This is such a common thing that I don't think I really have to point it out to anyone, but here it is, a phenomenon common to both science fiction and fantasy to varying degrees:
People pick established species on which to base their alien races, and established time periods on which to base their technology.
There are a lot of great reasons to do this. One excellent reason is an idea I talked about earlier, that of the conceptual "set." If you pick a preexisting set of characteristics for an alien and its technology, one that people are familiar with, then readers will not have to work as hard and they can use their instinctive expectations to guide them in understanding the story. A related reason is that the alien and its behavior will seem more "natural" if you match behavior to species and physiology and extrapolate it into the realm of culture.
On the other hand, as a writer you don't have to feel bound by these constraints. Not necessarily.
Sure, if you're pulling features of physiology, behavior, culture and technology from all over the place, it'll feel like a hodgepodge and not make any sense. That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm just saying that there are novel combinations of elements that can be used with internal consistency.
How do you go looking for a new way? I'd suggest starting with the understanding that physical setting influences physiology, and also influences culture, which also influences technology. As long as it's all connected, you can play around. Changing one aspect of physical setting will create ripples throughout the system. Changing an aspect of technology can be linked back to cultural preferences.
Let the elements of the world grow together organically and they can change each other. Let there be a reason for every departure from the set, and you may find your readers will trust you all the way.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Are you being invaded?
Have you ever had one of those conversations where you're being chased? The other person takes one step too close to you, and you step back, and they step forward, and before you know it, the race is on?
This is one of the difficulties that can arise from different concepts of personal space.
It's not a visible, but an invisible line between people, and when someone crosses it, you know. Not everyone's invisible borderline lies in the same place - and not every borderline stays in the same place all the time.
In Japan, typically people maintain a borderline that is further from them than ours here in the US. It's very practical. If you're both going to be bowing, and potentially bowing all the way to the horizontal, you have to take that into account when deciding where to stand, or you could sustain a head injury! So I guess it's okay to stand closer to someone when you're of about the same status and you won't have to bow low, but standing further away might be best with someone much older or of higher social status.
The one that always surprised and amazed me in Japan was the way the personal space borderline moves. If you're in a work or home situation, in a place where established social relationships exist around you and must be maintained, then the borderline falls at a distance. But if you're walking the Tokyo streets or traveling the subways with strangers, the borderline moves inward - to the skin. I was always amazed at how people in Tokyo would walk straight through me, constantly jostle and bump and never seem to notice they had done it.
To sensitive little American me it felt like a constant assault, and somehow I could never entirely turn it off, even after I got used to it. When I had just gotten back to California a woman in the supermarket apologized to me and at first I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized she was apologizing because the invisible path in front of her cart had accidentally entered the invisible path in front of mine.
I was tempted to give this woman a hug for being so considerate - but I wouldn't have wanted to invade her personal space. :-)
This is one of the difficulties that can arise from different concepts of personal space.
It's not a visible, but an invisible line between people, and when someone crosses it, you know. Not everyone's invisible borderline lies in the same place - and not every borderline stays in the same place all the time.
In Japan, typically people maintain a borderline that is further from them than ours here in the US. It's very practical. If you're both going to be bowing, and potentially bowing all the way to the horizontal, you have to take that into account when deciding where to stand, or you could sustain a head injury! So I guess it's okay to stand closer to someone when you're of about the same status and you won't have to bow low, but standing further away might be best with someone much older or of higher social status.
The one that always surprised and amazed me in Japan was the way the personal space borderline moves. If you're in a work or home situation, in a place where established social relationships exist around you and must be maintained, then the borderline falls at a distance. But if you're walking the Tokyo streets or traveling the subways with strangers, the borderline moves inward - to the skin. I was always amazed at how people in Tokyo would walk straight through me, constantly jostle and bump and never seem to notice they had done it.
To sensitive little American me it felt like a constant assault, and somehow I could never entirely turn it off, even after I got used to it. When I had just gotten back to California a woman in the supermarket apologized to me and at first I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized she was apologizing because the invisible path in front of her cart had accidentally entered the invisible path in front of mine.
I was tempted to give this woman a hug for being so considerate - but I wouldn't have wanted to invade her personal space. :-)
Monday, October 13, 2008
Why you should love grammar
Grammar isn't really that stuff they teach you in school.
