you would have made New People first…We would have beaten you. Just like the cheshires.”
Toward the end, policewoman Kanya is instructed to take the greedy corporate farang to the vault and hand over Bangkok’s precious seedbank to them. In a sudden moment of clarity Kanya singlehandedly creates her own coup by executing the farang and instructing the monks to safely dispatch Thailand’s precious seedbank to the jungle wilderness. Husked of its precious treasure, the city implodes as pumps and locks fail. Then the monsoons arrive. The City of Angels gives in to the sea that chases refugees into the gene-hack-destroyed outer forests. While Kanya triumphs in her own personal battle, she remains less agent of change than feckless witness to Nature’s powerful force as it unfurls like a giant cheshire and claws back what humans have taken from it.
From the beginning, the cheshires embrace their difference and fate as Other; It is only near the end of the book, signaled by nature’s own rebellion, that Emiko breaks out of her oppression—including the one built into her—and embraces her survival in this changing world. Both she and the cheshires are the change. The epilogue to Bacigalupi’s cautionary tale belongs to the Other—Emiko and the cheshires—and an uncertain future with promise of change.
4.Use of Personification, Archetype & Symbol in Post-Apocalyptic Cautionary Tale: The Tea master and Water
In the post-climate change drought-affected world of Memory of Water, Emmi Itäranta personifies water and couples to main character Tea Master Noria, to explore consequences of commodification and exploitation. Symbols of water as shapeshifter archetype and its omnipotent life- and death-giving associations flow throughout the story, from the ‘fishfires’ in the northern skies to the painted blue circles on the doors of water criminals about to die.
The government considers water a resource to strictly control and water crimes are punishable by death. When her dying tea master father reveals that he used a secret spring in a cave by their house in his ceremonies, Noria is conflicted whether to continue guarding it as secret for use in her ceremonies or risk exposure by sharing it with those she loves in the village who struggle with poor water rations. “Secrets carve us like water carves stone.” Noria convinces herself to keep the hidden well a secret based on the Tea Master’s rhetoric of ceremony and notions of water’s sovereign nature: “Tea masters believe there are times when water doesn’t wish to be found because it knows it will be chained in ways that are against its nature.”
This works for a while until she discovers her friend trying to illegally tap a water main to draw off water for her sick baby sister. Fearing for her friend’s safety, Noria shares her secret well with her. Soon after, the town discovers its existence, and Noria quietly feeds the thirsty townsfolk, avoiding the realization that she too has now commodified water by serving as reluctant threshold guardian to water’s own journey.
Of course, she is eventually caught by police for her ‘water crime’ and sentenced to death. She may be a Tea Master but she is not a Water Master. “Water walks with the moon and embraces the earth, and it isn’t afraid to die in fire or live in air.”
In choosing to control water, the tea master becomes victim in a power play of ideology that fails to recognize the hidden power of this sovereign and arcane substance. As companion and harbinger, shape-shifting water is portrayed simultaneously as friend and enemy. As giver and taker of life. “When you step into it, it will be as close as your own skin, but if you hit it too hard, it will shatter you … Sometimes death travels hidden in water, and sometimes water will chase death away, but they go together always, in the world and in us.”
Ironically, the wisdom Noria quoted at the beginning of the story comes back to her too late. “The story tells that water has a consciousness, that it carries in its memory everything that’s ever happened in this world, from the time before humans until this moment, which draws itself in its memory even as it passes. Water understands the movements of the world; it knows when it is sought and where it is needed. Sometimes a spring or a well dries for no reason, without explanation. It’s as if the water escapes of its own will, withdrawing into the cover of the earth to look for another channel.”
5.Use of Symbolic World and Archetype: The Fremen and the Sand Worms
Frank Herbert’s Dune uses powerful world building and symbols of desert, water and spice coupled to the indigenous Fremen, to address exploitation and oppression by colonial greed.
