Andrew Hall's Blog - Posts Tagged "fiction"
Clutter: the power of tiny things in worldbuilding and fiction writing
Writing stories requires us to build worlds. It’s a conjuring spell; a kind of alchemy.
For the spell to work, we have to make this other world feel real. Play tricks on our readers’ minds and immerse them in it, even just for a moment.
But first we need to understand how people actually see the real world around them. How we see it ourselves. Once we can do that, we can replicate this “way of seeing” in the way we write fictional worlds too. This is how we suspend disbelief.
Think about it: we’re myopic creatures. Our brains are short-sighted. While we’re capable of big ideas and long-term thinking, it’s the small thoughts and short-term matters that make up the vast majority of our lives.
We think of the world as a vast endless place. But in reality, it’s six feet across. The few feet around ourself. In reality, life is lived one moment at a time.
Our real world exists at arm’s length. It’s made up of what we can taste and feel, then reach, then smell, then hear, then see. Maybe a sixth sense too, if our tangible world gets too boring. Each sense detects the world a little further, but everything extends and returns to the centre. Our higher brain, then our primal brain, but most of all our gut feelings. We are, first and foremost, an elaborate digestive system in search of food. That’s the primary reason that we sense the world around us. Our world is whatever’s within reach – and whether we can eat or drink it to stay alive.
But how does this relate to storytelling? Well, the real world, the world within reach, also possesses a pervading sense of the mundane. Most of the things around us don’t shock or excite us. We aren’t thrilled by the novelty of a pen we’ve owned for years. We can use this mundane quality to make our fictional worlds feel real as well, and relax our readers into strange places that are still somehow familiar. We can weave in the boring and everyday with the spectacular, to strengthen that spell. A fantastical world, but one we can relate to through its sights, sounds, smells, and objects. We add clutter.
Most of the time, we don’t see the world as a vast landscape. It’s one room, then another, then maybe a wide open space. While we’re entirely capable of big ideas and huge achievements, most of the time we’re living from task to task. Chore to chore, and person to person. And, crucially, from object to object.
We don’t just “cook dinner”. That’s the wider process. In reality, we wash vegetables. We use a knife. We turn the gas on, and boil it up, and stare out the window, and wonder about our life for a while. Maybe see a small dead fly on the sill or something. Then the dust on the frame. Then decide the window’s due for a clean. Grumble at the ads on the radio. Wonder why gas flames are blue. Hope the meal’s going to taste alright when it’s done. Use a pinch of salt, or a spoon.
The point is, we move through a world of fragmented thoughts and objects. Life’s a constant string of microscopic events. A smell, a sound, a thought. One after one after one. It’s only by building up these tiny events over time that we have what we think of as “life” or “the world”. It’s not one monolithic entity, a single slab of stone, but layers and layers of experiential sediment. To make our stories feel more real, we can use words to build up this sensory sediment of its own.
The more you can focus a reader’s attention, the more you’ll suspend their disbelief. To build a convincing world, try to clutter it up with tons of tiny things that the reader, through the character, can interact with. A tool, or a passing bug; maybe an ornament over a fireplace. A cough, a scratch, a sneeze while someone’s talking. The feel of itchy robes. Tons and tons of tiny things.
Building a world isn’t just about vast landscapes. Paint the trees or buildings in the middle ground too. Make them feel real with cracks and weeds, as if we could walk up and touch them, and bring all that huge world into short focus too. The stuff we know, and see, and could touch up-close.
Our minds are hungry, and they came into your story to eat. Lay out the whole fantasy banquet, but also give us the reward of that first bite. Lay out the wider meal, then zoom us in on the main platter. Cut us a slice. Tell us about the slight steam on that glazed roasted meat. The homely smell of it, warm and welcoming while the snow falls outside. Tell us how it’s dripping with a rich gleaming sauce. Give our senses the payoff, for paying attention to your words.
