TTYU Retro: The Inciting Event and Your World - Revisited

When I was at Westercon over this last weekend I was part of a number of discussions, and one in particular about the importance of details in setting up a story world. This post immediately leapt to mind. It's about integrating character, world, and the beginning of the story in the form of the inciting event.


I've been thinking a bit about inciting events. An inciting event is generally the event that propels you into the main conflict of your story. My friend Janice Hardy mentions it in a great blog post, here (as many of you already know, her blog has tons of great information on the process of writing and on getting published). In her words, "The inciting event is the trigger that sets the rest of the story in motion." She treats it separately from the opening scene, but I'm not sure the two are necessarily separate. When trying to hook your reader, it's good to plunge into the inciting event as early as possible. I've spent a lot of time in my writing career working on the question of where to start my stories, and believe me, it can be tricky - but it's worth thinking seriously about.

Where I want to take this topic in a particularly TalkToYoUniverse direction is by linking the inciting event to the issue of worldbuilding. When you're thinking about how to open your story in a science fiction or fantasy context, you have to take into account both your need to hook the reader, and your need to introduce your world.

We all know the dreaded word, infodumping. We all know we want to avoid it. But how do we go about creating a scene where this information doesn't need to be explained? How do we make it so the information is simply evident in the action?

First, use your POV character. Make sure you know the character's background, culture and motivations to the fullest extent possible, so that you can use the character to help you convey information. This is what I call making your world personal. Think about what your characters care about, and what they don't care about - where they are especially attentive or where they have blind spots and weaknesses. All of these things can become your tools, as you can imbue your narration with a dismissive or contemptuous tone, or a bubbly enthusiasm, or what have you.

Next comes the tougher, more subtle step: working in the things that the character considers normal. Things that are totally normal, entirely obvious to the character, are not things you want him or her to talk about. Talking about obvious things leads to completely cringe-worthy "As you know, Bob" dialog, and we don't want that.

So here's the question: How can we possibly describe the basic parameters of our worlds, when we know that to our character, so much is entirely unremarkable?

The answer is, use conflict and contrast. I have an example of this done simply and elegantly for a real-world scenario, here.

In fact, there's a beautiful convergence here: the inciting event, the trigger for the core conflict of the novel, very often is all about the precise type of conflict that can let you give out world information.

Here's an example from the drafting stage of my story, "Cold Words" (Analog, October 2009). [I read from it at Westercon and it was so much fun!] Consider the list of events below and ask yourself which one is the best to use for an opening scene:

1. A Human ambassador inadvertently insults the Majesty of the Aurrel, placing a spaceport negotiation in danger.
2. The native liaison asks the Humans to send away the failed ambassador and get a new one.
3. The Human ambassador comes to the native liaison to tell him that he's worried about the motives of the replacement ambassador.
4. The native liaison goes to the Majesty to report the impending arrival of the replacement ambassador and try to rescue the spaceport negotiation.

I wouldn't choose 1 or 2. Any event that occurs before a significant lull, like waiting for a replacement ambassador to arrive, is less optimal because it will require a time break and reduce forward momentum. Furthermore, even though the incident of insult is interesting, it would be hard for readers to understand without significant previous context - which, since this is the first scene, they can't possibly have.

When I wrote my first draft, I chose 4. The story is told in the point of view of Rulii, the native liaison, and thus the main motivating force in the story is Rulii's desire to complete the spaceport negotiation successfully (for his own secret reasons). Why not start where you see him pressing his suit with the Majesty, a place where he can show his intense desire for success and share it with the reader?

The answer to that question is this: if he's alone with the Majesty, he's in a completely native context where everything is normal. And that means that every piece of normal world information will be really difficult to put in.

So in the end, I chose 3. There's conflict in that scene, because the human ambassador brings a warning that may put the negotiation at even deeper risk. More importantly for this discussion, though, scene #3 puts our native liaison in direct contact with a human. There's conflict, and there's contrast. There are opportunities for the human ambassador to demonstrate his own cultural biases, and for Rulii to remark on them, thus putting his own world forward for readers to explore. Better yet, the sense of contrast continues forward as he goes to see Majesty, because with the human interaction foremost in his mind, Rulii is more likely to remark on the quirky cultural things inherent in their interaction.

So, when you're looking at your own stories, consider the kinds of conflict or contrast opportunities that appear in the opening scene as you've written it, and then ask yourself how you could tune the circumstances of that scene to make your job easier.