The novel chronicles the journeys of new colonists and indigenous peoples of the desert planet Arrakis, enslaved by its previous colonists. The planet known as Dune lies at the heart of an epic story about taking, giving and sharing. The planet also serves as symbol to any new area colonized by settlers and already inhabited by Othered indigenous. It is the Mars of Martian Chronicles, the Bangkok of The Windup Girl, the North America of Barkskins.
The immense sandworms of Dune are strong archetypes of Nature—large and graceful creatures whose movements in the vast desert sands resemble the elegant whales of our oceans: “It came from their right with an uncaring majesty that could not be ignored. A twisting burrow-mound of sand cut through the dunes within their field of vision. The mound lifted in front, dusting away like a bow wave in water.”
Misunderstood, except by the indigenous Fremen, the giant sandworms are targeted as a dangerous nuisance by the colonists who are mining the desert for spice—when, in fact, the sandworms are closely tied to both spice and water through the ecological cycles of the desert planet.
In their oppression of the native Fremen, the colonists reflect an oppression of the desert and its very ecology—and a misunderstanding of Dune’s intricate connections to well-being and to spice. The main character quickly intuits the intimate connection of the native Fremen with the huge 400-metre long sandworms that roam the desert, attracted by vibration and sound and upon which the Fremen ride like dragons; he also makes the connection of the giant worms to the cinnamon-scented spice mélange, recognizing that the worms are “guarding” the spice deposits from interlopers as they look for prey. Mélange is, in fact, a byproduct of the life cycle of the giant sandworms, which created and maintain the desert and require the arid climate for their survival.
Fremen respect the giant worms that dominate the dunes. The Fremen embrace their environment. This is reflected in how they view themselves—as a single “organism” bound by water. Kynes, an ecologist and spokesman for the Fremen, argues that “a man’s water, ultimately, belongs to his people—to his tribe”. This proclamation represents a humble participation with the Other.
6.Use of Symbolism in a Historic or Contemporary World: the Mi’kmaq and the White Pine Forest
Annie Proulx’s Barkskins uses strong metaphor-based character-coupling of indigenous peoples with the native forests to illuminate their oppression and exploitation.
Barkskins chronicles two immigrants who arrive in Canada in 1693 (René Sel and Charles Duquet) and their descendants over 300 years of deforestation of North America; a saga that starts with the arrival of the Europeans in pristine forest and ends with a largely decimated forest under the veil of global warming. Barkskins (woodcutters) are indentured servants who were brought from the Paris slums to the wilds of New France to clear the land, build and settle. Sel is forced to marry a native Mi’kmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two cultures.
Missionary Pere Crème is dumbfounded by how the Mi’kmaq treat aspects of nature as their equals. “To them Trees are Persons. In vain I tell them that Trees are for the uses of Men to build Houses and Ships.”
The fate of the magnificent pine forests is cast by the shadow of nature’s exploitation and mistreatment of the Mi’kmaq by settlers with a fierce hunger for more. The Mi’kmaq lose their culture and their links to the natural world—even as that natural world slowly erodes. In a pivotal scene, Noë, a Mi’kmaw descendent of René Sel and a métis, grows enraged when she sees a telltale change in her brothers. That morning, she heard the men leaving and knew what it meant: they were wearing boots, not moccasins: “The men should be setting out to hunt moose, but because of the boots she knew they were going to work for the French logger.”
Proulx’s bleak impressions of a harsh environment crawling with pests such as bébites and moustiques underlie the combative mindset of the settlers to conquer and seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource—and foreshadows the forest’s eventual destruction by settlers intent on conquering Nature. The natives are called sauvage just as Nature is considered an “evil wilderness.” Both are Othered, used by the white settlers as resource or tool, subdued and controlled.
The great pines of the Gatineau forest are raped and destroyed just as the Mi’kmaq. They cut indiscriminately, leaving what they don’t need to rot on the ground.
7.Use of Archetype & Identity in a Historic or Contemporary World: the Botanist and the Douglas Fir
The Overstory by Richard Powers explores powerful archetypes through the coupling of several characters to avatar trees to illuminate individual aspects of nature, the wonder of forest cycles, and of its destructive and reckless exploitation.
