Snowing in cedar forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
P is for Plotting with Purpose
“Plot is the things characters do, feel, think, or say, that make a difference to what comes afterward,” says Ansen Dibel, author of Elements of Fiction Writing: Plot. I’ve also heard authors describe plot as all the nasty things they throw at their main character to stop them from getting where or what they want or need. Plot is motion. “Plot is a verb,” says Dibell. “For a reader to care about your story, there has to be something at stake—something of value to gain, something of value to be lost.”
Although plots will vary as much as individual stories, there are some basic elements and forms. Here are some:
• Cause and Effect: this is simply when one event leads to another. Many writers talk about scenes and sequels when constructing stories (see below).
• Thematic: this is where events are tied together by a thematic thread, a common relationship, a central event, place, character or theme.
• Lyric: this is when plot is organized like music, with a cyclical return to key images, events or themes that grow deeper each time (Finnegan’s Wake, by James Joyce, for example.)
• Hero’s Journey: this plot approach follows the mythic steps of the hero’s journey.
Plot structure generally follows a progression from scene (action) to sequel (reaction) and back to scene again. A scene has the three-part pattern of: goal, conflict, disaster. A sequel follows with this three-part pattern: reaction, dilemma, decision. Plot structure generally follows a thematic story arc. A seven-point plot structure goes like this: hoot, problem, backfill, complication, action, the dark moment, resolution. This step-wise plot approach reflects the three act elements of the “hero’s journey”.
Bill Johnson said that every story makes a promise at the beginning to the reader. Those promises, says Dibell, are mostly unspoken ones. And some are made indirectly through pattern. As the journey continues, problems build on the previous ones, always moving the main plot toward the final crisis. “The job of a middle,” says Dibell, “is to build toward and deliver crisis.”
“Detail on detail, incident on incident, character on character, the pattern(s) begin to form,” says Dibell. “…they’re what hold your story together, give it both diversity and unity.” Dibell describes plot as a tapestry of pattern, form, shape and color that share recognizable meanings. Which brings me to subplots, the threads that make up the story’s fabric.
Subplots are more common in long fiction, where they are used to deepen a story and add layers that make it more intriguing and tease out more depth to the story. Subplots may provide varying aspects of a theme, from community to individual as played out by different characters. Ultimately, subplots and how they are crafted, provide the writer with the means to transcend plot into what Dibell calls pattern.
Dibell describes “braided” plots, in which two or more subplots are woven together, and parallel plot lines, in which two plots share almost equal footing. This happens when strong protagonists carry each plot. Parallel plot lines often run counterpoint to each other in pace, tone and colour. Each plot becomes richer and stronger when contrasted with the other. And they are always connected in some way, in many ways. In Matrix Reloaded, Neo’s introspective and thoughtful plot with the architect of the matrix runs counterpoint with Trinity’s action plot as she sabotages the matrix and battles an agent. Both demonstrate conflict and tension but the tone and pace are opposite. This contrast only heightens each plot line. Notice also how the two plot lines are connected and eventually converge in the final scene where Neo saves Trinity’s life by restarting her heart. Earlier on, while Trinity is totally engrossed in her problems, Neo becomes aware of her struggle through the architect’s artful hint; this prompts Neo to choose his path to join her plot. His awareness is the bridge between the two plot lines. If you look carefully, you will find many other ways the two plot lines are connected, visually, mentally and viscerally and how they inevitably draw together in that riveting last scene; “how thoroughly,” Dibell says, “the story belongs to itself.”
Crawford Kilian, SF writer and author of Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, set down these ten commandments:
Nothing should happen at random
Plot stems from character under adversity
Give each character an urgent personal agenda
The plot of a story is the synthesis of the plots of its individual characters
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want’ and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Light snow by the river, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Snowing in a cedar forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
M is for Master the Metaphor & Other Things
During a brainstorming session, my business partner quizzed me on the major problems that writers face: “What are their Waterloos?” She was using metaphor to make a point. You don’t have to look very far to find examples; everyday speech is full of them: like “raining cats and dogs; “table leg”; and “old flame”.
