I’ve been rereading ‘Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel Without an Outline’ by Dean Wesley Smith lately. In one spot he tells what to do to start a ‘written into the dark’ story— put a character into a richly detailed setting and let that character react to it. (Chapter 5 is where the book gets into detail about it.)
I also have writing books that tell me how to write outlines and I have written outlines for a number of failed writing projects in my past. (Why did they fail? Probably because writing the outline turned the whole project into a dull, predictable mess I couldn’t work on once the outline got done.) But I do believe that ‘writing into the dark’ is a bit of a different proposition for the sci-fi or fantasy writer.
Imagine a contemporary detective story where the main character is a private detective. There are a lot of things you know about the story without thinking, because you live in the contemporary world. You know your main character may have dark or light skin color— but not purple or green skin, not tiger-striped skin (unless tattoos are involved) and isn’t a seven-foot-tall brown-furred creature with six arms.
In science fiction and fantasy stories, we don’t know those things. Our main characters can be humans or space aliens or elves or orcs. They can live in holes in the ground, fairyland, or someone’s expandable pocket. All bets are off in a fantasy or SF setting— so ‘writing into the dark’ may involve a bit of pre-creation of the setting, or perhaps redrafting 5 different versions of chapter one before you figure out that your main character is a dog.
We contemporary writers often have a problem with setting. We are warned against doing much description lest we bore readers with a block of description. And so many writers produce stories with characters conversing in a white space. If we are lucky, the writer may drop a hint so you can imagine the scene on a standard-issue space station, or a standard-issue fantasy-world forest. Or perhaps mention a specific enchanted box elder tree when the hero rams someone’s head into it.
The way to make a setting interesting enough to describe is to perceive it through the senses and opinions of your character. Often it is a character new-come to that particular setting. Even if your character was born and raised on a space station, most likely if he is on a space station right now, it’s a different one, where they do everything different and wrong.
Individual details matter. Your fantasy world character shouldn’t stroll past a generic ‘tree.’ Let it be an animated apple tree that throws its apples at people it doesn’t like. Or a maple tree inhabited by a psychotic wood nymph.
The best way to learn how to do this is to examine how popular writers make you see places that have never existed. In the Harry Potter books, look up the exact words and phrases that helped you visualize Diagon Alley or Hogwarts school. (Ideally, you will write them down.) Find other favorite books of yours and look at the first scene in a new setting. How does the author make you see it? And what else is going on in the scene? What do the characters present see or hear in the setting, or smell in the setting? What are their opinions of the setting? Are they the same as the ones the author may expect the reader to have? (A fantasy knight may enter what he sees as a shabby castle that strikes the reader as a paradise of luxury— or enter a state-of-the-art castle that the readers will clearly feel would be improved by some running water and indoor plumbing.)
Once you have a relate-able character and a setting that contains details and points-of-interest, you can start exploring this setting in the course of finding out what the characters goal or problem is and seeing how he solves it. Writers who ‘write into the dark’ may use this method, rather than a detailed outline, to explore their ideas and create a good story.
Happy writing!
Nissa Annakindt & her cats
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Please Help!
I have a new book out, ‘Getting More Blog Traffic: Steps Towards a Happier Blogging Life.’ I share what I have learned in my years of blogging and compulsively reading about getting more blog traffic and blog improvement. It’s on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086H4FQ4M
Now, I wasn’t really able to get a group of people together to form my ‘book launch team.’ It’s not easy to do that when you are poor and have Asperger Syndrome. So I’d like to ask anyone who is kind enough to read my blog posts to be super-kind and join my (belated) book launch team by clicking on the Amazon link and looking at the book, or perhaps sharing the link on your social media. (I’m not asking anyone to BUY unless they become interested.)
My Antimatter Life 