The novel follows the life-stories of nine characters and their journey with trees. At its heart is the pivotal life of botanist-ecologist Patricia Westerford, a hearing- and speech-impaired introvert who discovers that trees communicate. Patricia Westerford is the archetypal ‘mother tree,’ who ultimately brings the tangle of narratives together through meaning. Westerford writes in her book The Secret Forest: “There are no individuals in a forest, no separable events. The bird and the branch it sits on are a joint thing.” Hers is a journey of becoming.
When the scientific community destroys her career, she travels to the giant trees of the west coast, where she is overwhelmed by their massive size, dense biomass and profligate nature: “The air is so twilight-green she feels like she’s underwater … Death is everywhere, oppressive and beautiful.”
Patricia identifies with the Douglas-fir trees. Tall and straight, they tower a hundred feet before the first branch. Yet these independent behemoths tell a different story beneath, in their roots. Just as Patricia secretly yearns for humanity, these trees seek community. Before a five hundred year old Douglas-fir dies, it will send its storehouse of chemicals to its roots and out through its fungal partners, donating its wealth to the community: “We might well call these ancient benefactors giving trees.” Patricia remembers the Buddha’s words: “A tree is a wondrous thing that shelters, feeds, and protects all living things. It even offers shade to the axmen who destroy it.” And with those last words, she seals her fate of becoming.
“No one sees trees. We see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade. We see ornaments or pretty fall foliage. Obstacles blocking the road or wrecking the ski slope. Dark, threatening places that must be cleared. We see branches about to crush our roof. We see a cash crop. But trees—trees are invisible.” Like she is.
In her final moments—as she stands at the podium in the Stanford auditorium to deliver her first and last keynote—Patricia opens with a sacrificial eulogy to trees that will strike at the very heart of who and what she has become. “When the world was ending the first time,” she begins, “Noah took all the animals, two by two, and loaded them aboard his escape craft for evacuation. But it’s a funny thing: he left the plants to die. He failed to take the one thing he needed to rebuild life on land, and concentrated on saving the freeloaders.” The crowd laughs, not fully understanding where she’s going with this. Then she gets to the point and mentions how, when asked by a reporter how much is enough, Rockefeller responded with ‘just a little bit more.’
The audience begins to stir restlessly, not clear on her progression. “Just a little more timber. A few more jobs.” Now the shifting in the seats, nervous coughs and whispers, as she nears her closing. “Link enough trees together and a forest grows aware,” she says. “The dying mother [tree] opens a hole in the canopy, and its rotting trunk enriches the soil for new seedlings.” At which point Patricia, too, ends her life to a startled audience.
It is the ultimate parental sacrifice. Through archetype and identity, we realize that Patricia has not only fully embraced the Other; she is the Giving Tree: the ancient tree that in its last act gives all its secondary metabolites—her wisdom—back to the community. Like her stunned audience, we are moved and our perspective changed.
Heavy snowfall on the Otonabee River, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
The Power of Changing Perspective Through Character-Coupling
A good story explores a character’s journey through their relationships—to their environment, to other characters, and ultimately to themselves—who they were, are, and will be. In story, characters are defined through their experience and their approach to the unfamiliar, the Other. By describing the Other, writers describe “us”, given that it is through our own eyes that the Other is viewed and described.
Scholars Ganz and Lin argue that convincing narrative can translate values into sources of motivation and build relationships committed to a common purpose. In her 2015 PhD Thesis, Shirley Roburn writes that, “Well chosen stories, which activate positive feelings such as hope, solidarity, and a sense of connection and purpose, can help listeners connect to their core values and approach challenges with a confident, action-oriented outlook.” Such reactions are elicited and heightened through effective use of character-coupling, particularly by giving voice to the Other.
Roburn shares a good example of character-coupling that gives voice to the Other through the re-branding of a mid-coast timber supply area into the compelling narrative of the Great Bear Rainforest, home of the rare Spirit Bear. The Gitga’at Nation tells the story that “the raven left one in ten bears white to remind them of the Ice Age when things were clean and pristine.” Following the revelation of this special bear’s existence and its compelling story, public pressure spawned the creation of a 21-million acre park to protect its home.