Metaphor directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. It is, therefore, considered more powerful than an analogy, which may acknowledge differences. Other rhetorical devices in the ‘metaphor family’ that involve comparison include metonymy, synecdoche, personification, simile, allegory and parable. While these share common attributes with metaphor, each compares in a different way.
The term synecdoche substitutes a part for a whole or a whole for a part (e.g., the expression “all hands on deck” refers to the men; or the expression “use your head” refers to your brain). Synecdoche is a common way to emphasize an important aspect of a character.
Metonymy uses one word to describe and represent another (e.g. the suits from Wall Street). Metonymy works by association whereas metaphor works through similarity.
Personification gives an idea, object or animal the qualities of a person (e.g., the darkness embraced her; the creek babbled over the rocks).
Similes can imply comparison (e.g., His mind is like a sword) or be explicit (e.g., His mind is sharp like a sword). This is what makes the simile such a useful tool to the writer: you can choose to be vague, letting the reader infer the relationship, or be direct.
Simile: His love was like a slow dance
Metaphor: Love danced in her heart
Allegory is an extended metaphor in which an object, person or action is equated with the meaning that lies outside the narrative. In other words, allegory has both a literal and a representative meaning.
The kinds of metaphor you use (extended metaphors particularly) rely a great deal on your narrative voice, the type of story you’re telling, and the language you’re using. Here are two from Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye:
His hair was bone white.
I got the drunk up [the stairs] somehow. He was eager to help but his legs were rubber.
The metaphor is often tied in to the overall theme or plot line of the story, providing tone to the story and sometimes foreshadowing.
N is for Now It’s Time for Revision
Ten things you should consider when revising your first (and subsequent) draft(s).
1. Let your work breathe: once you’ve completed your draft, set it aside for a while. This lets you make objective observations about your writing when you return.
2. Dig deep: now that you have the whole story before you, you can restructure plotlines, subplots, events and characters to best reflect your overall story. Don’t be afraid to remove large sections; you will likely add others. You may also merge two characters into one or add a character or change a character’s gender or age.
3. Take Inventory: it’s good to take stock of how each chapter contributes to plotline and theme; root out the inconsistencies as you relate the minutiae to the whole.
4. Highlight the Surges: some passages will stand out as being particularly stunning; pay attention to them in each chapter and apply their energy to the rest of your writing.
5. Purge & Unclutter: make a point of shortening everything; this forces you to use more succinct language, replacing adjectives and adverbs with power-verbs. Liken it to writing for a magazine with only so much space (check out Chapter U for more ideas). Doing this will tighten prose and make it more clear. Reading aloud, particularly dialogue, can help streamline your prose.
6. Point of view: this is the time to take stock of whether you’ve chosen the best point of view for the story. You may wish to experiment with different points of view at this stage and the results may surprise you.
7. Make a plot promise: given that you are essentially making a promise to your readers, it is advisable that you revisit that promise. Tie up your plot points; don’t leave any hanging unless you’re intentionally doing this, but be aware that readers don’t generally like it. Similarly, if you’ve written a scene that is lyrical, beautiful and compelling but doesn’t contribute to your plotline, nix it. But keep it for another story; chances are, it will work elsewhere. The trick is to file it where you can later find it.
8. Deepen your characters: the revision process is an ideal time to add subtle detail to your main characters. A nervous scratch of his beard, an absent twisting of the ring on her finger, the frequent use of a particular expression: all these can be worked in throughout the story, in your later drafts. Even minor characters can shine and be unique. When you paint your minor characters with more detail, you create a more three-dimensional tapestry for your main characters to walk through. This heightens realism in your story and involvement of your reader.