As writers it’s our job to present meaning through story. That’s why people read, because it’s also why people think. But let’s not beat our readers over the head with just the big ideas; the big meanings. Present the huge landscapes in passing, and then give people a closer look. Present the whole banquet of meanings, then give them a small single taste.
Walk with them slowly, right up close to the whole vast painting, and point out just one cherry in a bowl. That’s when we switch on their senses.
That’s when the fiction feels real.
I’ve been trying to achieve this with my own science fiction too. If you need a new read, you can try a free sample right here on Amazon. And please, do let me know if I’ve managed to do this, with the clutter in my stories – or what I should do to improve.
For the spell to work, we have to make this other world feel real. Play tricks on our readers’ minds and immerse them in it, even just for a moment.
But first we need to understand how people actually see the real world around them. How we see it ourselves. Once we can do that, we can replicate this “way of seeing” in the way we write fictional worlds too. This is how we suspend disbelief.
Think about it: we’re myopic creatures. Our brains are short-sighted. While we’re capable of big ideas and long-term thinking, it’s the small thoughts and short-term matters that make up the vast majority of our lives.
We think of the world as a vast endless place. But in reality, it’s six feet across. The few feet around ourself. In reality, life is lived one moment at a time.
Our real world exists at arm’s length. It’s made up of what we can taste and feel, then reach, then smell, then hear, then see. Maybe a sixth sense too, if our tangible world gets too boring. Each sense detects the world a little further, but everything extends and returns to the centre. Our higher brain, then our primal brain, but most of all our gut feelings. We are, first and foremost, an elaborate digestive system in search of food. That’s the primary reason that we sense the world around us. Our world is whatever’s within reach – and whether we can eat or drink it to stay alive.
But how does this relate to storytelling? Well, the real world, the world within reach, also possesses a pervading sense of the mundane. Most of the things around us don’t shock or excite us. We aren’t thrilled by the novelty of a pen we’ve owned for years. We can use this mundane quality to make our fictional worlds feel real as well, and relax our readers into strange places that are still somehow familiar. We can weave in the boring and everyday with the spectacular, to strengthen that spell. A fantastical world, but one we can relate to through its sights, sounds, smells, and objects. We add clutter.
Most of the time, we don’t see the world as a vast landscape. It’s one room, then another, then maybe a wide open space. While we’re entirely capable of big ideas and huge achievements, most of the time we’re living from task to task. Chore to chore, and person to person. And, crucially, from object to object.
We don’t just “cook dinner”. That’s the wider process. In reality, we wash vegetables. We use a knife. We turn the gas on, and boil it up, and stare out the window, and wonder about our life for a while. Maybe see a small dead fly on the sill or something. Then the dust on the frame. Then decide the window’s due for a clean. Grumble at the ads on the radio. Wonder why gas flames are blue. Hope the meal’s going to taste alright when it’s done. Use a pinch of salt, or a spoon.
The point is, we move through a world of fragmented thoughts and objects. Life’s a constant string of microscopic events. A smell, a sound, a thought. One after one after one. It’s only by building up these tiny events over time that we have what we think of as “life” or “the world”. It’s not one monolithic entity, a single slab of stone, but layers and layers of experiential sediment. To make our stories feel more real, we can use words to build up this sensory sediment of its own.
The more you can focus a reader’s attention, the more you’ll suspend their disbelief. To build a convincing world, try to clutter it up with tons of tiny things that the reader, through the character, can interact with. A tool, or a passing bug; maybe an ornament over a fireplace. A cough, a scratch, a sneeze while someone’s talking. The feel of itchy robes. Tons and tons of tiny things.
Building a world isn’t just about vast landscapes. Paint the trees or buildings in the middle ground too. Make them feel real with cracks and weeds, as if we could walk up and touch them, and bring all that huge world into short focus too. The stuff we know, and see, and could touch up-close.
Our minds are hungry, and they came into your story to eat. Lay out the whole fantasy banquet, but also give us the reward of that first bite. Lay out the wider meal, then zoom us in on the main platter. Cut us a slice. Tell us about the slight steam on that glazed roasted meat. The homely smell of it, warm and welcoming while the snow falls outside. Tell us how it’s dripping with a rich gleaming sauce. Give our senses the payoff, for paying attention to your words.