This example of character-coupling not only heightened engagement, increased empathy, and connected readers to their core values; it moved them to action.
Old shed on the Otonabee River during a snow and fog, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
References:
Agamben, Giorgo. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press. 1998. 228pp.
Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl. Night Shade Books, New York. 2015. 466pp.
de Beauvoir, Simone. “The Second Sex.” Modern Library, Random House, New York. 1968. p.144 In: King, Ynestra. “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology.” Chapter 2. Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, edited by Judith Plant. New Society Pub, 1989, pp. 18-28.
Dwyer, Jim. Where the Wild Books are: A Field Guide to Ecofiction. University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada. 2010. 264pp.
Ganz, Marshall and Emily S. Lin. “Learning to Lead: a Pedagogy of Practice.” The Handbook for Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being, edited byIn Scott A. Sook, Nitin Nohria, and Rakesh Khurana. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2012. 354p.
Herbert, Frank. Dune. Ace, New York. 1965. 884pp.
Itäranta, Emmi. Memory of Water. Harper Voyager. New York. 2014. 266pp.
Kerslake, Patricia. “The Self and Representations of the Other in Science Fiction.” Chapter 1. Science Fiction and Empire, Liverpool University Press, 2007, pp. 8-24.
King, Ynestra. “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology.” Chapter 2. Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, edited by Judith Plant. New Society Pub, 1989, pp. 18-28.
Krivak, Andrew. The Bear. Bellevue Literary Press, New York, NY. 2020. 221pp.
Miles, Kathryn. “Ecofeminism: sociology and environmentalism.” Britannica, britannica.com/topic/ecofeminism.
Walking the Rotary Trail during aheavy snowfall, ON(photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
A trickster wind stirs up clouds of drifting snow, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Not long ago, I was driving through a short tunnel that I typically take to go to work and, glancing back through the rearview mirror, I didn’t see what I expected to see. For some reason—perhaps it was the light or my wandering mind—the familiar scene looked unfamiliar; it was as though I’d entered a new dimension.
It felt ‘Otherly’ and I briefly experienced a titillating excitement akin to a protagonist journeying into a new world in some novel.
Indeed, the rhetoric of ‘Otherness’ in most fiction is typically portrayed through the singular point of view (POV) and discourse of a protagonist on a journey. The very nature of the term ‘Other’ used in any narrative suggests exclusion. According to Patricia Kerslake of Central Queensland University, the postcolonial notion of the Other arises through a mutual process of exclusion that inspires the very idea of ‘alien’ by imposing expectation on perception. Kerslake argues that: “When one culture imposes its perceptions on another, in that it begins to see the Other not as they are but as, in [Edward W.] Said’s words, ‘they ought to be’, then the process of representation becomes inevitable: a choice is made to see a ‘preferred’ real”.
In most forms of literature The POV ‘voice’ represents the Self, the inclusive ‘us’ (worldview) in its encounter with the Other, which in turn is the ‘not us.’ In his book Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient Edward W. Said contended that for there to even be an ‘us’, there has to be a ‘not-us’. The resulting power dynamic of “them and us,” of Other and Self, is created and controlled by perceptions of the singular POV voice that usually represents ‘us.
