The Exotic Familiar

We're told, as writers, to "write what we know." There are, I am sure, entire chapters in writing books devoted to this or some variation of it. Like all advice, it only goes so far, and often times it might be felt it doesn't go far enough. For example, what if you've never gone anywhere? What if all you know is middle of nowhere small town America? That hardly seems like enough of "what you know" to be able to hang a story on.

"I don't know enough to write anything interesting," some might cry. "It's all so boring and familiar."

Well, of course it is if you've lived there all your life. But to an outsider, someone who hasn't been there, it may seem as much an exotic locale as Paris seems to the small-towner. Case in point: Las Vegas is not someplace I would ever consider "exotic." It is so not exotic, so familiar, that in fact I feel comfortable referring to it by the short version of it's name: Vegas. (No one does this with Los Angeles, though, at least not to my knowledge. That may well be another topic for discussion some other time.)

Some of this comes from it being an American city. While it's not one I have ever visited, it's certainly shown up in a fair amount of movies and television shows, some even eponymously titled after their locale, so in some way I feel I know it. It's not even like New York City, which I recognize as being so large and complex that despite being a loyal Law & Order fan, other than a generic sense of where things are I don't know anything about it. I couldn't begin to tell you where Brooklyn or the Bronx is.

Vegas, though, tends to reduce itself down to one main feature: the Strip. And the Strip I have seen, from it's early incarnations - courtesy of The Godfather - to it's more recent trend towards themed, family-friendly casinos - courtesy of both CSI and Ocean's Eleven. The remake, that is. I wouldn't exactly file this under "what I know" if we're equating that with having walked it's streets. But I am inclined to suspect that, armed with a map, I could, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman's comment about being a Brit writing about the US, do as good a job as any other person who doesn't live there.

All of which simply points to the fact that, to me, Vegas does not seem exotic. Mind you, it's got show girls, which my home town doesn't have (nor, come to think of it, have any of the places I've ever lived) but it's still not enough of an "other" for me to qualify as exotic. Not the way that even someplace that shares a similar culture and language, like London, for example, would fall under that category. London, to me, is exotic. Part of this is that I half expect it to still retain some intangible connection to the late Victorian-era London of Sherlock Holmes and Charles Dickens. I know full well modern London no more resembles that than Boston still retains any of its Colonial American feel - with the exception of historic markers and the occasionally still-standing structure. But, to me, it's someplace that I could feel safe in calling exotic.

Then again, I'm not Helen Mirren. (Which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.) In an interview I was listening to about a month ago, she raised this exact point in discussing why she'd taken on a role as a Vegas madam. To her, Vegas was someplace exotic. London, and by extension England, was the familiar, the thing she knew, whereas Vegas was the unknown other. Listening to her explain this, and actually referring to Vegas as being "exotic," got me thinking about all those times - including for a current project - where I have critiqued my own work as being too dull, too boring, too familiar to be of interest to the reader. Those times where I feel compelled to take a place and make it more interesting, when the truth is, it could stand just as well on it's own, provided I do a good enough job capturing the place.

The truth is, writing what I know may not seem very exotic or interesting to me some of the times, but for someone else, if I do it well, I can transport them someplace that, to them, will be a completely new experience. And that, I think, is at the heart of the exotic. After all, it's all familiar to someone out there.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like....

The holiday season has officially arrived in my house. Not only are the lights and the tree up, but I've had my first candy cane. The candy cane is one of those things were somehow the season just feels incomplete without it. It's like winter without a snowman, summer without a trip to the beach, Easter without the Cadbury Bunny. Egg nog is necessary too, though I am content to purchase that rather than make it.

It's those little details that sell the season for me. Granted, the commercials can run it into the ground, but I don't watch a whole lot of television anymore, so I miss most of that. Add to that I gained an appreciation for the Holiday Spirit after living abroad in a place where they didn't really celebrate it, and it's safe to say the Ghosts of Christmas don't need to be visiting me.