9. Write scenes: use the revision process to convert flat narrative into “scene” through dramatization. Narrative summaries read like lecture or polemic. They tend to be passive, slow, and less engaging. Scenes include action, tension and conflict, dialogue and physical movement.
10. Be concrete: Rosenfeld describes your novel as a world in which your reader enters and wants to stay in for a while. You make it easy for her by adding concrete details for her to envision and relate to. Ground your characters in vivid setting, rich but unobtrusive detail. Don’t abandon them to a generic and prosaic setting, drinking “beverages” and driving “vehicles” on “roads”; instead brighten up their lives by having them speeding along Highway 66 in a Mini Cooper, while sipping a Pinot Noir.
O is for Outline or Synopsis?
A synopsis is NOT an outline. Both are useful to the writer, yet each serves a very different purpose. An outline is a tool (usually just for the writer) that sketches plot items of a book. It provides a skeleton or framework of plot, people, places and their relationships to the storyline. It permits the writer to ultimately gauge scene, setting, and character depth or even determine whether a character is required (every character must have a reason to be in the book, usually to move the plot). To put it basically, the outline describes what happens when and to whom, while the synopsis includes why.
Elizabeth Lyon, author of The Sell Your Novel Toolkit, suggests that a synopsis should usually include these seven items:
• Theme
• Setting and Period
• Plot summary
• Character sketches
• Dialogue
• Emotional turning points
• Subplots
The theme, explains Lyons, “provides a rudder for an entire novel.” She suggests condensing it into one sentence or phrase: to have a friend you must be a friend; cooperation lies at the heart of evolution; love is the true source of human wealth; there’s no place like home. You can also portray your theme in a single word (e.g., forgiveness, revenge, trust, prejudice, evolution).
Lyon suggests that the plot summary is like a skeleton upon which to flesh out character and theme. Two things you need to consider are that 1) you must summarize the complete novel (beginning, middle and end) and 2) you should not confuse a plot summary (essentially an outline) with a synopsis, which incorporates more than plot. “The best-written and most impressive synopses,” says Lyon, “are those that make it clear that a story is character driven.” Lyon recommends that you limit your sketches to the main characters that drive principle theme in the story.
The first sentence of my synopsis of Collision with Paradise focuses on the main character:
When Genevieve Dubois, Zeta Corp’s hot shot starship pilot accepts a research mission aboard ZAC I to the mysterious planet Eos, she not only collides with her guilty past but with her own ultimate fantasy.
While the sentence conveys information about the plot, it is given from the viewpoint of a character’s motivations and feelings. The reader is informed at the outset that character development is at the heart of the story.
The emotional turning points are the focal events that are directly linked to the theme of the story. These are the “so what” parts of the story plot—where the character reaches an epiphany and, as a result, changes—and are ultimately linked to the climax of the story.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want’ and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Light snow falling by the river, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Snowing in the Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
J is for a Hero’s Journey
The Hero’s Journey is essentially the three-act structure of the ancient Greek play, according to Ridley Pearson (Writer’s Digest, 2007). The three-act structure was handed down to us thousands of years ago and consists of Beginning, Middle, and End (otherwise known as Opening, Development, Conclusion or “the decision to act”, “the action” and “the consequences of the action”).
the Hero’s Journey duplicates the steps of the rite of passage and is a process of self-discovery and self-integration. The Hero’s Journey is a concept drawn from the depth psychology of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and the scholar and mythologist Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Jung proposed that symbols appear to us when there is a need to express what thought cannot think or what is only divined or felt. Jung discovered reoccurring symbols among differing peoples and cultures, unaffected by time and space. He described these shared symbols as archetypes. Ultimately, the hero’s journey is the soul’s search for home. It is a long and tortuous journey of the soul seeking enlightenment-redemption-salvation only to find it by returning “home” (though, often not the home previously envisioned). It is a journey we all take, in some form.