Call that stuff, "textbook grammar." Not that it's bad, per se, but it's tuned for a very specific purpose: that of separating people from a style of communication that roughly matches their spoken words, and engaging them in more academic-voiced stuff.
For those of you who know me (in person or on forums) you know that I've written quite a bit of academic stuff. What I remember most about that is how I had spent years trying to remove the word "I" from my texts, and then had to go about reintroducing it. My dissertation talks about "I" and what "I" did in my study, because it's as important to know who the researcher is and how her perspective influences the way the study was conducted as to discuss the results themselves. Talking about researcher influence and its possible ramifications is one of the ways to reduce its effects on actual results.
The grammar I love is real grammar - descriptive grammar, you could say. And it's used differently in speech from the way it's used in academic work, and differently again in fiction, but it's powerful stuff.
Grammar is what frees you from context.
Start, as one of my professors once did, with a doctor in the surgery room. Everybody in that room has highly congruent training; everybody in that room is there for an express purpose, one that they all are familiar with; everybody in that room knows who is in charge. So when the doctor says "scalpel," that's all he or she needs to say.
Or take children learning to talk. Most often they babble and point first, and then they move to the single-word stage. One word that my kids both made great use of was "that." When you think about it, it's a great word. The child says "that" and the parent following after them has to guess from their actions, facial expressions and physical context what they want. Believe me, it's not always easy to tell what "that" is, when an array of possible objects is present.
Okay, so what about writing? Words on a page, divorced in time and location from their initial use, depend on grammar to show relations that would ordinarily be shown by context. Who is doing an action, what they're doing, and what they're doing it to - there's subject, verb, object. It goes on and develops in complexity from there.
Imagine a written message taped on someone's door:
"Meet Julie at 1:00 at Borders bookstore."
The context of the note hanging on the door makes us guess that the note is intended to be read by the person to whom the door belongs; the sender is unknown, but could be the same as the receiver (a reminder note) or someone else. Julie is quite a likely candidate. Notice also what isn't present in the note: the date.
This is where things start to get interesting, because pragmatic implication comes into play. If any piece of information is missing from the note, the reader will automatically infer that that information is already known to the sender and receiver. The lack of a date implies the nearest instance of the hour 1:00 - i.e. today. The appearance of Borders Bookstore implies the nearest instance of that particular bookstore (or alternatively, one known to the receiver of the message).
Let's change another piece.
"Meet me at 1:00 at Borders bookstore."
Now we know for sure that someone is supposed to meet the sender of the note, but we no longer know who that is. We can also infer that the receiver must know who "me" is, because otherwise that information would be specified. This is related to the maxim of quantity in Grice's cooperative principle, which essentially says "give as much information as required, and no more than is required."
Let's change another piece.
"Meet me at 1:00 at the bookstore."
Notice that it wouldn't work to say "a bookstore" because the two people would never meet. "The" implies that the meeting will take place at a bookstore that both people are familiar with.
Let's change another piece.
"Meet me at 1:00."
Now because the information about location is suddenly missing, we are forced to assume that the two people have already agreed on a location for meetings, just that the meeting time must be specified.
Let's change another piece.
"Meet me at the bookstore."
With no time information present, we must conclude that a time has either been agreed upon, or that the time should be the nearest time available, i.e. "now."
So while grammar's purpose is to supply missing context, it actually can do as much in its absence as it does with its presence. In these examples, we use our instincts to fill in and draw conclusions about what kind of information must be known by the sender and receiver of the message in order for it to be a "well-formed" message, or one that can be successfully interpreted by the intended receiver.
This is why I love grammar.
What do you think about it?
Call that stuff, "textbook grammar." Not that it's bad, per se, but it's tuned for a very specific purpose: that of separating people from a style of communication that roughly matches their spoken words, and engaging them in more academic-voiced stuff.
For those of you who know me (in person or on forums) you know that I've written quite a bit of academic stuff. What I remember most about that is how I had spent years trying to remove the word "I" from my texts, and then had to go about reintroducing it. My dissertation talks about "I" and what "I" did in my study, because it's as important to know who the researcher is and how her perspective influences the way the study was conducted as to discuss the results themselves. Talking about researcher influence and its possible ramifications is one of the ways to reduce its effects on actual results.
The grammar I love is real grammar - descriptive grammar, you could say. And it's used differently in speech from the way it's used in academic work, and differently again in fiction, but it's powerful stuff.
