I'm relieved to hear you found a reason to write, Marian. And writing for yourself is reason enough!
Interestingly, I find it most difficult to describe the settings on my fiction. I think of character, dialog, and action beats first, and though I establish a setting for context, the details don't come easily and I have to add more to the settings in revisions.
I was born and raised in the city (Toronto) and find urban landscapes most stimulating, as well as and the complete absence of city and trees in desert landscapes. Not sure if there's correlation between my familiar childhood urban environment and my fictional settings--urban settings can be overwhelming with many small details, which could entice me to only focus on the details that are relevant to a scene.
Or the details that matter to the character? I am less happy writing indoor and/or city scenes (even though my cities aren’t exactly modern-day Toronto), and, yes, there are times when I focus on dialogue and add the setting details later. But in an outdoor setting, I know what the characters are doing, seeing, hearing, feeling — indoors, I really have to think about it.
I did re-read it and I see now your subtle clue when Lena calls the Professor (comiadh) "my love." I looked back earlier in the novel to refresh my memory that Cillian was referred to as 'comiadh.' Very clever (sneaky) of you.
Saskatchewan looks incredible. I'd love to spend a few days walking around the National Park there.
I fully understand the way landscape, memory, relationships and events fold together. I think for some folks, it draws them to painting whereas others pick up an instrument. (For me, reviving old stories seems to be the thing that fits. No idea why.) I think it's more important than ever for people to continue to do this. It's likely going to have a strange, added kind of value in the near future as technology continues to influence our world. Like raising kids, volunteering at the fire station and a great many other things, it may not pay so great but it's terribly important work.
For most of the hike that I mentioned in this post, I had no cell phone reception. I had the phone with me as a camera, but nothing else. It meant I was completely reliant on my senses, and, had something gone wrong, reliant on my own skills. I think that's a feeling that's been mostly lost. But I'm far more likely to remember that landscape in quite a lot of detail because I had to really look and listen to it, than I would if I've been following a map on my phone. And in a landscape with rattlesnakes, you should be paying attention to the trail and your ears and your eyes, not the phone!
Yes! Exactly this. So many of the stories I write are based in wanting to write about the environments I love--and the types of people who are present. I like my grasslands mixed with mountains, even though we're dealing with terrible smoke because the state of Oregon is burning up on the east side of the Cascades. So many of the fire locations are either in places I know or adjacent to places I know, and...sigh. I knew this was coming, but its arrival doesn't make me any happier.
I have also noticed some significant changes in the book business. I've been selling a lot of paperbacks that I fear are being chopped up and used to train generative AI. I'd like to hope that isn't the case, but I fear otherwise. Other than that, most of my book sales have been through bundles on Itch. I left Draft2Digital when they implemented their small account fee--between problems with links when I released my new book last February and realizing that my sales have dropped significantly on D2D over the past few years, in spite of promotion on my part, I decided it was time to move on. No regrets so far.
I'm still trying to decide what to do about D2D. Your comment about the paperback sales is interesting: what few on-line sales I have had in the last little while have been the paperbacks. Hmmmm.
Now you have me, wondering, what differs for a character, a person who grows up in the middle of the endless unbounded plains, versus one who grows up with mountains on the horizon. What does that do to your world view? Something to consider. Not that that fits any of my current characters, but you never know.
I can share my experience growing up in a small valley in the Cascades…when we went to Colorado and were staying out on the plains to catch an airplane the next day…it felt weird. Very weird. Same thing when we went to Illinois. I felt off-balance and off-kilter.
As for sales…I have so much going on outside of writing right now that besides the paperbacks (and hardcovers, I’m on Ingram Spark), I’m just not doing a lot of promotion. Dipping my toes into trying out Kobo promos but…most of what I have been doing this year is strictly book bundles on Itch dot io. I’m making a little bit there, but it requires being dialed into certain groups on Discord and…sometimes I can’t remember how many bundles I’m in.
This is really fascinating. I spend a lot of time teaching 'genre fiction' and of course worldbuilding can become acutely important to this. It always shows when a student lacks an understanding of the landscape and ecology of the world they are trying to write, or haven't quite thought through the logic of a society. The students who seem to be able to world build with ease often do so, because they are drawing on something; either experience and memory of places, wildlife, histories and people, or a research into the same. Speculation is important--that ability to cast what you know into the unfamiliar.
I am almost embarrassed to say that it took me this long to work out the connection between my biologist background and how I world build. I've taught several workshops on world building over the last few years, and I've never been satisfied with my explanations. They've always seemed forced. And yet world building is the number one thing I am praised for, rightly or wrongly, as a writer of genre fiction. And then I had this epiphany yesterday and I finally understand what it is I'm doing.
Very true for me too. My stories are very much routed to familiar places, but I need to be struck in a new way by these familiar places in order for them to come alive again in my imagination. Same goes for the people, they are all amalgamations of characters and odd behaviours of people I know.
I can’t say my people are based on anyone I know (with one notable exception), although they all carry parts of me, I suppose. They seem to just appear, but deeply rooted in their environment.
Ahh Marian I am so glad you have returned to my province. This, indeed, with thanks to Wallace Stegner's brilliance, is the landscape that became the gauze through which I see everything. I am, most passionately, a Prairie girl. I place my books here. Wherever I go, I am still here.
Also, I read Wolf Willow a shockingly long time ago. Oh my goodness. I don't think I was quite old enough to grasp its excellence.
On a less happy note, perhaps, I feel you on the book front. The world has changed. It is indeed very large, and I do feel very small some days.
I need to re-read it too. I have a collection of quotes from it, but it deserves another full read. I'm going to try to find it for the flight home on Tuesday.