As writers it’s our job to present meaning through story. That’s why people read, because it’s also why people think. But let’s not beat our readers over the head with just the big ideas; the big meanings. Present the huge landscapes in passing, and then give people a closer look. Present the whole banquet of meanings, then give them a small single taste.
Walk with them slowly, right up close to the whole vast painting, and point out just one cherry in a bowl. That’s when we switch on their senses.
That’s when the fiction feels real.
I’ve been trying to achieve this with my own science fiction too. If you need a new read, you can try a free sample right here on Amazon. And please, do let me know if I’ve managed to do this, with the clutter in my stories – or what I should do to improve.
Alex sweeps the floor.
Alex watched him from ruined office windows, a couple floors up. The guy moved fast between the car-wrecks, with a practiced precision. Pulse-pounding pace; perfect pistol posture. Ex-military maybe. Armed to the teeth, from the looks of it. The kind who survived this apocalypse shit, and with good reason. Alex could practically smell it on him. That man was a killer.
…Serious guy, Alex told himself thoughtfully, as he turned from the blown-out window and wandered silently away. Strong. Laser-focused. Multiple weapons. Hungry look. Possible warrior archetype; a model soldier. Weakness: trait openness. Strategy: misdirection through incoherence. Mentally disarm with whimsy. Go with Sage archetype.
* * *
‘Drop it,’ the stranger growled loudly from the doorway. Assault rifle aimed as he crept inside. Glancing around the vast sun-rayed office for any traps.
‘Are you familiar with the practice of zen mindfulness?’ said Alex, as the man stalked in cautiously.
‘…What?’ he grunted. ‘You ain’t got a gun?’ He watched with a puzzled look as Alex swept the floor peacefully with a beaten old yard brush.
‘It’s the ability to do Just What You’re Doing Right Now,’ Alex continued. ‘A pure meditation on breath, thoughtlessness, and the interconnectedness of all things through the negative space between us. You and me, we’re interconnected. We are all One. A beautiful way of seeing the world, don’t you think? …The serenity of enlightenment is right here with us, if we only focus ourselves entirely on the present moment.’ Alex continued to sweep ash from the tiled floor; attentive in his work until he couldn’t help but smile in satisfaction.
The man with the rifle simply watched in silence; searching for a handle on what the hell this was.
‘…Sorry,’ Alex added pleasantly. ‘At this point, I’m just craving conversation.’ He paused for a moment; carefully adjusting the mustard-yellow rags that he wore like a grand mantled scarf. ‘It’s been taking a while, to get this place clean. I apologize. Birds, mostly. They gossip about me, you know. I don’t know why I keep feeding them.’
‘You are one crazy bastard, you know that?’ the man replied. Alex glanced at him, and replied with a gentle smile. Searching the ruined ceiling for a few moments, for his answer.
‘…The ability to make order out of chaos is our most ancient and valuable skill,’ Alex said thoughtfully. ‘Our immediate environment is a direct reflection of our thoughts and behaviours. What could be more true? I was once buried in the ash and rubble of chaotic thoughts, when all of this happened. The End of the World. But now, I feel… swept clear. Untroubled.’ Saving his bullets, the man pulled a machete as he closed in on him; searching all around to check that Alex didn’t have a gun or a blade to hand.
‘Look, just give me all the supplies you got, you crazy fuck. I’m not here to listen to your bullshit.’
‘Have you ever heard of a bo staff?’ Alex pondered, as he continued sweeping peacefully. ‘It’s a very versatile principle. How about Vlad the Impaler?’ In the fleeting second that the puzzled man lunged at him, Alex stomped on the broom head, snapped off the wooden handle and speared its splintered tip clean through the man’s stomach. Snarling and straining, gripping the broom handle in both hands, he hoisted the man screaming over his head. Brought him down hard with a dustcloud smack on the floor tiles, and pulled out the broom handle to strike the man’s head with it in a sudden stunning crack. Dazed for a second, the man screamed a bloody gurgle as Alex drove the pointed handle through his throat.