Grammar is what frees you from context.
Start, as one of my professors once did, with a doctor in the surgery room. Everybody in that room has highly congruent training; everybody in that room is there for an express purpose, one that they all are familiar with; everybody in that room knows who is in charge. So when the doctor says "scalpel," that's all he or she needs to say.
Or take children learning to talk. Most often they babble and point first, and then they move to the single-word stage. One word that my kids both made great use of was "that." When you think about it, it's a great word. The child says "that" and the parent following after them has to guess from their actions, facial expressions and physical context what they want. Believe me, it's not always easy to tell what "that" is, when an array of possible objects is present.
Okay, so what about writing? Words on a page, divorced in time and location from their initial use, depend on grammar to show relations that would ordinarily be shown by context. Who is doing an action, what they're doing, and what they're doing it to - there's subject, verb, object. It goes on and develops in complexity from there.
Imagine a written message taped on someone's door:
"Meet Julie at 1:00 at Borders bookstore."
The context of the note hanging on the door makes us guess that the note is intended to be read by the person to whom the door belongs; the sender is unknown, but could be the same as the receiver (a reminder note) or someone else. Julie is quite a likely candidate. Notice also what isn't present in the note: the date.
This is where things start to get interesting, because pragmatic implication comes into play. If any piece of information is missing from the note, the reader will automatically infer that that information is already known to the sender and receiver. The lack of a date implies the nearest instance of the hour 1:00 - i.e. today. The appearance of Borders Bookstore implies the nearest instance of that particular bookstore (or alternatively, one known to the receiver of the message).
Let's change another piece.
"Meet me at 1:00 at Borders bookstore."
Now we know for sure that someone is supposed to meet the sender of the note, but we no longer know who that is. We can also infer that the receiver must know who "me" is, because otherwise that information would be specified. This is related to the maxim of quantity in Grice's cooperative principle, which essentially says "give as much information as required, and no more than is required."
Let's change another piece.
"Meet me at 1:00 at the bookstore."
Notice that it wouldn't work to say "a bookstore" because the two people would never meet. "The" implies that the meeting will take place at a bookstore that both people are familiar with.
Let's change another piece.
"Meet me at 1:00."
Now because the information about location is suddenly missing, we are forced to assume that the two people have already agreed on a location for meetings, just that the meeting time must be specified.
Let's change another piece.
"Meet me at the bookstore."
With no time information present, we must conclude that a time has either been agreed upon, or that the time should be the nearest time available, i.e. "now."
So while grammar's purpose is to supply missing context, it actually can do as much in its absence as it does with its presence. In these examples, we use our instincts to fill in and draw conclusions about what kind of information must be known by the sender and receiver of the message in order for it to be a "well-formed" message, or one that can be successfully interpreted by the intended receiver.
This is why I love grammar.
What do you think about it?
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Make it happen, make it smooth
Language isn't just a way of sending messages between people. Certainly that's the easiest of its functions to pinpoint, but it does some other really important things, too.
Have you ever asked yourself whether you think in words? I know I do. I've always assumed it's possible to have internal thoughts without words involved, but it doesn't happen that way much with me.
Lev Vygotsky, a famous researcher who was born in Tsarist Russia, had a really interesting idea (actually, lots of them). He posited that language is interpersonal first, and internalized second. Thus, that children will learn the interpersonal function of language with caregivers and others first, then learn to talk to themselves out loud, and finally learn to speak to themselves internally. One thing he observed from child behavior was that whenever children were struggling to accomplish something just at the limits of their capability, they would start talking about it out loud. How to get an object off a high shelf, for example. His idea was that using language actually helped them to grasp what to do next.
This isn't just true for kids. It's true for me, even now! When I'm working on something hard, I talk to myself, or to others (my long-suffering critique buddies will attest to this :-) ).
Language helps make it happen.
Another thing that language makes happen is social interaction. A lot of the language we use is geared less to message-sending per se than to social smoothing and posturing. Europeans in the United States would probably draw attention to our tendency to say "have a nice day" a lot. Some might say excessively, though I've always rather enjoyed hearing it, myself. Then there's "how are you?" "fine" when neither person really has the time to talk about how they're really doing. These are things we use to say "I acknowledge you" and "we're socially aligned."