Finally, in the spirit of making a world personal, I'm posting this list of eleven questions [which also appears in the "Know Your Character Inside and Out" post at left]. You've probably seen questions like these before, but worldbuilding questions are often phrased in a very impersonal way, and that's not what I'm trying to do here. All of these questions are deliberately phrased to relate directly to a protagonist's view of the world, and participants in my workshops have found it a helpful exercise to answer them using the voice of their POV characters.

Here are the questions:

1. What is my home like? How do I visualize its boundaries?
2. What weather and physical conditions do I consider normal? What do I fear?
3. What kind of topography did I grow up in, and how did it influence my physical condition and my concepts of comfort?
4. In what kind of place do I feel most at home? What shapes and textures give me comfort, or discomfort?
5. Who is in charge here? Do I respect them, fear them, both?
6. How do I show who I am in the way I dress? What is comfortable? Will I endure discomfort for the sake of looking good or looking powerful?
7. Where do the things I own come from? Do I worry about getting more?
8. What is delicious to me? What do I consider unworthy of consumption?
9. What are my most prized possessions? Do I hoard anything? Do I have so much of anything that I care little if I must give it away?
10. Who do I consider to be unlike me? Are their differences charming or alarming?
11. Am I in control of my own actions and the happenings around me? What or whom do I believe in?

I hope you may find this exercise helpful in your writing process.

A link to a great point by Aliette de Bodard

My friend Aliette has an excellent point here. It has to do with things defined as "male" or "female" and how it's becoming all right for women to do "male" things, but "female" things are still denigrated and considered unimportant. I wish I had more time in my day to write at length about this topic! But for now I can send you her way.

Just how relevant are bathrooms?

In my post on Saturday, one of the things that was cited as an example of bad worldbuilding was the lack of bathrooms:

"You give me in excruciating detail the pyramids, palaces and every other prominent place within a thirty-mile radius, but there are no bathrooms or toilets anywhere."

Well, I do have something to say about that. The reason why bathrooms or toilets are not present is that no one feels they are relevant. And guess what? Most of the time, they are not. It would be easy for an author to consider them unpleasant and skip over them for that reason. There are people out there who really want to create "gritty" worlds and will make sure to include toilet details for that reason, but not everyone falls into this group.

However.

When you're writing a story, you can count on your reader to use inductive reasoning rather than deductive reasoning. Why is this important? Because with inductive reasoning, a lack of evidence for something can in fact imply that that thing doesn't occur, or doesn't exist.

Extrapolating from this, you can imagine that we don't want anyone to conclude erroneously that there are no toilets in this world. How do we fix this without spending undue time on it?
The easiest thing to do is to use small instances of cleanliness issues. I'm thinking of Nya in Janice Hardy's The Healing Wars series, who at a certain point dips a sock in the lake to clean her face. Immediate implication: she has no bathroom. Janice also mentions bathrooms in the case of Nya's friend Aylin, who lets Nya use a communal bathroom down the hall where she lives. The result is that the mention of cleanliness and the bathroom will imply attendant issues of toilets without the author actually having to go there. Of course, there will be places in your story where the lack of a toilet may actually be relevant (as in a long ride, etc.) and an oblique reference to stopping behind a tree might not go amiss.

In my current novel in progress, For Love, For Power, an unusual amount of time is spent in bathrooms. No, it's not particularly gritty or dirty! For this story, the bathroom focus is on bathing, and it serves a specific purpose: it is often an ideal setting for me to explore concepts of privacy, safety, and intimacy that differ greatly between social groups, and are highly relevant to the story. In fact, my characters head to the bathroom in the two opening chapters.

In chapter 1 my main protagonist, Tagret, gets caught in a mob panic when a concert crowd witnesses a death and concludes that the virus Kinders fever might be "loose" in the room. It's perfectly reasonable for him to hurry home and get straight into the bath... and having his brother pick the lock on his bathroom door and interrupt him is the perfect introduction to the nature of their relationship.

In chapter 2 my second protagonist, Aloran, is about to interview for a job as manservant to Tagret's mother. The nature of the position of manservant is highly relevant to the kind of delicate issues he'll be facing with the family, and to many of his personal struggles in the book, since the Lady won't have an easy time accepting his service - so during the chapter I try to show the range of his duties. The business end of it gets covered in the job interview, where he's tested for his bodyguarding skills and his ability to judge social situations. However, he's also expected to wash his mistress without becoming emotionally involved, and that's the sort of thing that benefits from a bit of show-don't-tell. So before he heads off for his interview I have a young classmate of his ask him to help with practice for the bathing exam. The students at the Academy are required to demonstrate that they can bathe the person they find most attractive without showing signs of emotional involvement - so off they go to the showers where Aloran coaches his friend through the process that he has mastered, but his friend is still struggling with.