‘…Resourcefulness,’ Alex said thoughtfully, as it occurred to him. Watching the man squirm and bleed out on the floor. Taking every weapon he had. ‘That would be the best thing I’ve learned from meditation. You should try it. Really. See you in Reincarnation, pal.’ With that, he pulled out the broom handle in a spray of spattered scarlet.
Smiling down hungrily, Alex drooled at the flesh-scent as he watched the man die.
* * * * *
…Serious guy, Alex told himself thoughtfully, as he turned from the blown-out window and wandered silently away. Strong. Laser-focused. Multiple weapons. Hungry look. Possible warrior archetype; a model soldier. Weakness: trait openness. Strategy: misdirection through incoherence. Mentally disarm with whimsy. Go with Sage archetype.
* * *
‘Drop it,’ the stranger growled loudly from the doorway. Assault rifle aimed as he crept inside. Glancing around the vast sun-rayed office for any traps.
‘Are you familiar with the practice of zen mindfulness?’ said Alex, as the man stalked in cautiously.
‘…What?’ he grunted. ‘You ain’t got a gun?’ He watched with a puzzled look as Alex swept the floor peacefully with a beaten old yard brush.
‘It’s the ability to do Just What You’re Doing Right Now,’ Alex continued. ‘A pure meditation on breath, thoughtlessness, and the interconnectedness of all things through the negative space between us. You and me, we’re interconnected. We are all One. A beautiful way of seeing the world, don’t you think? …The serenity of enlightenment is right here with us, if we only focus ourselves entirely on the present moment.’ Alex continued to sweep ash from the tiled floor; attentive in his work until he couldn’t help but smile in satisfaction.
The man with the rifle simply watched in silence; searching for a handle on what the hell this was.
‘…Sorry,’ Alex added pleasantly. ‘At this point, I’m just craving conversation.’ He paused for a moment; carefully adjusting the mustard-yellow rags that he wore like a grand mantled scarf. ‘It’s been taking a while, to get this place clean. I apologize. Birds, mostly. They gossip about me, you know. I don’t know why I keep feeding them.’
‘You are one crazy bastard, you know that?’ the man replied. Alex glanced at him, and replied with a gentle smile. Searching the ruined ceiling for a few moments, for his answer.
‘…The ability to make order out of chaos is our most ancient and valuable skill,’ Alex said thoughtfully. ‘Our immediate environment is a direct reflection of our thoughts and behaviours. What could be more true? I was once buried in the ash and rubble of chaotic thoughts, when all of this happened. The End of the World. But now, I feel… swept clear. Untroubled.’ Saving his bullets, the man pulled a machete as he closed in on him; searching all around to check that Alex didn’t have a gun or a blade to hand.
‘Look, just give me all the supplies you got, you crazy fuck. I’m not here to listen to your bullshit.’
‘Have you ever heard of a bo staff?’ Alex pondered, as he continued sweeping peacefully. ‘It’s a very versatile principle. How about Vlad the Impaler?’ In the fleeting second that the puzzled man lunged at him, Alex stomped on the broom head, snapped off the wooden handle and speared its splintered tip clean through the man’s stomach. Snarling and straining, gripping the broom handle in both hands, he hoisted the man screaming over his head. Brought him down hard with a dustcloud smack on the floor tiles, and pulled out the broom handle to strike the man’s head with it in a sudden stunning crack. Dazed for a second, the man screamed a bloody gurgle as Alex drove the pointed handle through his throat.
‘…Resourcefulness,’ Alex said thoughtfully, as it occurred to him. Watching the man squirm and bleed out on the floor. Taking every weapon he had. ‘That would be the best thing I’ve learned from meditation. You should try it. Really. See you in Reincarnation, pal.’ With that, he pulled out the broom handle in a spray of spattered scarlet.