Greetings can be very important. How they're done can make the difference between feeling that a person is standoffish or friendly, and this can influence all subsequent interaction. So if you're working with a world that has status distinctions, I encourage you to consider building these distinctions into the greeting system. There are also words that we use to mitigate problems, like trying to share a path (excuse me), or remedy a mistake (sorry, pardon me, excuse me).
Often, words are used to indicate the beginning or end of an activity (including, but not limited to, a conversation). In English we'll often indicate that we're changing topics by saying "okay." I also find myself teaching my kids to say "welcome" and "come in" when our friends arrive for a visit, and "goodbye" and "thank you for coming" when they leave. Of course, when we leave their house it's "thank you for having us." In Japan when you invite someone in you say "go ahead, please come up." This, for all you worldbuilders out there, is a great way to give extra information about culture and architecture. The saying "please come up" depends on the fact that Japanese people take their shoes off in a lower entry area called a genkan and then take a literal step up into the house. Many of us know that when we enter a Japanese restaurant we hear the word "irasshaimase"; this one means "honorably come (in)". Japanese also has words you use when you start eating (itadakimasu, I humbly receive) and finish your meal (gochisoosama, it was a treat/feast).
As you're writing language use into your stories, think about how characters can use language to make things happen and to make things smooth. This will not only make interactions feel real, but give you extra opportunities to slant the content subtly and divulge more about the physical and social structure of your worlds.
Have you ever asked yourself whether you think in words? I know I do. I've always assumed it's possible to have internal thoughts without words involved, but it doesn't happen that way much with me.
Lev Vygotsky, a famous researcher who was born in Tsarist Russia, had a really interesting idea (actually, lots of them). He posited that language is interpersonal first, and internalized second. Thus, that children will learn the interpersonal function of language with caregivers and others first, then learn to talk to themselves out loud, and finally learn to speak to themselves internally. One thing he observed from child behavior was that whenever children were struggling to accomplish something just at the limits of their capability, they would start talking about it out loud. How to get an object off a high shelf, for example. His idea was that using language actually helped them to grasp what to do next.
This isn't just true for kids. It's true for me, even now! When I'm working on something hard, I talk to myself, or to others (my long-suffering critique buddies will attest to this :-) ).
Language helps make it happen.
Another thing that language makes happen is social interaction. A lot of the language we use is geared less to message-sending per se than to social smoothing and posturing. Europeans in the United States would probably draw attention to our tendency to say "have a nice day" a lot. Some might say excessively, though I've always rather enjoyed hearing it, myself. Then there's "how are you?" "fine" when neither person really has the time to talk about how they're really doing. These are things we use to say "I acknowledge you" and "we're socially aligned."
Greetings can be very important. How they're done can make the difference between feeling that a person is standoffish or friendly, and this can influence all subsequent interaction. So if you're working with a world that has status distinctions, I encourage you to consider building these distinctions into the greeting system. There are also words that we use to mitigate problems, like trying to share a path (excuse me), or remedy a mistake (sorry, pardon me, excuse me).
Often, words are used to indicate the beginning or end of an activity (including, but not limited to, a conversation). In English we'll often indicate that we're changing topics by saying "okay." I also find myself teaching my kids to say "welcome" and "come in" when our friends arrive for a visit, and "goodbye" and "thank you for coming" when they leave. Of course, when we leave their house it's "thank you for having us." In Japan when you invite someone in you say "go ahead, please come up." This, for all you worldbuilders out there, is a great way to give extra information about culture and architecture. The saying "please come up" depends on the fact that Japanese people take their shoes off in a lower entry area called a genkan and then take a literal step up into the house. Many of us know that when we enter a Japanese restaurant we hear the word "irasshaimase"; this one means "honorably come (in)". Japanese also has words you use when you start eating (itadakimasu, I humbly receive) and finish your meal (gochisoosama, it was a treat/feast).
As you're writing language use into your stories, think about how characters can use language to make things happen and to make things smooth. This will not only make interactions feel real, but give you extra opportunities to slant the content subtly and divulge more about the physical and social structure of your worlds.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Young people learning to be linguists
A friend of mine from Critters forwarded me the link to this article. It's really cool - the students in this class are going to be working with and figuring out the structure of an African language that no one has ever codified before! Yes, folks, they're still out there - and these students are lucky enough to be working with a native speaker and digging into the words, sound and sentence structure in a way no one has ever seen. Would that be a cool experience or what?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/05/BA7I133KE1.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/05/BA7I133KE1.DTL
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Genly Ai: A Ridiculously Close Look
Today I thought I'd take a look at Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness. This is possibly my favorite book of all time; certainly it's a source of inspiration to me in my own writing. The opening is actually quite complex, because it involves three different voices. The first one appears in the title of the first chapter:
"1. A Parade in Erhenrang"
Let's start with the phrase "in Erhenrang." This gives us a location with an entirely foreign name, so it's clearly some alien place (assuming that we've come to the first page knowing we're looking at science fiction).