Tree branches overlook river during snowfall, ON(photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
‘The Other’ in Various Genres of Literature
In most genres of literature, the Other is often relegated to this dichotomous portrayal. In post-apocalyptic and metaphoric journey stories the Other may be the harsh environment or a calamity through which the protagonist must find their own strength to survive; in military stories it is clearly the enemy, seldom portrayed with compassion or understanding but there to test our hero; in coming-of-age stories it may be the oppressive rule or established world the hero must overcome; in science fiction it may be the hostile or unknowable aliens who must be defeated. According to Ursula K. Le Guin, science fiction displays a legacy of silencing the Other and rendering it impotent to establish and confirm humanity’s superior position in the world. Given that science fiction (SF) literature is rooted in culture, and often helps construct national identity, SF often confirms worldview, and in so doing creates internal Others (Brioni and Comberiati). According to Hermann, by failing to escape our boundary conflicts, SF simply constructs “new situations of restriction and otherness.” Kerslake argues that “silencing the Other provides SF with an indirect ability to define the potential of humankind”.1
Country road in the Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
‘The Other’ in Eco-Literature
While eco-literature overlaps with many genres, it appears to differ from SF and other genres portrayal of Other through its unique intention to give voice to otherwise voiceless characters, and it often does this through masterful use of character-coupling. Mary Woodbury defines eco-literature or eco-fiction as literature “made up of fictional tales that reflect important connections, dependencies, and interactions between people and their natural environments.” The environment—or an aspect of the environment—plays a major role in eco-literature, either as premise or as itself a character on a journey.
Eco-Literature is preeminently the literature of bringing awareness to the plight of the environment as both character and as Other and explores humanity’s role in that plight.
Eco-literature may go beyond raising awareness to link environmental abuse with concepts of jingoistic hubris; it may raise issues of human intersectionality, misogyny, marginalization, oppression of class, privilege, sexuality and race, and misuse of power. Violent acts perpetrated on environment—when environment is personified as ‘character’ and/or coupled directly to a character—elicit powerful emotion and clearly demonstrate how social/human injustice reflects environmental injustice.
At the heart of much eco-literature lie strong relationships forged between a major character (often main protagonist) and a minor character (as avatar for the environment such as place or ecosystem, a being, animal or plant) or an aspect of their environment—itself a character and archetype. The strong connection between protagonist and environment—whether antagonistic or sympathetic—fosters unique communication that provides ‘voice’ to the environment as Other and as Othered. The environment may serve as a symbolic connection to theme and can illuminate through the sub-text of metaphor a core aspect of a main or minor character and their journey: the over-exploited white pine forests for the lost Mi’kmaq in Annie Proulx’s Barkskins; the mystical life-giving sandworms for the beleaguered Fremen of Arrakis in Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Old shed overlooks the Otonabee river on a snowy-foggy day, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Giving Voice to the Other Through Character-Coupling
The coupling of protagonist with avatar—character-coupling—creates powerful drama and visceral connection to environmental issues and needs. Character-coupling characterizes environment, the Other, and effectively provides it with a voice, often through relationship. It elicits reader engagement, sparking new understandings and motivations toward a better caring of this world. The Other’s voice may be understandable (e.g. in many fables such as The Bear), arcane, tumultuous or fearsome (Memory of Water), or enduring and silently profound (The Breathing Hole).
Eco-literature is particularly poised to make meaningful character-couplings between mostly human protagonist and environmental characters or representatives. This is because the protagonist provides relatable qualities for easy reader empathy, while the Othered character is often less relatable—often an arcane aspect of the environment, such as water (Memory of Water) or a forest (The Overstory). Character-couplings illuminate a core aspect of the main character’s journey and/or the reader’s journey. From direct and intimate (The Breathing Hole, The Bear) to associated and inferred (The Windup Girl, Barkskins), different forms of character couplings often provide a new understanding of the plight and viewpoint of the Other. The protagonist’s link to the Other provides a readable map for the reader to follow and make their own connection.2
Dogwood shrubs and trees line a marsh in Ontario (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Women Coupled with Nature as Other
Since before the industrial revolution, and very much to this day, the prevailing western worldview toward the wildness of nature has been to dominate it and constrain it. The conviction that humans are separate from and superior to nature was established by Judeo-Christian beliefs and the Cartesian hegemony that laid the foundations of modern anthropocentrism (White). Ecofeminist Ynestra King argues that “we live in a culture that is founded on the repudiation, [exploitation], and domination of nature … the Other that has no voice”. King further argues that, “Women, who are identified with nature, have been similarly objectified and subordinated in patriarchal society”.