Smiling down hungrily, Alex drooled at the flesh-scent as he watched the man die.
* * * * *
Alex dresses by the mirror.
(A character study.)
* * *
…I am more product and project than person. Something I’m immensely comfortable with, and something from which I derive great pleasure in engineering meticulously. Fine Art is my religion.
I cannot understand the sin or concept of vanity. All I can equate this to is the process of adoring optimisation. I have a singular obsession with the passive, primal and perennially persuasive power of Smelling Good. This mind-numbingly simple tactic has never failed me.
I work out every day to the point of muscular failure. Socrates once said that it’s a great shame for a man to grow old without first knowing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. Well-developed core muscles allow me to maintain a perfect classical posture, which when combined with my above-average height and testosterone, a practised smile, tailored suits, masculine facial symmetry and a full head of hair, has granted me enough in the way of workplace promotions and female attentions to infuriate any reasonable, rational person who ever attempted success by mere merit and competence alone. Because people aren’t in fact the logical, insightful entities they give themselves credit for. They are shallow; visual; emotional. Superficiality protects their sanity. People are selfish instruments, who exist to be learned and played. Thus are we managed. Thus are we led. Thus are we marched, we Infallible Tribes, into the Holy War Eternal. Your cause, your team, your brand: all religions.
…As part of my daily training routine I’ve memorised the Jungian Archetypes to the point of deliberate brainwashing. These opposing mythological personas exist on a colour-coded wheel in my mind’s eye, which I shift between like the clicking of a thermostat dial. Social costumes, perfected in a warren of mental dressing rooms. At any given moment I can be Hero or Magician; Creator or Destroyer. All-American Everyman. Ruler and Lover; Sage or Jester. Each role with its own Shadow, dosed invisibly into the mix whenever necessary.
Once I know what someone truly needs, and how I stand to profit, I pour the empty, staring presence of myself into the relevant persona to leverage the situation in my favour. Financially, professionally, or sexually. Whether by my own subtlety, or the collective ignorance of those around me, no-one to this day is consciously aware of my performance. They simply know, deep down in their instincts, that I am somehow That One Person they most need me to be. Thus the sale is closed; the superior appeased; the supermodel of a mind to invite me in for coffee. Beneath these masks, these tools, these illusions of a person, I am something more akin to a joyous void. Look in my eyes and you won’t truly see Someone Like You gazing back with my smile. More the carefully hidden, purely utilitarian sense of vision one might glimpse in the black-hole stare of a shark.
Through practise and observation I’m able to look, sound and express myself in a spectrum of spontaneous emotional colour, as others naturally do. Beneath this artifice, I’m what many would consider to be… monochrome. I exist primarily between the states of vicious joy and profound disgust, where a pendulum-sense of detached and fearless intrigue compels me towards risk and reward. It drives me solely to sate a kind of spiritual starvation; a nihilistic curiosity; a restless will towards power and attention.
Put simply, I am evolved to kill and win. And, uninterested by the former, I’ve devoted myself to the latter. I have no more interest in killing than the social outsider has interest in sports. Financial murder is invisible, acceptable and unpunishable. My personality exists on trait-spectrums and bell-curve distributions like anyone else. I am nowhere near the extremes.
I didn’t choose to be this way; I’m just one of Nature’s alternative strategies. I’m in the subspecies of warlords, high priests and conquerors. Nations survive upon our shoulders.
My gene-type have always lived among you. You think that vampires, werewolves and mind-bending sorcerers are mere fictional monsters, and not the meta-kabuki of ancient, very human cautionary tales. You can’t possibly imagine how different my thoughts are to yours.
Because if I have Everything, and you’re left with just a decimal of a percentage of next-to-nothing, I will not rest until I’ve taken it from you. I am enraged, horrified, that you be left with anything. If you don’t owe me, or belong to me, you’re a threat to me. So I starve you.
That’s the truth of me that I keep in check, and hide from polite society.