The second thing I'd like to point out is "a parade." The word "a" has a special function, that of introducing something that is new - specifically, something that is new to the reader. It's the word "a" here that gives me a sense of a narrator, and a subtle sense of "once upon a time." So this is the over-narrator's voice: as close as we'll get to hearing the voice of the author herself.
Then we hit the second voice:
"From the Archives of Hain. Transcript of Ansible Document 01-01101-934-2-Gethen: To the Stabile on Ollul: Report from Genly Ai, First Mobile on Gethen/Winter, Hainish Cycle 93, Ekumenical Year 1490-97"
This is a voice of ultimate authority, the notes that would head a scientific report, and thus it gives us the sense that what will follow is a completely factual account. Notice that there are no verbs in this excerpt. No verbs means no subjects, and thus no actors - the sense of agency, of identity and intent is completely removed, leaving us with a sourceless truth. This impression is strengthened by the word "archives," a place where history is recorded, and "transcript," a completely accurate re-copying of something not originally in text form.
Along with this we get "Hain," another unfamiliar place but obviously the source of this authority. The word "ansible" may be unfamiliar but it clearly must produce documents, and in particular, messages ("To the Stabile on Ollul...").
Think about the number of alien names in these few sentences. The feeling I get from all of this is that the protagonist, clearly indicated to be Genly Ai, is a small individual in the context of a very large and complex overarching institutional structure. This structure not only incorporates separate planets (notice the use of "on" in "on Ollul" rather than "in" which we saw in the chapter title) but it also dictates its own measurement of time.
So from the chapter title we've backed off to the voice of the greater institution, and then LeGuin takes us into this:
"I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling..."
Here, beginning with the word "I," suddenly we hear our point-of-view narrator's voice. LeGuin indicates that this voice belongs to Genly Ai by linking back to the previous piece with the phrase "my report." We get confirmation of the outer space setting in the world "homeworld." But rather than starting to recount events immediately, Genly Ai says, "Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling..."
This is a fascinating move. Le Guin sets us up to receive facts, using the lines from the Archive notes, and then immediately has her narrator question the nature of truth and fact. (By the way, we don't actually get to the parade until the fourth paragraph on page 2).
It strikes me that this is intended to be deliberately disorienting. It sets the reader up to take the story seriously, but to be prepared for alienness and a great deal of ambiguity. It prepares us for the voice of Genly Ai, who comes out of an Earth-born storytelling background, but does have the skills of a linguist and anthropologist, as well as (to some extent) a political negotiator. It also fits well with the way Genly Ai himself feels disoriented a lot of the time.
Throughout the novel, we get the very succinct chapter titles which give us a calmly reflective sense of the story's progress, but the complexity of the characters, the world, and the situation just grows and grows. That LeGuin is able to keep it all driving forward and pointing to a dramatic conclusion is a measure of her skill.
There's a reason this book won the Hugo and Nebula awards. Read it.
"1. A Parade in Erhenrang"
Let's start with the phrase "in Erhenrang." This gives us a location with an entirely foreign name, so it's clearly some alien place (assuming that we've come to the first page knowing we're looking at science fiction).
The second thing I'd like to point out is "a parade." The word "a" has a special function, that of introducing something that is new - specifically, something that is new to the reader. It's the word "a" here that gives me a sense of a narrator, and a subtle sense of "once upon a time." So this is the over-narrator's voice: as close as we'll get to hearing the voice of the author herself.
Then we hit the second voice:
"From the Archives of Hain. Transcript of Ansible Document 01-01101-934-2-Gethen: To the Stabile on Ollul: Report from Genly Ai, First Mobile on Gethen/Winter, Hainish Cycle 93, Ekumenical Year 1490-97"
This is a voice of ultimate authority, the notes that would head a scientific report, and thus it gives us the sense that what will follow is a completely factual account. Notice that there are no verbs in this excerpt. No verbs means no subjects, and thus no actors - the sense of agency, of identity and intent is completely removed, leaving us with a sourceless truth. This impression is strengthened by the word "archives," a place where history is recorded, and "transcript," a completely accurate re-copying of something not originally in text form.
