The Physics of Story

For years, I have used a particular metaphor when describing (usually on convention panels) my method of approaching a story. I tell people that I look at the process as a walk down a long, long hallway. On either side of the hallway are open doors. They represent all the possibilities, at the very beginning. There are usually one or two elements--a plot idea, a combination of characters, or something like that--that instigate the idea to write the work in the first place, but even those are open to change, and everything else is wide open. Will it be contemporary or historical? Make a choice and close the other door. Will it be horror, thriller, mystery, romance, western? Pick one (or two) and close the other doors. Eventually, walking down the hallway leads to a more focused story, as the other doors have been shut. Maybe you'll go back to them at a later date--the doors aren't locked, they're just closed. Maybe not. For right now, that doesn't matter.

But a conversation with friends yesterday has led me to believe that I'll have to change the metaphor.

I've long been fascinated by the concept that there are multiple universes, maybe an infinite number of them (which was part of the idea behind the Buffy and Angel trilogy that Nancy Holder and I wrote, years ago). Instead of disproving this concept, modern physics seems to be leaning more and more in that direction.

I don't understand exactly how it works (I don't understand Newtonian physics, much less Einsteinian or anything that has come since). But one theory seems to be that any decision one makes in life spurs the birth of another universe. You turned right at that corner, instead of left? Now there's another universe in which you turned left. Married Bill instead of Bob? There's another universe in which you married Bill, and your kid grew up to be a world-renowned heart surgeon who bought you a mansion, instead of that guy living in his old room and playing videogames all day.

So maybe the new metaphor--which is slightly more fitting than the hallway, because it allows for all the other aspects of story playing into the situation--should be that as the writer, you're facing an infinite number of possible universes. If you choose one element--the main character will be a cowboy--that spins you into one particular universe. But within that universe there are still an infinite number of others. The cowboy will be broken-hearted because bank robbers shot his girl while making their escape. So the story's going to have action and revenge as major elements--into another universe. Each time, you're shedding the universes that don't apply, but you still have an infinite number of options available to you. In the end, you'll have narrowed down the story enough that the outlines of your universe are clear (but within that, you still get to make choices, which is really what a fiction writer's job is. This line of dialogue, or that? Green eyes or smoky gray? And so on.

I'm at that stage now, or just a little past it...getting involved in a new book project. This one is very different than most, because it's a collaboration with an artist who I respect a lot. I've got someone else to run story elements past, and she's got to agree at least to the broad strokes. But we're very much on the same wavelength, and it's going well so far.

There are universes we've already discarded, but so many left to pick from. And new ones popping up all the time.

Comments

[Randy Johnson]

The idea has always fascinated me and I've thought about it in relation to my own life.

I realized a decision i made as a teenager resulted in a young woman being born that grew up to start her own family. What it was was a choice between two jobs. On the one I chose, I met one of my best friends, We got an apartment together and I met one of his high school buddies, met his brother and became good friends. When that brother got out of the Navy, I got him a job where I worked, where he met his wife, and had a daughter.

None of that would have happened had I chose the other job.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1060761265]

I love this conceit! The road not taken, the door not opened. I think that's so much why I write: to explore the other options.

Did you ever see the movie, Sliding Doors? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120148/ - a very underappreciated exploration of this concept.

[Jeff Mariotte]

Sliding Doors was definitely part of the conversation yesterday.

And that's cool, Randy. Maybe there's another universe somewhere in which things didn't turn out so well... be glad you're conscious in this one!

[Carl]

Writing and other creative arts are fractal - they start out with a seeming infinity of possibilities to choose from, and then you choose one and zoom in to focus on that ... you still have infinite possibilities.

Same goes for music. Do I use an Eb-7(b5), or a G-6? Both have many of the same elements, but nudge things in slightly different directions.

Same for art - a little bit of purple, or a little bit of blue?

The ones who get good at it are the ones who don't dither, and just do the art. Technique is still important, but you learn to get past that, and just be where the art exists on its own. After a while, labels go away (swing or samba? western or mystery?) and you just go with the story.

[Jeff Mariotte]

Very true, Carl. Well said.

[Red Tash]

Ugh. This morning, I sat down to write a chapter from an outline I put together two days ago. Just two days ago.

What do you do when the door you've chosen sliiiiiiiiiiides out of the way and reveals a different one?

So frustrating.

I'm rolling with it, but this always happens to me when I try to write from outline. :|

Anyway, love this analogy. Good luck on the new project!

[Jeff Mariotte]

It sounds to me like you had not completely settled on what your story is. Good luck finding it!

[Jeff Mariotte]

Another thought about this--sometimes I don't know what the story I'm trying to tell is (or even IF there's a real story there at all) until I get into it. Often I can tell because I can't put together an outline that makes sense, but other times I have to get fifty or a hundred pages in to figure out that it's not really viable. My computer is clogged with stories and books that never gelled--possibly more word count there than in the 46 novels, hundred-plus comics, and assorted other stuff I have published.