The Where and When of Fiction

Keating: Dickens and Graham Greene were masters at crafting setting. (pic: wordriot.org)

Setting, the time and place in which a work of fiction occurs, is a crucial element in a novel.

In the words of Eudora Welty : “Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else… Fiction depends for its life on place.”

Have you read a novel where a few pages into the book, you feel that you have forgotten where the story takes place, and you have to go back to the first few pages? On the other extreme, I had read books where the description of the place was so detailed and long I started to get bored.

The trick, I suppose, is to get it just right so that the setting is described sufficiently, and inserted seamlessly into the story. I attended a talk on “Setting and Story “ at the recent Los Angeles Book Fair where a panel of writers shared their experiences and perspectives on setting.

Kevin Keating has just released his debut novel The Natural Order of Things. It comprises 15 interconnected stories set in a decaying Midwestern urban landscape. He said that he learned and has been influenced by the works of writers such as Charles Dickens and Graham Greene who were masters at creating a sense of place. Dickens, in particular, was a master of describing the setting of the working class and one of urban decay.

Jami Attenberg, author of three novels including The Middlesteins said that she was interested to find one wonderful detail in the setting, one thing that is thematically right.

Michael Lavigne, the author of Not Me and The Wanting said that he was greatly influenced by E.M. Forster’s Passage to India, in which the setting was critical to the story.

(pic:penguin.com.au )

(I studied “Passage to India” as part of our English Literature syllabus. Guided by a superb teacher, Miss Tan, Forster’s setting became memorable. And the scene that somehow made the deepest mark was the courtroom scene with the punka wallah, a worker who manually operates the fan, and its symbolism.)

Lavigne also said that he prefers to set his story in a time setting of about 10 to 20 years back, as he would have a better sense and understanding of  the background and events.

This point came up in my mind when I recently read a contemporary crime thriller.

The cell phone played a big role in the story. The detectives were calling each other and emailing data from the phone from various locations. In some parts of the story, the narrative was greatly impacted by a missed call, or a cell phone flung out of reach. It wasn’t so long ago that the mobile phone had no role in the flow or narrative of thrillers.

The panel left a few pointers for the writer who has decided on the setting for his or her novel.

The authors felt that it was necessary to visit the place or location where one’s novel would be set. Take photos too, if that would help. Talk to the people, and get to know them really well, added Keating. That would also enable you to pick up nuances and particularities of their speech.

Lavigne added: “When you use setting from your experience and memory, you will know when it is authentic on the page.

“In good writing, the setting reveals itself, the way the characters do, at the right place.”

Michael Jordan’s Prenup

It was reported that Michael Jordan and his new bride signed a prenup. (pic: bet.com)

The rich are different from you and me.

Couldn’t help thinking of this quote when I read about Michael Jordan’s prenuptial agreement with his new bride, model Yvette Prieto.

It was reported that should the couple end up divorcing, she will receive $1 million for every year that they stay married. And if the marriage lasts for 10 years, she will receive $5 million per year in the event of a divorce.

It was also said that the prenup will protect Jordan’s huge fortune.

I guess $1 million is small change to Jordan, in comparison to his total wealth.

Well, what about us regular womenfolk? What do we get, after a year, or several years of marriage. Let me count the ways.

The first year of marriage, he tells you on Valentine’s Day: “This is your day. You don’t have to cook” So we eat out for breakfast, lunch and dinner. As the years go by, the Valentine dining out treats dwindle to two, then one. In some years, the treat metamorphoses into one of those standard heart-shaped box of candies.

The first year, he is all attentive to your words. As the years go by, a husband seems to lose the ability to hear the questions that you ask. Often,you have to repeat two, or even three times, before you get an answer or some kind of response.

Unlike Yvette Prieto, for regular womenfolk, you bank account may or may not grow during marriage.

But, then again, some things do grow in the relationship/bonding account: things like a shared history, and someone who knows your idiosyncrasies, and more importantly, someone who tolerates them.

Careful, There’s a Cat There

The color gray has never been lovelier. (pic: London Media/ The Daily Mail)

This post in the Daily Mail has a great photo selection of cats camouflaging themselves in their surroundings. But I was totally bowled over by the beauty of this image.

Who’s the Leader?

Freesias and the Imagination

The freesias uncovered a childhood memory.

The first year the freesias bloomed from the bulbs that I planted deep in the ground, I was really happy to see them gracing my garden.

The years pass; every spring the flowers bring beauty and its light, delicate scent, almost like baby powder.

Then one day when I looked at the freesias, a memory from long ago came to my mind.

I remember when I was a very young girl, a page of a nursery rhyme book made a big impact on me.

It was a picture of Little Miss Muffet. She was in her garden, and the detail in the illustration that really captured me was the colorful flowers drawn with little feminine faces.

The freesias took me on that long journey back, to that piece of art that had so captivated me. I saw that little flower faces again, with their big, twinkling eyes and petals for hats.

Maybe, the freesias reminded me of the shape of the flowers; or maybe it is one of the mysterious ways that the mind recollects.

And it made me think: in a wooden house in the tropics, a little girl sees a picture of English flowers. But in the imagination of a child, unsullied by limitations, her mind is free to travel wherever it wants to go.

And that power of the imagination, ideally, should never go away.

The Companionship of Trees

It was fun to see the shape of the trunk and two small eyes of a baby elephant face on the cotton piece on the left.

The park was quiet. The walk, especially looking at the trees, was invigorating to both body and mind.

I gazed at the cotton tree, and the cotton looked like white gloves.
Then on the one on the left, a baby elephant face emerged. Can you see it, too?

Cloudless Sky

An excerpt from my upcoming work:

Yunus could tell that the young man admired his mother, June, for all she had done for her children.

Yunus’ admiration for her also grew each time he stopped at their home. He admired her not only for her determination, but for the fact that she did not become bitter and still took pleasure in injecting beauty into her humble, everyday life.

He feared that he was falling in love with June. He knew that it wrong for him to have those feelings as he was a married man. When he imagined the faces of his wife and children, he felt a jolt of guilt. He would try to dismiss the situation by telling himself: “I’m just being silly.”

And yet he could not deny himself this feeling. It was like waking up to a cloudless blue sky: it made him feel vital, happy and he looked forward to the start of each day.

He wondered if June suspected that he had these emotions. He knew that he often stared at her when they were talking, and once when they were sitting on the sofa, without realizing it, he had moved his hand close to hers. She did not move for a while, then she abruptly got up and excused herself to fetch some snacks from the kitchen.

Yunus wanted more from their friendship. He wanted to hold her in his arms. He wanted to buy her presents; he felt that it was time that she was pampered by someone, instead of being the selfless one all the time.

But he knew that those desires could only be in his imagination. It was dreadful to be between two worlds – the real world of his home and the dream world of this pulsating new love.

But that was all he was entitled to at that moment.