Along with this we get "Hain," another unfamiliar place but obviously the source of this authority. The word "ansible" may be unfamiliar but it clearly must produce documents, and in particular, messages ("To the Stabile on Ollul...").
Think about the number of alien names in these few sentences. The feeling I get from all of this is that the protagonist, clearly indicated to be Genly Ai, is a small individual in the context of a very large and complex overarching institutional structure. This structure not only incorporates separate planets (notice the use of "on" in "on Ollul" rather than "in" which we saw in the chapter title) but it also dictates its own measurement of time.
So from the chapter title we've backed off to the voice of the greater institution, and then LeGuin takes us into this:
"I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling..."
Here, beginning with the word "I," suddenly we hear our point-of-view narrator's voice. LeGuin indicates that this voice belongs to Genly Ai by linking back to the previous piece with the phrase "my report." We get confirmation of the outer space setting in the world "homeworld." But rather than starting to recount events immediately, Genly Ai says, "Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling..."
This is a fascinating move. Le Guin sets us up to receive facts, using the lines from the Archive notes, and then immediately has her narrator question the nature of truth and fact. (By the way, we don't actually get to the parade until the fourth paragraph on page 2).
It strikes me that this is intended to be deliberately disorienting. It sets the reader up to take the story seriously, but to be prepared for alienness and a great deal of ambiguity. It prepares us for the voice of Genly Ai, who comes out of an Earth-born storytelling background, but does have the skills of a linguist and anthropologist, as well as (to some extent) a political negotiator. It also fits well with the way Genly Ai himself feels disoriented a lot of the time.
Throughout the novel, we get the very succinct chapter titles which give us a calmly reflective sense of the story's progress, but the complexity of the characters, the world, and the situation just grows and grows. That LeGuin is able to keep it all driving forward and pointing to a dramatic conclusion is a measure of her skill.
There's a reason this book won the Hugo and Nebula awards. Read it.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Doors and their Keepers
I'm obsessed with doors.
Okay, not really. But I do find I mention them a lot when I'm writing, sometimes so often it gets ridiculous and I have to start cutting. The thing is, doors are just so useful.
Doors and aliens: the shape and mechanism of a door will tell you a lot about the physiology of a species, even when they are absent. If a door gets narrower than a certain width, human beings will shift their shoulders sideways to go through it even though it may be wide enough to admit them without the shift. So what about aliens? How do they go about entering a space? Do they slither and need just a tiny hole, or are they enormous? Do they manipulate a handle to open the door? Does the door have hinges or does it slide? Does the door lock? These questions will illuminate local technology. Another question relevant here is how to know who is on the other side of the door. Is there a peephole to allow the apartment-dweller to see who is outside? Or will the individual on the inside use hearing or smell to determine who the visitor is?
Doors and power structures: who gets to sit behind a door? And who gets to sit, or stand, in front of it? These are things that can reveal a lot about the status structure of your society. If the people behind the door are knowledge keepers, then maybe a great deal of value is placed on certain types of knowledge, and this is then kept secret from others (I'm thinking of bureaucrats, but also religious knowledge and others can fall into this category).
Doors and manners: there are rules about how doors must be treated. In the US, an open door is seen as friendly. In Germany, it's seen as sloppy. The French see open doors and worry about draughts in the house. Whether the door is kept open or closed does not always say the same thing about the person inside. Maybe it says "do not disturb," but maybe it says "I maintain appropriate aloofness but you may approach me." Are people expected to knock to gain admission? And how should they open the door? In my house, where I've often got kids or stuff of various kinds in hand, I open the door any way I can. In Japan, opening a door with anything but your hands is bad manners (don't use your feet or your posterior!). In Japanese restaurants, the servers will put their trays down and remain kneeling to open the sliding door with one hand placed close to the floor.
Doors and point of view: I think this is why I use doors so much. If you're doing close limited point of view, it really helps to differentiate between describing actions from the inside of the POV character, or from the outside for other characters.
