Liberation 101: 5 Areas to Set Your Fiction Free

Tomorrow marks my wife and my fifteenth wedding anniversary. What does that have to do with writing? Absolutely nothing.

Except that people often ask how we found each other, especially since we worked in different professions, lived in different parts of the city, and traveled in the different social circles. The answer is simple. We found each other because we stopped looking for what we thought we wanted.

Similarly, writing fiction needs that same liberation philosophy. Instead of following  conventions established by others, it is better to jump in line ahead of them ... or at least crunch in beside them at the front of the queue. 

How do you do this with your fiction? Simply this: Your satisfaction level will be higher if you establish your own subjects, create your own settings, mold your own characters, confront them with your own conflicts, and generate your own plots.

Subjects

Really, there is no sense writing what has already been written. The more innovative a book or story, the more impact it will have ... for better or worse. Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris stepped beyond horror to the grotesque with his grisly profile of a psychotic cannibal. In Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury exposed a world where censorship exists not by government edict but by indifference and boredom. Robert James Waller’s Bridges of Madison County turned a simple story of a magazine photographer shooting a photo essay on a rural landscape into a moving story of love and sexual tension. 

Settings

Perusing the bookstores or watching television, one could reach the conclusion that certain settings are mandatory. Crime takes place in New York, Los Angeles, or London. Fantasy must occur in mountainous climes where the social norm dictates dress akin to a Pasadena Renaissance festival a la Big Bang Theory. Political thrillers use the exclusive location of Washington, DC.

If one looks objectively there are notable exceptions to these strictures, however. Stephen King uses Maine as the backdrop for many of his stories, while Carl Hiaasen uses Florida. In A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley resets Shakespeare’s King Lear in Iowa. For these authors and many like them, the conventions of the marketplace do not apply. What matters is the story and the story is better told in the settings the author knows or creates him/herself.

Characters

When writing a novel, one can worry about stock characters and archetypes, but more important than which standard role to use is what kind of character does the story need. Stereotypes need not apply. 

For example, female detectives need not be svelte blondes who excel in martial arts. An intelligent protagonist need not be educated or teaching at Stanford. If your story needs a special profession that you don’t know or can’t find on Google, you can create it.  Dan Brown did with his professor of religious symbology Robert Langdon. Slate magazine says such a position does not exist at Harvard where Langdon works or at any other real educational institution. It’s simply a job Brown developed for his protagonist, one that created its own possibilities for storytelling.

Speaking of protagonists, you might want to consider that sometimes your protagonist need not even be human. Some literary critics claim Huck is not the main character in Mark Twin’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, contending that the Mississippi is actually the protagonist. I disagree, but the case can be made. A better example might be Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Many an hour is spent arguing about who qualifies as the protagonist of this futuristic novel with many reaching the conclusion that one does not exist. A stronger argument, however, claims society as a whole fulfills that role more than any individual human in the book does.

Conflicts

This is closely connected with your choice of characters. What people do, who they are, how they act and react affect logical conflicts they will encounter with others, with nature, or themselves. But then there is the totally illogical conflict that arises when a character and the reader is least expecting it. It could be a sudden inheritance, an act of God, a new alliance, a runny nose...anything. Those twists are really fun to write and to read.

Plot

Plot conventions can be death to a story. Literally. A teacher told me once that if one of my characters doesn’t die by the fifth chapter, something is definitely wrong. Other advisers advocate the old adage “Sex sells,” and point to Fifty Shades of Grey as a prototype. Still others instruct you to emulate television and movies and add gratuitous gunplay, car chases, and explosions.

While these elements can all enliven your story, it’s important that they be integral to the story, not simply present a visceral appeal to your reader. 

While one can argue the literary merits of the work shown here, one cannot argue their success in finding an audience. I would wager that each was a liberating experience for the writer as well. Perhaps even life-changing.

Kind of like finding a spouse. Happy anniversary, wifey mine. :)