All of which reminded me of how adding the little details into your writing can really help sell a scene. Someone once commented that Stephen King does this really well, mostly with the sort of grounding details that make his stories more real, more relevant, like a TV guide on the nightstand of a character - usually right before said character gets carted off by the monsters. Getting those details right can be the difference between achieving verisimilitude and leaving your reader going "wait, that's not right."

I wrote before about movies getting things wrong, from the howl of a wolf in the Carolinas to the car that explodes every single time it drives off the cliff. But mostly we accept those. Even though we know they're wrong. It's like sounds in space: yeah, it should be completely quiet... but how boring would that be? (For the most part. Sometimes that quiet in space works really, really well.) Yet even when we accept them, for a brief moment they can take us out of the reality of the narrative.

Good details help keep you deep in that narrative, so that for all intents and purposes it's as real as it can get. (It shouldn't feel completely real to you, because then you've lost touch with reality. And while some people I know would make that argument about me, that's an entirely different topic.) This is where research helps, as well as that time-worn/honored piece of advice to "write what you know."

So for me, if the story takes place during the holidays, there ought to be a candy cane in sight somewhere.

Smells of the Season

The turn of the seasons here is accompanied by a variety of visual clues. Changing leaves, darker clouds (usually rain but every now and again snow instead), and of course shortening days and warmer clothes. Each season also comes with it's own set of smells, and these for me help me to get more into the season than almost anything else.

Spring and Summer, for example, are accompanied by the smell of mown grass. The other day it was warm enough for someone to be getting in one last mow. (Not me, though my lawn could probably use it, but I have decided now that we've had a frost not to worry about it.) Even though it was October, it brought Spring to the forefront of my mind. Cookouts are one of those Summer smells, as in the unique smell of the beach - which around here is normally a pleasant thing.

Winter's smells, by contrast, are almost all indoor smells. Snow, for example, doesn't have much of a smell. Unless you have dogs, and in that case you shouldn't be out and about in that snow anyway. White snow only. Pine might be an outdoor smell, but of course in Winter you usually get that indoors around the Christmas tree. Being out in an actual pine forest has the same smell, but being evergreens it doesn't matter much the season. Other smells include those of holiday foods, such as pumpkin spices.

For Fall, that smell is a combination of things, but none are more prominent, more welcome to my nose than that of wood smoke. Something about catching that first whiff on the breeze lets me know that fall has truly arrived. Couple that with the smell of apples, particularly apple cider, and even if I couldn't see the leaves change I'd know what season it is. Now, I realize this may be a regional thing, and that if you live in Southern California the smell of wood smoke might mean something far less pleasant, but up here (relatively speaking) that smell means the temperature is dropping and people are turning to their wood piles once again.

That, for me, is one of the biggest appeals of a fireplace, too. Yes, they're pretty and provide warmth, but it's that lingering smell, especially if you're burning more fragrant woods, that really sells the experience for me.

The Appeal of Cemeteries

I like cemeteries. Which I realize might sound kind of creepy at first, but as I think I've mentioned I'm a bit of a history buff. So I'm not hanging out in cemeteries to do anything creepy or occultish. I like roaming amongst the headstones, particularly ones that are old, and thinking about the history that is more or less buried beneath my feet.

Obviously older cemeteries are better for this kind of thing. There's a small local cemetery here in town, not very big, and while some of the stones are new, the town itself dates back to Colonial times. I think the town wasn't officially founded until after the Revolutionary War, but there's a historical marker where George Washington passed through on some sort of campaign. None of the headstones in the cemetery were quite that old. There is a marker for the town's founder, who is buried there, but it's clear he was reburied some time long after the initial internment.

Which I did not deduce from some careful historical study, but because I read it on the marker accompanying the grave site.

There are a number of stones that went back as far as the mid 19th Century, and possibly some that went even farther back but which had sadly been worn past the point where they could be read. Part of the appeal is simply knowing I'm looking at something that was put in place over a hundred years or so before I was born. I like being able to touch history, it's one of the reasons old architecture appeals to me.