For the POV character, a door can mean a lot of different things. It can mean imprisonment. It can mean fear or resentment, that someone in particular might come in. It can mean safety. It can be the last line of protection. A character can approach a door with hesitation, paranoia, eagerness, excitement or apprehension. Or irritation, as Arthur Dent did with the sighing doors of the Heart of Gold spaceship in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
For the non-POV characters, a door can help you show their mental states without actually having to describe the emotion. How does the character approach the door? Quickly? With impatient movement, or with reluctance? Does he or she approach it face-first or back-first? What body part does your character use to knock, or to open the door? How does he or she grasp the handle - with white knuckles, or gingerly, or firmly? What quality of sound or air movement does the opening of the door create? All of these things can broadcast the inner states of a non-POV character, and the writer can choose whether to complete the extrapolation of the associated mental state or not. This means that if you describe how the person handles the door, but without using any direct descriptions of the assumed mental state, the reader can draw two conclusions: first, the reader can extrapolate the mental state of the person who went through the door, and second, the reader can deduce that the point of view character didn't draw the same conclusions, i.e. that he or she may have been unaware of the other person's mental state. And that's one way to show things to your reader while hiding them from your POV character in tight internal/limited point of view.
You gotta love doors.
Okay, not really. But I do find I mention them a lot when I'm writing, sometimes so often it gets ridiculous and I have to start cutting. The thing is, doors are just so useful.
Doors and aliens: the shape and mechanism of a door will tell you a lot about the physiology of a species, even when they are absent. If a door gets narrower than a certain width, human beings will shift their shoulders sideways to go through it even though it may be wide enough to admit them without the shift. So what about aliens? How do they go about entering a space? Do they slither and need just a tiny hole, or are they enormous? Do they manipulate a handle to open the door? Does the door have hinges or does it slide? Does the door lock? These questions will illuminate local technology. Another question relevant here is how to know who is on the other side of the door. Is there a peephole to allow the apartment-dweller to see who is outside? Or will the individual on the inside use hearing or smell to determine who the visitor is?
Doors and power structures: who gets to sit behind a door? And who gets to sit, or stand, in front of it? These are things that can reveal a lot about the status structure of your society. If the people behind the door are knowledge keepers, then maybe a great deal of value is placed on certain types of knowledge, and this is then kept secret from others (I'm thinking of bureaucrats, but also religious knowledge and others can fall into this category).
Doors and manners: there are rules about how doors must be treated. In the US, an open door is seen as friendly. In Germany, it's seen as sloppy. The French see open doors and worry about draughts in the house. Whether the door is kept open or closed does not always say the same thing about the person inside. Maybe it says "do not disturb," but maybe it says "I maintain appropriate aloofness but you may approach me." Are people expected to knock to gain admission? And how should they open the door? In my house, where I've often got kids or stuff of various kinds in hand, I open the door any way I can. In Japan, opening a door with anything but your hands is bad manners (don't use your feet or your posterior!). In Japanese restaurants, the servers will put their trays down and remain kneeling to open the sliding door with one hand placed close to the floor.
Doors and point of view: I think this is why I use doors so much. If you're doing close limited point of view, it really helps to differentiate between describing actions from the inside of the POV character, or from the outside for other characters.
For the POV character, a door can mean a lot of different things. It can mean imprisonment. It can mean fear or resentment, that someone in particular might come in. It can mean safety. It can be the last line of protection. A character can approach a door with hesitation, paranoia, eagerness, excitement or apprehension. Or irritation, as Arthur Dent did with the sighing doors of the Heart of Gold spaceship in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
For the non-POV characters, a door can help you show their mental states without actually having to describe the emotion. How does the character approach the door? Quickly? With impatient movement, or with reluctance? Does he or she approach it face-first or back-first? What body part does your character use to knock, or to open the door? How does he or she grasp the handle - with white knuckles, or gingerly, or firmly? What quality of sound or air movement does the opening of the door create? All of these things can broadcast the inner states of a non-POV character, and the writer can choose whether to complete the extrapolation of the associated mental state or not. This means that if you describe how the person handles the door, but without using any direct descriptions of the assumed mental state, the reader can draw two conclusions: first, the reader can extrapolate the mental state of the person who went through the door, and second, the reader can deduce that the point of view character didn't draw the same conclusions, i.e. that he or she may have been unaware of the other person's mental state. And that's one way to show things to your reader while hiding them from your POV character in tight internal/limited point of view.
You gotta love doors.
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