The modern ecofeminist movement contends that a long historical precedent of associating women with nature has led to the oppression of both. Ecofeminists note that “women and nature were often depicted as chaotic, irrational, and in need of control, while men were frequently characterized as rational, ordered, and thus capable of directing the use and development of women and nature” (Miles).
French philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir elegantly explores this connection:
Man seeks in woman the Other as Nature and as his fellow being. But we know what ambivalent feelings Nature inspires in man. He exploits her, but she crushes him, he is born of her and dies in her; she is the source of his being and the realm that he subjugates to his will; Nature is a vein of gross material in which the soul is imprisoned, and she is the supreme reality…Woman sums up Nature as Mother. Wife, and Idea; these forms now mingle and now conflict, and each of them wears a double visage.
Simone de Beauvoir
Because of this association and history, some of the most powerful character-couplings in eco-literature are of women protagonists coupled with natural avatar: the Inuk widow with polar bear cub in the clifi allegory The Breathing Hole; the girl and bear in the allegory-fable The Bear; the windup girl Emiko and the Cheshire cats in the cautionary tale The Windup Girl; the tea master Noria and water in the post-ecosystem collapse novel Memory of Water; the ecologist, Patricia Westerford, with the giant trees in The Overstory.3
Part 2 (“Types of Character-Coupling in Seven Examples of eco-Literature“) follows next week.
Heavy snow on the river, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Footnotes:
The Other has often been metaphorically portrayed in SF by aliens that lack a distinct voice or viewpoint; some portrayal has reflected a fearful imperialistic colonialism by representing Other as adversary such as an invading monster with no regard for humans (e.g. Robert Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast; H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds). Kerslake argues that the traits of the Other “fall characteristically—and conveniently—into those spaces we choose not to recognize in ourselves, the ‘half-imagined, half-known: monsters, devils, heroes, terrors, pleasures, desires’ of Said’s ‘Orient’”. The Martians of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles—who also have no voice—reflect our indigenous peoples under the yoke of settler colonialism and an exploitive resource-extraction mindset. The monster of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—also with no voice—exemplifies the disabled/deformed unsavory departure from our ‘perfect’ self-image; to be chased, destroyed and nullified.
In some stories the protagonist is Othered in some way, providing a more direct link to the experience of being the Other or being Othered. For instance, in Mishell Baker’s Borderline, disabled protagonist Millie provides the connection to the greater theme of Othering “lesser beings.” In Costi Gurgu’s Recipearium, the protagonists are not human; they are alien creatures that dwell inside the dead carcass of a monster, representing Other as main character.
Excellent examples that overtly deal with some of these injustices include The Fifth Season trilogy by N.K. Jemisin and The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline.
Snow-covered houses line the river during a snowstorm, ON (photos and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
References:
Agamben, Giorgo. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press. 1998. 228pp.
Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl. Night Shade Books, New York. 2015. 466pp.
de Beauvoir, Simone. “The Second Sex.” Modern Library, Random House, New York. 1968. p.144 In:
Dwyer, Jim. Where the Wild Books are: A Field Guide to Ecofiction. University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada. 2010. 264pp.
Ganz, Marshall and Emily S. Lin. “Learning to Lead: a Pedagogy of Practice.” The Handbook for Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being, edited byIn Scott A. Sook, Nitin Nohria, and Rakesh Khurana. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2012. 354p.
Herbert, Frank. Dune. Ace, New York. 1965. 884pp.
Itäranta, Emmi. Memory of Water. Harper Voyager. New York. 2014. 266pp.
Kerslake, Patricia. “The Self and Representations of the Other in Science Fiction.” Chapter 1. Science Fiction and Empire, Liverpool University Press, 2007, pp. 8-24.
King, Ynestra. “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology.” Chapter 2. Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, edited by Judith Plant. New Society Pub, 1989, pp. 18-28.
Krivak, Andrew. The Bear. Bellevue Literary Press, New York, NY. 2020. 221pp.
Miles, Kathryn. “Ecofeminism: sociology and environmentalism.” Britannica, britannica.com/topic/ecofeminism.
The rotary trail on a heavy-snow day, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Nina Munteanu Writing Coach 