It has been said that when you read a good writer the world, for that moment, can seem no other way. Crime and Punishment is imbued with Dostoyevsky’s Russia. Had Tolstoy written  Crime and Punishment, we would have visited a different Russia. Had Babel written it, we would have entered yet a different one. One might argue that Tolstoy and Babel would never have written Crime and Punishment: It isn't a story they could have told. But each of them could have written a story about a poor Russian student who kills his landlady, finds redemption in his confessor and rejoins society. The issue is not that Babel or Tolstoy couldn't have written that novel, but that Crime and Punishment is so imbued with Dostoyevsky’s sense of the world it's almost impossible to imagine the book written by anybody else.

         To write, then, is not just to tell a story,  but also to create a world.  A believable world works its way into the story and colors it like ink in a drop of water. It spills over into the bare bones of the plot so characters are living in spite of the plot and not because of it.  A world includes dialogue that sounds like real people talking, objects that become familiar, and characters who are uncertain about ordinary parts of their lives.  It can be as large as a galaxy, or as small as a bedroom.

         These worlds can be fantastic, like the world of The Castle,  by Kafka, or they can be ordinary, like the world of Remains of the Day, by Ishugaro.  They are all keenly shaped by what a writer chooses to leave out, as well as what a writer puts in.  Tone, vision, a sense of character, and that elusive animal we call voice--all these go into creating a world.  Once you create a world the characters are living in a context.

         Worlds can't be written on command. They evolve as a story moves along. Some writers may start with a notion of a world, but many others start with an image, a phrase, a title, a plot, or a character, and the world evolves.  However, it can be helpful to think about the world of your work as a thing in itself.   

         Worlds are generally ascribed to the novelist. And indeed, whether or not readers are aware of them, they react instinctively to them, which is why some mystery readers like English cozies and others hard-boiled detective stories. But short story writers also create worlds.  Consider the difference between Cisneros, Munro and O’Conner. 

The worlds we create as writers are very close to us, even if we’ve never lived in them. They’re close because they draw on the things that interest us--in the daily world, in dreams, and the way our imagination works--that element that leaps beyond what we call "the unconscious."   An easy way to get a sense of your world is to spend a few minutes a day (it doesn’t matter when) reviewing your day.  We all have a running story we tell about our day, based on what we know we did.  (Had to teach a class. Couldn’t find my keys. Raced over to it and hardly found a place on the UC Campus. Etc.) 

This is the story I already know.  But if I allow myself to sink to a slightly relaxed, unfocused state and let my day occur to me, I’ll probably see one or two images, or hear a few bits of dialogue that bring me closer to my sense of the world.  (For e.g.  Caught myself in action writing on the blackboard--as if I were alone in the room. Or: The green rim on the white plate.)

 You may never use these things in stories. But they’ll bring you closer to the concrete, sensate things that populate your world and get your attention. 

Notice what you focus on in the news, if you read it. (Do you peer at the Enquirer at the supermarket--the most surreal popular fiction in this country? Or race to see what books made it to Bestseller Lists on Sunday? Or not pay attention to the news at all?)

         How do you see the world you live in?

         What objects matter to you?

         What houses have you known?
         What places do you imagine?
         What do you notice on a walk?

         Where do your characters live?

When I picked up a pamphlet about an angel channeler in a cafe, I didn't know it would trigger a story.  But the weird literature that's scattered about always interests me.  So do people preoccupied with angels.  So do angels--whether or not they exist. And so do children and people who leave their families.  All those things went into The Terrain of Madame Blavatsky. 

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Thaisa Frank

The Ellen Levine Agency Trident

The Diana Finch Literary Agency

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