Of course, the appeal of cemeteries in fiction and other media is usually based on other ideas often associated with them. Those would usually be the creepy aspects. Interestingly, most of those cemeteries all look about the same on celluloid. One of the things I have noticed in my travels is that cemeteries come in all shapes and sizes. On film, and in illustrations (with the notable exception of Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame) they all tend to follow one common layout, with the round headstones and the more spaced-out layout. This was the practice in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, like my neck of the woods, because space and cultures allowed for it. But it's not always the case.

Asian cemeteries are much different, in part I think because they often cremate and thus have no bodies to bury and take up space. Despite another stereotype, not all Native Americans had a "burial ground." Some cultures wandered off into the woods, others made biers. And Eastern European cemeteries are just... cool. Lots of differing headstones and tombs, often with a great deal of iconography. And of course, even cemeteries around where I live are often a mix of different styles. There are no angles or cherubs in the cemetery here, but there are some obelisks and crosses, along with more traditional slabs. (Including one depicting a golf scene that looks to be from the early part of the 20th Century.)

All of which just illustrates the point that research is important if you're going to set a scene in a cemetery and have it matter what kind of cemetery they're in. Which sometimes might matter even if you don't think it does. No one's robbing graves in New Orleans with a shovel, after all.

Stories Set to Music

This is not going to be about musicals, just so you know. I went through a phase where I listened to some of them, and I confess I still like "Les Mis." I do enjoy opera, I have seen "Cats" .... once .... and that's about where it ends. (Choral music is a different story, and Bugs Bunny is in a category all by himself.)

No, this is a rumination on the role music plays in storytelling. The obvious examples would be modern films, where the score has become an important part of the story on the screen. "Jaws" might not have been as effective with John Williams' foreboding score - and the wisdom of when not to use it. One of the most famous scenes in the movie, that leads to one of the more well known quotes ("We're going to need a bigger boat.") is one that happens without music. By that point in the movie the audience had come to expect the cue, and when it wasn't there to suddenly see the shark creates the shock and surprise that make the scene work.

But there are more subtle examples, too, including ones that happen behind the scenes. I tend to score the scenes in my head as I write, or sometimes before I write. There have been certain scenes in my stories that took at least some indirect inspiration from the music I listen to. (And a scene on the highway that owes its existence to Nine Inch Nails.) This is probably a by-product of having grown up in an era where the music in movies took on a much more prominent role and became a much more intrinsic part of the story.

I say this purely off the top of my head, as aside from a few notable examples like "The Great Escape" and others, I don't remember a lot of the classic films making as much or as significant use of theme music. I'm not sure if it's an accurate statement, but it seems to me that it's a modern trend... though, again, I could be wrong. As I write I have a few more examples springing to mind, but even "Lawrence of Arabia" which has this broad, sweeping theme that suits it didn't quite make use of that theme and others in the same way that films such as "Star Wars" made use of their musical cues.

Of course, I can't actually set my books and short stories to music. I can mention music in the story, as other authors have done, but I have to confess when I first read "The Gunslinger" I was unfamiliar with "Hey, Jude" and so the importance of that piece of music to the story was lost on me. It didn't impact my appreciation for the overall story, but it did mean I wasn't privy to one of the nuances of it. I think this is a risk whenever you make a reference to a particular song. Either your readers will get it, or they won't, and odds are if they don't they may not be inclined to go look it up.

Consequently, though I almost have to listen to music when I write, I don't directly transfer what's coming out of my speakers onto the page.

Though if I get the chance to control what music gets used when my books become movies... well, that's a different story. Anyone have Danny Elfman on speed dial?

On the Tracks

[A brief note before I begin: This is one of those posts I meant to write a while ago, and hadn't written only because I was convinced I had already. But if I did it disappeared somewhere, so I rather think it didn't get written at all. Which is why I am writing it now.