Assigning an archetype to a character allows the writer to clarify that character’s role in the story as well as to determine the overall theme of the story itself. Archetypes are therefore an important tool in the universal language of storytelling, just as myth serves the overall purpose of supplying “the symbols that carry the human spirit forward.” (Joseph Campbell). Seven useful archetypes include: hero; mentor; herald; threshold guardian; shapeshifter, shadow; and trickster.
K is for Write About What You Know
The advice, “write what you know” isn’t about literal truths; it’s about what you know inside. As SF author Marg Gilks says, “You know more than you think.”
In an article in Writing World, Gilks discusses how a writer can use her own knowledge and experiences in everyday life and translate them into something far from ordinary. You start with universal experiences.
Get emotional: What excites you; what frightens you; what angers you, makes you sad, happy. These are emotions we all feel. When we give our characters experiences similar to our own, we breathe life into both character and experience and provide the reader an anchor for her heart.
Get sensational: You know how it feels when the sun shines on your face or the rain drenches you. You know how it feels to have your knees shake with fatigue after a long climb on a hot day or the invigorating freshness of a cool lake in summer.
Get people around you: My neighbor has a funny way of focusing his gaze slightly off me when he talks, as if he can’t look me directly in the eyes. When the paperboy approaches my house to deliver the paper, he strides with a lilting gait as he listens to hip-hop on his iPod.
Drawing from what you observe and know of the people around you is one of a writer’s most treasured resources for character description. I always carry a notebook with me no matter where I go, even if it’s only to the grocery store. Doing research is another way of “knowing” something. Once you have done the research, you certainly know about a subject, rovided you’ve done a good enough job.
A writer is like a magician. You play upon what readers all “know” then surprise them with the unexpected. Unleashing your imagination and letting it soar while grounding yourself in the realities of universal truths is the stuff of which stories are made. This is what most of us mean when we say “write what you know.”
L is for Long Form, Short Form
Figuring out what you are writing isn’t always as easy as you think. Many of us when we begin a story may think we are writing a short story when we are actually writing a novel; or vice versa. I had several editors of magazines tell me just that: “This feels more like a novel than a short story” they said—and rejected it. So, what are you really writing? Or, more to the point, what should you be writing?
A short story only has 5,000 words to get your story across while a novel has over ten times that many words to do the same. It follows then that the short story format is a simpler one. Novels provide a sense of change, growth and solutions to problems and conflicts. Short stories must be more succinct, contain fewer characters and subplots, have less complicated story arcs and a single theme. A short story is a poem to a novel’s prose. A short story is a statement to a novel’s argument.
“If the novel is a landscape, the short story is a close-up,” says Shelley Lowenkopf in a short story workshop entitled Telling Tales. Lowenkopf adds, “The short story is an event, a moment in time, captured as if by accident … The short story doesn’t have the luxury of depicting change; the closest it can come is awareness.” A short story, more than a novel, has the power to transport, disturb and enlighten.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want; and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Snowing in a cedar forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Snowing in the Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
G is for Defining your Genre & Going Beyond It
Although genres are not precisely definable, genre considerations are one of the most important factors in determining what a person will see or read. Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites.
For a long time people considered that books and movies that are difficult to categorize into a genre were likely to be less successful commercially. This is no longer the case, thanks to online bookstores like Amazon, that are able to ‘shelve’ books under multiple categories for people to find. In fact, having your book cross several genres (called “cross-genre” or slipstream) may even provide an advantage in that your book will occupy not just one but several niches—akin to placing your bets on several horses rather than just one.
So, if you haven’t figured out what genre your writing falls under, start figuring it out now; your future publisher and marketer will want to know because they, in turn, have to tell their distributor and bookseller where to shelve the book. This is why you need to do this, no matter what you think of categorizing your work; the alternative is leaving it to Jack in the marketing department who may not have even read your book, but used the cover picture to figure it out. Yikes!
The key to this exercise, whether your work falls under one or more categories, is to understand your work well enough to be able to categorize it. And, by all means, break the rules of categorizing—just know why you are.