The juxtaposition of these two situations, each of which is only a tiny section of the chapter in question, provides a useful and highly relevant contrast between the characters and the social groups they belong to. Each one also sets up expectations for where the different characters will feel discomfort in the story as it continues.

So in your story, particularly if you're writing a novel which will cover a lot of ground (because story-relevance has to be a lot stricter in short stories!), I urge you at least to consider the question of bathrooms. To mention them often might be gratuitous, but to omit them entirely can appear ridiculous. And as you can see, in some cases they can be a great ally in helping you explore questions of intimacy!

It's something to think about.

Funny article about bad worldbuilding

Here is a takedown of bad worldbuilding that should give fans of my blog a good giggle!
I hope you enjoy it.

Interesting article about number words

I picked this one up via NPR - do differences in number systems make for differences in mental processing and memory? Sounds likely in this article. I doubt it can be reasonably connected to differences in math scores, however. There are a lot of layers of cultural complexity between number processing, schooling, and testing that this stuff won't account for.

We have a winner!

Because I wasn't at home I lost track of the days and it's been a bit more than a week since I offered up a copy of "The Eminence's Match" to celebrate my 200th follower - and now I have 205. So welcome, all!

I guarantee that this drawing was done fairly by putting names on slips of paper in a very official plastic bucket and having my children draw the winner (an honor they competed for).

Congratulations to Megs! You are the winner... I could hardly ask for a more dedicated follower and Worldbuilding Workshop submitter.

Of course, now I need to send you the book. So if you could give me the place to send it to by emailing me at my info at juliettewade dot com address, I'll wing it on over to you. And maybe if you're feeling extra nice you can tell me what you think of "The Eminence's Match". :)

Culture Share: USA - Growing Up Baha'i in the American Midwest

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Jaleh Dragich discusses growing up Baha'i in the American Midwest.

Growing Up Baha'i in the American Midwest
by Jaleh Dragich

It’s hard to think of my religion as a cultural identity. Baha’is come from various cultures all over the world. However, because of growing up as a Baha’i, I have been exposed to these cultures more than I would have otherwise. The parts of Indiana and Ohio where we’ve lived and up in Michigan where our extended family live have been almost uniformly Caucasian. Our family is much the same in heritage: English, Manx, Welsh, Irish, German, and from one grandfather: Polish and Lithuanian. We blend right in.

You’d expect that with that background, I’d have a name reflecting it, a typical sort of name that wouldn’t stand out any more than our appearance. But then I’ve never been typical. My parents met another Baha’i who knew a Persian Baha’i in El Salvador named Jaleh, which means “dewdrop.” They loved the name, so when I was born, I got it. However, it often confuses people, and most Americans can’t say it correctly on the first try. (Žâle)

I’ve heard nearly every variation, some funnier than others. (I rather liked Jolly; there’s something cheerful about it. *wink*) Occasionally they’ll say it correctly before I pronounce it for them, but that’s been rare. And if they see my name before meeting me in person, they are often surprised to see my fair skin, especially if they actually know the name. I had one visitor to the park I worked at last summer do a double-take when she read my name-badge. Being Persian herself, she recognized the name and was surprised that a non-Persian would have it. As it turned out, she was also a Baha’i, something that would never have come up without my name to trigger the conversation.

Since my parents had been told it means “dewdrop,” my mom used to tell me when I was little that I should “glisten in the dawn of a new day.” This is a particularly apt metaphor considering that Baha’is believe that Baha’u’llah’s coming was a new day for mankind. I think this is one reason I’ve taken a shine, if you’ll pardon the pun, to my name despite the difficulties it’s posed. It’s a meaning worth striving for. Be radiantly beautiful and reflect the light to others. I’m frequently not as brilliant as I’d like to be, but I try.

