setting | Eric Taveren

Last spring I decided to have a portion of my novel take place in Los Angeles. One chapter would be closer to downtown, and two chapters would be in Santa Monica. I’ve never been to LA, so I did a bunch of research, found some locations that worked well for theme and ambiance, and went to town.

Then I found out AWP would be in LA this year. Perfect! I’d extend my trip a day, and see my locations in person. I could talk to people, get a feel for the community and the culture and really lend some authenticity to these chapters. Then the fires happened.

I don’t feel I need to go into detail as to how the fires have impacted the LA area, and how terrible the situation is. Everyone sees the news and social media posts. It’s bad, I acknowledge that, and I know the problem I’m about to pose is nothing compared to what they’re dealing with in LA.

What I’m struggling with is how this will impact my story.

The way I look at it, and this can apply to any setting where a significant event has occurred, is I have three options on how to proceed. The first is the easiest: pretend it never/hasn’t happened. I write fiction, so I can take liberties with the when of a story, or even the very world. I could set this pre-fires, create an LA that until very recently is the LA that most people know. All that would take is incorporating my trip research as I’d already planned, and either defining a year of the story (summer 2024 and earlier), or just pretend my areas were never impacted by the fires.

Option two is probably the hardest: incorporate the fire, including community impact. Given my knowledge of LA is based solely on media and research, this is the most daunting. When I go there in March, I’ll see firsthand the impact of the fires in the communities, especially the locations I’ve chosen to be in my story. By talking to people, I’ll hopefully hear what Santa Monica used to be like, the struggles they’re facing as they rebuild, and how they (individually and collectively) are moving on. My character’s family has a business on Montana Ave, so this could present a good opportunity to show community involvement, as well as allow for any creative liberties with building size and placement.

As daunting as effectively portraying that community will be, another concern I have is that it might look like I’m exploiting the community for my narrative. A terrible thing has happened, why not shove it into a story for emotional appeal? Right. Obviously that’s not the goal, as I’d already decided to use Santa Monica well before the fires. But I can’t deny that including the fire aftermath would inherently create an emotional hook for some readers. As writers, creating emotional connections with readers is the goal, the concern is that it might look like I’m taking advantage of a bad situation.

The third option is to have it take place elsewhere. I’d chosen LA because I needed a large city that wasn’t New York (where a healthy chunk of the book takes place), and I was looking for a certain vibe of wealth (Ch. 1) and then a nearby trendy shopping area with a more laid back feel (Ch. 2-3). I’m sure that combination exists elsewhere, but picking somewhere else would be learning a new location, researching it, adapting the narrative to account for it, etc. Definitely more work than option one, probably less work than option two.

So that’s the conundrum. How do I deal with a real natural disaster in my writing? Do I take the easy way and ignore it? Do I remove my story from the location entirely so the disaster has no bearing whatsoever? Or do I try and incorporate it, risk sounding exploitative and try to put some real truth into a piece of fiction?

AWP is at the end of March, so I still have some time to decide, but I need a completed draft by late April. Whatever decision I make, I’ll have only a few weeks to incorporate it. Maybe talking with locals will help make that decision for me. Maybe talking with other writers can give me some insight. Right now, I’m leaning toward including the fires, to have a very real way to tie my character into the community, but we’ll see.

Infernal Devices, Boneshaker, The Anubis Gates, The Difference Engine, Homunculus

I write this at 1:37 PM and so greet you all with a good afternoon, and not in the Will Ferrell/Ryan Reynolds way (unless you deserve it). As of yesterday I finished the last of my research for revising my novel and it’s time to hold myself accountable and report in.

Previously I mentioned three things that stood out in steampunk: Transportation, Science/Magic, and Weirdness. The five books I’ve read since then reinforce those observations with the addition of one more: History.

It just so happened that the books I previously read weren’t indicative of the Victorian locales commonly found in the genre. Of the five I just finished, all but Boneshaker were based in London. For me, this won’t play too much into the writing as my story takes place in a completelyfictitious world, but I do still want to talk about the setting and the history of it.

As a Theatre Arts and English major, I had plenty of exposure to British writers, and of course Britain played a major role in global politics (I’m using that term very loosely as I don’t want to fall down the rabbit hole of colonialism). With that, there is a lot of opportunity in period pieces for authors to embrace or tweak history and historical figures for the sake of the narrative and the world they’re inventing/adapting.

I particularly enjoyed how this played out in The Anubis Gates. The protagonist is a literary scholar who is an expert in Coleridge. It’s a time travel book and I’m not ruining anything by saying those characters meet. But that’s not where the literary and historical connections end. Many real-life persons are introduced and historical events help shape the narrative journey. I found myself wondering how much of what I was reading was factual (I knew some parts definitely were) and how much was invented. The fact that there were parts I was unsure of made it that much more engaging.

The Difference Engine was much more liberal with its treatment of historical figures and events, enough that I could lump it into the alternate history genre. But in staying true with the setting and technological advancements it solidly fits with the rest of the steampunk I’ve shoved into my brain the last couple of months. Boneshaker too did this, though in Seattle instead of London. As someone who grew up just south of Seattle I found that personally engaging as well. The author made a point at the end of the book to acknowledge what liberties she took with historical accuracy, giving a look into the massive amount of research that goes into period pieces.

As I pivot from reading to re-writing (and starting up grad school again on Monday), I’ve got not only a stronger idea of the genre that I’m piggybacking off of, but a much better handle of genre expectations, both to adhere to and to subvert. Whereas I was initially really trying to scientifically explain how the technology works in my story, I’ve learned that a lot of that can be hand waved away. Brandon Sanderson used an iceberg metaphor regarding world building that I think can be co-opted for this. He (paraphrasing) said that if you have enough surface level complexity, the reader will assume the unspoken parts of the world are known to the author and also have legitimate explanations/reasons. That works with the technology of steampunk. It’s basically magic, but as long as it’s explained in part, the rest is assumed to work as well.

That’s all I have for today. I try not to make these too long, though if you ask my wife I could go on about these books at some length. I’m starting a class focusing on point of view on Monday, so between that and rewrites my brain is going to be working overtime for the foreseeable future. Enjoy the weekend and I’ll try to have another post soon.