H is for House or Home…Creating Memorable Settings
Setting fulfills most of the core aspects of a story. Without a place there is no story. Setting serves multipurpose roles from helping with plot, determining and describing character to providing metaphoric links to theme. Setting, like the force in Star Wars, provides a landscape that binds everything into context and meaning. Without setting, characters are simply there, in a vacuum, with no reason to act and most importantly, no reason to care.
Settings can not only have character; they can be a character in their own right. A novelist may often find herself, when portraying several characters, painting a portrait of place. This is setting being “character”. The setting functions as a catalyst, and molds the more traditional characters that animate a story. Think of any of your favourite books, particularly the epics: The Wizard of Oz, Tale of Two Cities, Doctor Zhivago, Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, etc. In each of these books the central character is really the place, which is inexorably linked to its main character.
Settings depict the theme of your story through metaphor. The setting and all the objects in it are described to your reader through your POV character. This gives you an excellent opportunity to show the mood, temperament, judgment and bias of your character and their place in their world.
I is for Interviews and other Weird Experiences
As a writer of either fiction or non-fiction, you will at some time require information from a real person. Depending on the nature of your research and its intended destination and audience, you may wish to conduct anything from a casual phone or email enquiry to a full-blown formal face-to-face interview. This will also depend on who you are interviewing, from a neighbour to a government official. The pillars of good journalism include:
thoroughness
accuracy
fairness and
transparency.
Here are some tips on what to do:
Do your research ahead of time: read up on your subject and include both sides of an issue (if that’s relevant). This helps you to respond intelligently with better follow-up questions.
Ask open-ended questions: avoid yes and no questions and get them to elaborate. Asking “why” solicits explanation, which will give your article depth.
Ask for examples: this provides a personal aspect to the article that gives it warmth and makes it more interesting.
Ask personal questions: what’s the worst thing that can happen? They can simply say no; the up side is you may get a gem. The personal angle from the interviewee’s perspective gives your
article some potential emotional aspect that gives it human-interest.
Ask the interviewee for any further thoughts to share: it’s an innocuous question, but can offer-up more gems. What it provides you with is the possibility of getting something you might not have thought of, sparked by your conversation.
Here are some tips on what NOT to do:
“There’s no rush.” Never reveal your deadline. Think about it; what do you normally do when there’s a deadline? Right…say it’s sooner than it really is.
“I’ve never covered this topic before.” This kind of information is inappropriate and may make your interviewee uncomfortable (worrying about your unproven abilities to properly interview her instead of focusing on her). Besides, it’s not what you know but what you learn that counts.
“I’ll be using what you say extensively.” Don’t assume and make promises you may not be able to keep, until after the interview.
“I don’t get it.” If you don’t understand something, get clarification rather than make a negative remark that tends to stop them dead in their tracks.“You can review the piece before it’s published.” This is something that can be dealt with over the phone to confirm facts; the source doesn’t need to see the whole piece before it’s published.
“This is going to be a fantastic article!” Keep your tone professional; there’s nothing wrong with being positive, but you should maintain a professional attitude that inspires confidence in the interviewee.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want; and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Snowing in cedar forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Country road in early spring, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
D is for Get the Dope on Dialogue
One of the most important devices to spice up narrative and increase pace is the use of dialogue. There’s a reason for this: we read dialogue more quickly; it’s written in more fluid, conversational English; it tends to create more white space on a page with less dense text, more pleasing to the reader’s eye. Dialogue is action. It gets readers involved. Good dialogue neither mimics actual speech (i.e., it’s not usually mundane, repetitive or broken with words like “uh”) nor does it educate the reader through long discourse (unless the character is that kind of person). Good dialogue in a story should be somewhere in the middle.
While it should read as fluid conversation, dialogue remains a device to propel the plot or enlighten us to the character of the speaker. No conversation follows a perfect linear progression. People interrupt one another, talk over one another, often don’t answer questions posed to them or avoid them by not answering them directly. These can all be used by the writer to establish character, tension, and relationship.