My family was nearly always the only Baha’i family in town. We had to hold our own devotionals and celebrations. Since the Baha’i Faith has no clergy, this is perfectly acceptable, but sometimes it can be lonely. In an effort to create a community, each time we moved to a new town because of my dad’s job, we looked around and connected with other Baha’is for joint gatherings. That generally meant driving about an hour or more for Feast each month. Though refreshments are often included, Feast isn’t focused on the food, but rather on devotions, community discussions, and socializing. Feast is supposed to be held on the first day of the Baha’i month (19 months of 19 days, the leftover days being Ayyam’i-Ha), but in our case, because of school and the drive, we held it on the closest Friday or Saturday evening.

Beginning from an early age, my younger siblings and I learned key concepts of our Faith such as unity in diversity and the oneness of mankind. Since racial conflicts were a non-issue in our hometowns, I simply accepted it without question or much understanding. It was an abstract. But as we got older, our parents started taking us to Baha’i conventions, conferences, and camps where we actually saw people of different colors and cultures. That’s when understanding began. However, because the foundation was laid so early, it was perfectly natural for kids to play together with no concern over our outsides, only whether we had interests and hobbies in common. Some of my best friends growing up were darker skinned, and we didn’t care. I’m not sure I even thought that much about it when I was younger. Color was simply a way of describing what someone looked like, not who they were. We were more concerned with how annoying our siblings could be.

After we moved back to Athens, Ohio when I was 10, our parents reconnected with a Persian Baha’i family they’d known and discovered a few other isolated believers across Southeast Ohio and the near side of West Virginia. We met for Feast each month and to celebrate Holy Days and holidays together. I was introduced to Persian culture and foods such as saffron rice, tadig, and stuffed meatballs. (Mmm, tadig. Can’t make it, but I’ll take some when it’s offered.) For children’s and youth classes, we drove to Columbus to join the community there which included several other Persian Baha’i families. They loved it that I had a name from their culture. I loved hearing them say it.

In addition to those regular gatherings, we had the annual District Convention where everyone in the region got together for discussing issues and socializing with people from other communities. There were also gatherings specifically for Baha’i youth and junior youth. A couple in Cincinnati used to host weekend youth retreats in their home a few times a year where we’d study the Writings together and talk about how to incorporate them into our lives. We shared what issues mattered to us in particular and how we could deal with them to be good examples for others.

One year instead of the usual retreat, our youth group went down to Atlanta, Georgia for the Martin Luther King Jr celebration. One or two local families hosted us for the weekend. I’d never seen so many dark-skinned folks in one place before other than in pictures or movies. I was actually in the minority for a change. And I mean extreme minority. But despite the racial strife I’d heard was so common in the South, especially in the big cities, we never saw any of it. Every event we attended was filled with an atmosphere of welcome. I had a blast.

But the experience that still boggles my mind that I’d been fortunate enough to attend with my dad happened November 1992 during Thanksgiving week: The Second Baha’i World Congress. My mom couldn’t go because she was in the midst of college classes, and my brother and sister were too young. That left my dad and me. Though he could have gone alone considering the expense, my folks decided I should go, too. This was decided over a year ahead of time with the logistics needed to plan for so many people. Some 27,000 Baha’is from over 180 countries gathered in New York City for a week of fellowship to commemorate the centenary of Baha’u’llah’s death. For a small town girl who’d never been a city bigger than Chicago, NYC was impressive enough. But to see so many people come together in one place with such joy, despite color, nationality, language, or economic background, was mind-blowingly epic. No other experience has filled me with such awe of the power of what globally unified community could look like than that single glorious week. Everything was so vivid that the three days of school I was missing to be there seemed unreal.

All in all, if it wasn’t for my Faith, I would have seen very little diversity until college. I wouldn’t even have seen the tiny communities with a lingering Native American heritage within a half hour of us. For a service project, some Baha’is from Columbus joined us to till gardens one spring and got to know them well enough to be welcome at their community events despite our difference in economic status. We must have tilled gardens for about four years in a row before we had too few volunteers to keep it up.

In trying to write this, I keep remembering more experiences where my Faith has brought me closer to other cultures and ways of living. The books I devoured while growing up helped with part of my perspective, but the Baha’i Faith gave me a practical understanding of the value in welcoming diversity and equality for all. It’s a culture of acceptance. It’s given me a greater appreciation for myself and the people around me, no matter how different or similar we are.

Jaleh Dragich is an avid reader and aspiring author of fantasy and science fiction. She shares her passion for the subject on her blog, Ex Libris Draconis. Though she still considers herself an Ohioan, she currently resides in Western New York.

For those interested in learning about Baha'i, Jaleh has provided the following as a reliable link: http://www.bahai.org/faq/facts/bahai_faith