Clear enough?

Ok, probably not, but there are days when that's just the way my mind works.]

I like trains. Toy trains, real trains, trains in museums.... you name it, I like them. I have no idea why, other than some overly-romanticized ideal about train travel. Which really isn't entirely accurate, because I've traveled on modern trains. Which is hardly romantic. No offense to Amtrak, who more or less got me where I wanted to go on time every time I took them, in far more comfort with fa less hassle than any airline, ever. But there was hardly the level of glamor, intrigue, and all-around mystique that one would associate with, say, the Orient Express, for example.

This does not apply to all modes of travel from by-gone days, mind you. I think luxury liners were, back when they were the best way to cross the ocean, much as they are today when they are used for just touring: overcrowded, overpriced, and overhyped. If I'm going to be on a boat, I want it something with as small a crew and passenger manifest as possible, preferably just me. (Which would be more easily accomplished if I knew how to sail.)

It might also have to do with my views on "Titanic," which were less than favorable.

Trains, on the other hand, don't suffer from that kind of bad publicity. Aside from the Orient Express, I don't think trains have ever been heavily hyped, and even then it was still more about getting from one place to another than anything else. The OE was essentially First Class train travel, back when much of the rest of it was still effectively coach.

Still is, in fact,

Yet no other mode of transit I know allows you the opportunity to walk about and admire the places you're going though, or going to, as much as being on a train does. There is something about wandering down to the observation car and looking out at the passing countryside that made even the otherwise mundane and repetitive cornfields of middle Illinois appealing. I like that there are still sleeper cars and diner cars, and even if the only dining car I've ever truly been in was little more than a snack bar, it was more than you'd find on a bus or a plane.

I also find trains to still retain their aura of mystery about them. I can still envision secret meetings and nefarious characters on board a train, much more so than a Carnival cruise ship or a 747. Granted, more Hollywood movies use planes as settings than trains, but that's because there's the added suspense of falling out of the sky, which you don't get with a train. And I know if I had the choice of where to set a story, I'd rather put it on a train - even Amtrak's more functional, less romantic trains - than any other method of getting from A to Z.

Echoes of Thunder

In the midst of a thunderstorm here, one of those natural phenomena that never fail to impress me no matter how many times I see it. Sort of like Niagara Falls, which I had the good fortune to grow up close enough to, so that I've been to see it probably a dozen times in my life. (Which I was grateful for the last time I was there and able to remember what it looked like on the Canadian side before they commercialized the heck out of it. Casinos are evil, pernicious things. Just saying.) Thunderstorms are far less regular, and I can't simply hop in the car and go see one, but they do happen here reasonably often in the summer.

I've also been to Southern Florida, where the afternoon thunderstorm is part of daily life there when the weather turns right. You can watch them form out over the ocean or the Gulf, depending on which side you're on, and see them coming for miles. They churn and color the waves beneath them which adds to the beauty of them... unless you're on a boat out there, of course, when it just becomes scary.

I suspect, too, though I've never been there to witness one, that a thunderstorm out in the Great Plains might well be something similar. Out there in the summer you also have to worry that each storm might bring a tornado, which as impressive as they are is not something I wish to experience any more first hand than I already have - which has been at a distance. Out there, like on the ocean, you can see forever, and so I imagine the flash you see and the thunder you hear could pass you by entirely as you watched it from a distance.

Here at home, I don't really have an expansive view of the horizon, unless I head up to the lake, so I can't really watch the storms roll in. (Yes, I'm aware that's a metaphorical cliche, but as anyone who has ever watched a thunderstorm come in off the far horizon will tell you, that's an apt metaphor.) I watched it lightning yesterday while driving over the top of a ridge where I could see clear to the next one, and that in itself was impressive. They're always shocking - if you'll pardon the pun - and also beautiful. I'm well aware of how dangerous they are, but then again so are tigers. It doesn't make them less beautiful.