My name is Alex Hansen. I don’t want bloody murder. Just every last penny you have.
* * * * *
* * *
…I am more product and project than person. Something I’m immensely comfortable with, and something from which I derive great pleasure in engineering meticulously. Fine Art is my religion.
I cannot understand the sin or concept of vanity. All I can equate this to is the process of adoring optimisation. I have a singular obsession with the passive, primal and perennially persuasive power of Smelling Good. This mind-numbingly simple tactic has never failed me.
I work out every day to the point of muscular failure. Socrates once said that it’s a great shame for a man to grow old without first knowing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. Well-developed core muscles allow me to maintain a perfect classical posture, which when combined with my above-average height and testosterone, a practised smile, tailored suits, masculine facial symmetry and a full head of hair, has granted me enough in the way of workplace promotions and female attentions to infuriate any reasonable, rational person who ever attempted success by mere merit and competence alone. Because people aren’t in fact the logical, insightful entities they give themselves credit for. They are shallow; visual; emotional. Superficiality protects their sanity. People are selfish instruments, who exist to be learned and played. Thus are we managed. Thus are we led. Thus are we marched, we Infallible Tribes, into the Holy War Eternal. Your cause, your team, your brand: all religions.
…As part of my daily training routine I’ve memorised the Jungian Archetypes to the point of deliberate brainwashing. These opposing mythological personas exist on a colour-coded wheel in my mind’s eye, which I shift between like the clicking of a thermostat dial. Social costumes, perfected in a warren of mental dressing rooms. At any given moment I can be Hero or Magician; Creator or Destroyer. All-American Everyman. Ruler and Lover; Sage or Jester. Each role with its own Shadow, dosed invisibly into the mix whenever necessary.
Once I know what someone truly needs, and how I stand to profit, I pour the empty, staring presence of myself into the relevant persona to leverage the situation in my favour. Financially, professionally, or sexually. Whether by my own subtlety, or the collective ignorance of those around me, no-one to this day is consciously aware of my performance. They simply know, deep down in their instincts, that I am somehow That One Person they most need me to be. Thus the sale is closed; the superior appeased; the supermodel of a mind to invite me in for coffee. Beneath these masks, these tools, these illusions of a person, I am something more akin to a joyous void. Look in my eyes and you won’t truly see Someone Like You gazing back with my smile. More the carefully hidden, purely utilitarian sense of vision one might glimpse in the black-hole stare of a shark.
Through practise and observation I’m able to look, sound and express myself in a spectrum of spontaneous emotional colour, as others naturally do. Beneath this artifice, I’m what many would consider to be… monochrome. I exist primarily between the states of vicious joy and profound disgust, where a pendulum-sense of detached and fearless intrigue compels me towards risk and reward. It drives me solely to sate a kind of spiritual starvation; a nihilistic curiosity; a restless will towards power and attention.
Put simply, I am evolved to kill and win. And, uninterested by the former, I’ve devoted myself to the latter. I have no more interest in killing than the social outsider has interest in sports. Financial murder is invisible, acceptable and unpunishable. My personality exists on trait-spectrums and bell-curve distributions like anyone else. I am nowhere near the extremes.
I didn’t choose to be this way; I’m just one of Nature’s alternative strategies. I’m in the subspecies of warlords, high priests and conquerors. Nations survive upon our shoulders.
My gene-type have always lived among you. You think that vampires, werewolves and mind-bending sorcerers are mere fictional monsters, and not the meta-kabuki of ancient, very human cautionary tales. You can’t possibly imagine how different my thoughts are to yours.
Because if I have Everything, and you’re left with just a decimal of a percentage of next-to-nothing, I will not rest until I’ve taken it from you. I am enraged, horrified, that you be left with anything. If you don’t owe me, or belong to me, you’re a threat to me. So I starve you.
That’s the truth of me that I keep in check, and hide from polite society.
My name is Alex Hansen. I don’t want bloody murder. Just every last penny you have.
* * * * *