I'm relieved to hear you found a reason to write, Marian. And writing for yourself is reason enough!
Interestingly, I find it most difficult to describe the settings on my fiction. I think of character, dialog, and action beats first, and though I establish a setting for context, the details don't come easily and I have to add more to the settings in revisions.
I was born and raised in the city (Toronto) and find urban landscapes most stimulating, as well as and the complete absence of city and trees in desert landscapes. Not sure if there's correlation between my familiar childhood urban environment and my fictional settings--urban settings can be overwhelming with many small details, which could entice me to only focus on the details that are relevant to a scene.
Or the details that matter to the character? I am less happy writing indoor and/or city scenes (even though my cities aren’t exactly modern-day Toronto), and, yes, there are times when I focus on dialogue and add the setting details later. But in an outdoor setting, I know what the characters are doing, seeing, hearing, feeling — indoors, I really have to think about it.
BTW, did you re-read that epilogue?
I did re-read it and I see now your subtle clue when Lena calls the Professor (comiadh) "my love." I looked back earlier in the novel to refresh my memory that Cillian was referred to as 'comiadh.' Very clever (sneaky) of you.
Saskatchewan looks incredible. I'd love to spend a few days walking around the National Park there.
I fully understand the way landscape, memory, relationships and events fold together. I think for some folks, it draws them to painting whereas others pick up an instrument. (For me, reviving old stories seems to be the thing that fits. No idea why.) I think it's more important than ever for people to continue to do this. It's likely going to have a strange, added kind of value in the near future as technology continues to influence our world. Like raising kids, volunteering at the fire station and a great many other things, it may not pay so great but it's terribly important work.
For most of the hike that I mentioned in this post, I had no cell phone reception. I had the phone with me as a camera, but nothing else. It meant I was completely reliant on my senses, and, had something gone wrong, reliant on my own skills. I think that's a feeling that's been mostly lost. But I'm far more likely to remember that landscape in quite a lot of detail because I had to really look and listen to it, than I would if I've been following a map on my phone. And in a landscape with rattlesnakes, you should be paying attention to the trail and your ears and your eyes, not the phone!
Yes! Exactly this. So many of the stories I write are based in wanting to write about the environments I love--and the types of people who are present. I like my grasslands mixed with mountains, even though we're dealing with terrible smoke because the state of Oregon is burning up on the east side of the Cascades. So many of the fire locations are either in places I know or adjacent to places I know, and...sigh. I knew this was coming, but its arrival doesn't make me any happier.
I have also noticed some significant changes in the book business. I've been selling a lot of paperbacks that I fear are being chopped up and used to train generative AI. I'd like to hope that isn't the case, but I fear otherwise. Other than that, most of my book sales have been through bundles on Itch. I left Draft2Digital when they implemented their small account fee--between problems with links when I released my new book last February and realizing that my sales have dropped significantly on D2D over the past few years, in spite of promotion on my part, I decided it was time to move on. No regrets so far.
I'm still trying to decide what to do about D2D. Your comment about the paperback sales is interesting: what few on-line sales I have had in the last little while have been the paperbacks. Hmmmm.
Now you have me, wondering, what differs for a character, a person who grows up in the middle of the endless unbounded plains, versus one who grows up with mountains on the horizon. What does that do to your world view? Something to consider. Not that that fits any of my current characters, but you never know.
I can share my experience growing up in a small valley in the Cascades…when we went to Colorado and were staying out on the plains to catch an airplane the next day…it felt weird. Very weird. Same thing when we went to Illinois. I felt off-balance and off-kilter.
As for sales…I have so much going on outside of writing right now that besides the paperbacks (and hardcovers, I’m on Ingram Spark), I’m just not doing a lot of promotion. Dipping my toes into trying out Kobo promos but…most of what I have been doing this year is strictly book bundles on Itch dot io. I’m making a little bit there, but it requires being dialed into certain groups on Discord and…sometimes I can’t remember how many bundles I’m in.
This is really fascinating. I spend a lot of time teaching 'genre fiction' and of course worldbuilding can become acutely important to this. It always shows when a student lacks an understanding of the landscape and ecology of the world they are trying to write, or haven't quite thought through the logic of a society. The students who seem to be able to world build with ease often do so, because they are drawing on something; either experience and memory of places, wildlife, histories and people, or a research into the same. Speculation is important--that ability to cast what you know into the unfamiliar.
I am almost embarrassed to say that it took me this long to work out the connection between my biologist background and how I world build. I've taught several workshops on world building over the last few years, and I've never been satisfied with my explanations. They've always seemed forced. And yet world building is the number one thing I am praised for, rightly or wrongly, as a writer of genre fiction. And then I had this epiphany yesterday and I finally understand what it is I'm doing.
Very true for me too. My stories are very much routed to familiar places, but I need to be struck in a new way by these familiar places in order for them to come alive again in my imagination. Same goes for the people, they are all amalgamations of characters and odd behaviours of people I know.
I can’t say my people are based on anyone I know (with one notable exception), although they all carry parts of me, I suppose. They seem to just appear, but deeply rooted in their environment.
Ahh Marian I am so glad you have returned to my province. This, indeed, with thanks to Wallace Stegner's brilliance, is the landscape that became the gauze through which I see everything. I am, most passionately, a Prairie girl. I place my books here. Wherever I go, I am still here.
Also, I read Wolf Willow a shockingly long time ago. Oh my goodness. I don't think I was quite old enough to grasp its excellence.
On a less happy note, perhaps, I feel you on the book front. The world has changed. It is indeed very large, and I do feel very small some days.
Thank you for this wonderful post.
I need to re-read it too. I have a collection of quotes from it, but it deserves another full read. I'm going to try to find it for the flight home on Tuesday.