My point in all this is that I suspect how we view something like a thunderstorm, which occurs all over the world, often depends a great deal more on the locality we're in. For a sailor it's a sign to head to shore, whether along the coast of Florida or out on the Great Lakes. (My home lake of Erie is especially noted for the ferocity of it's storms.) For someone in Oklahoma, it might be an indicator that they need to watch the skies, turn on the radio or television, and wonder if this time, the tornado will choose their little corner of the world.

For someone like me, it's just something to watch in awe from the comfort and shelter of the front deck, as the lightning lights up the trees and the thunder echoes around the surrounding hills.

Boston vs Chicago

No, this isn't a sports match-up. (And realistically, while I'm not a fan of either city's teams, does Chicago even have a franchise that could legitimately challenge any of the Boston area teams? At least currently?) Rather this is a musing on the prime requirement for real estate: location, location, location. Not that I'm looking to buy a house in either location at the moment. Instead I'm faced with that common cliche of writing: "write what you know." The problem is, I don't really know either city all that well.

I'm stuck with this problem as I try and decide where to set my current story. (Or more accurately, one of my current stories. I've got a few irons in the fire - speaking of cliches.) When the story began life way back when I was in high school, I set it in NYC. The NYC of the future, as the plot was a sci-fi one. I had never even been to NYC , in fact the only major cities I'd been to at that time were, in order, Cleveland, Toronto, and Pittsburgh. And I hadn't really lived in any of them.

Besides, as I was writing in the future, I figured i was only marginally bound by any current city's actuality. Hey, I said I was in high school, remember? A certain amount of naivete is par for the course. When, older and wiser, I came back to the narrative, I realized that it might help to have at least a passing familiarity with my chosen setting. "Write what you know" and all that. The problem was, I needed - or rather wanted - a major city, and the list of cities I had any first-hand knowledge of was... drum roll please... Cleveland, Toronto, and Pittsburgh. And I still hadn't really lived in any of them.

But a little later I visited Chicago, and over the years visited it several times. Enough times that I have walked it's streets, and while I may not know where everything is - far from it - I have a feel for the place. And armed with a good map and the resources of the internet, I can plot things out. Plus I have a really great book on the buildings along the river. Here was a city I could modernize and have my hero and heroine run around in with confidence.

Up to a point, that point being limited by not having actually lived in the city, or any of its immediate suburbs. My knowledge came from passing through and the odd afternoon spent there.

Now I live in Boston, which although it is a nice enough city I have to say I think I preferred Chicago. Be that as it may, I live here, and so have a much greater knowledge of some aspects of actually residing in the city. (Like the public transportation system only runs in to or out of town, it doesn't connect any of the surrounding areas. And how the way you get somewhere isn't always the way you get back, because none of the roads here are actually straight. There are no square blocks. Anywhere.) But I don't know the downtown area much at all.

Which seems strange, and says something about the nature of living in a place as opposed to visiting it, but doesn't help with my predicament. Moreover, Boston has kindly furnished me with a map of their vision of the city in about ten to fifteen years. Replete with the sort of downtown layout that can come in very handy.

There are other factors, of course, one of the most notable being that this isn't a short story we're talking about but a novel, and one with a number of scenes in it that have already been adapted for the Windy City. Changing all of that would be a major undertaking and at this juncture the end product's already been delayed far longer than I ever anticipated. Plus there are certain things about choosing a city that, once done, it's like a separate character. You just can't go in and casually switch it. Chicago's had some powerful mayors, whereas Boston's mostly dominated by state politics. In addition, Chicago still feels like more of a major city. That might have something to do with just the size of the downtown area, and Chicago's passion for architecture.

I suppose I should probably stick with the city I am still more familiar with, despite not living in it. The only solid argument for switching is that I now live in Boston, and can scout locations - not formally as this isn't a movie, but you know what I mean - for a lot less gas money. But I don't think that's enough.