E is for Exposition
In fiction, exposition breaks away from the ongoing action of a scene to give information. It can be one paragraph or go on for several pages. Exposition often provides contextual information critical for the reader to buy in to character-motivation or the ideas promoted in the story. It gives a story its perspective and larger meaning by linking the reader with the thematic elements. If scene is action and plot, exposition feeds reflection and theme. Exposition can appear in the form of background, setting, back story or overview. It is most often expressed through a POV character’s reflection and observation.
Exposition is something every writer grapples with in a story. Where to put it? When to add it? How much is too much? How little is too little? Working out when to explain the plot and when to leave the reader to draw their own conclusions can be tricky for even experienced writers, says author Elsa Neal. Ansen Dibell, author of Elements of Fiction Writing: Plot, describes exposition as “the author telling the reader something—telling, rather than showing.” Telling is much less effective and interesting than showing. It follows then that exposition is much less dramatic and less vivid than a scene. This is why you need to break exposition up into small bite-size pieces rather than a huge caloric meal of information. A good rule to follow is to minimize exposition as much as you can.
Okay, it’s good to add exposition. But there is a way and a time to do it. You need to balance the show-and-tell part of your narrative and to maintain a rhythm in your pace and tone. This means doing several things:
restrain yourself and keep your notes to yourself
arouse then explain
build exposition into the scene
put exposition in between scenes
let the character explain—but be careful!
Use interior monologue
F is for Finding Your Muse
In over twenty years of writing both fiction and non-fiction I really hadn’t given much thought to writer’s block until recently, when I was challenged on it. This is not to say that I never experienced it. I did; I just kept on writing. “What?” you say. “Then, you didn’t really have writer’s block.” Well, I did, but only for that particular project, and only for one aspect of that particular project. The key is to have multiple projects and recognize that each of these has multiple tasks aside from writing (e.g., editing, research, discussion, etc.) that you can work on.
For instance, besides Novel A, whose plot had me stumped, I was working on two short stories and a non-fiction article. I was also actively posting science articles, essays and opinion pieces on my blog. In addition, I was writing news articles for an online magazine and doing my regular stint at the environmental consulting firm, writing interpretive environmental reports. I kept on writing.
I let the plot of Novel A sit for a while as I continued to write. That didn’t mean I couldn’t work on Novel A in other capacities: copy editing or polishing language, for instance. The point I want to make is that it’s helpful to have other things on the go mainly because this will let you relax about the project that has you stumped. And you need to relax for it to resolve. It’s a little like looking for the watch you misplaced; it will find you once you stop looking for it.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want’ and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
David Merchant, Creative Writing Instructor
Snowing in the Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Country road in early spring, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In this series of articles, I draw from key excerpts of my textbook on how to write fiction The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! whose 26 chapters go from A to Z on the key aspects of writing good and meaningful fiction.
A is for Alien Architecture: Building from Scenes to Worlds
Most writers will tell you that the scene, not the sentence or word, is the smallest component—the building block—of a story. The scene forms an integral part of a larger plot structure that consists of a series of dual scenes and sequels. Dwight Swain, author of Techniques of TheSelling Writer, breaks these down further into:
Scene: goal, conflict, disaster
Sequel: reaction, dilemma, decision
What’s important to remember is that the world you build is part of the story. It isn’t just a lot of “interesting” detail. As I mention in Chapter H for “setting”, the world you build, like a character in your story, plays a role in defining and supporting its theme. The major qualities of your world are, therefore, best derived for plot and thematic reasons—which come from “story”. The rest—the details—are things you can find in books or websites, or get from experts in your local university, etc. Don’t let science intimidate you but ensure that you get it right by using your resources and verifying your information with an expert. Use your local libraries, universities, colleges, and online resources. Interview scientists, technical people and other writers. That’s part of being a writer too.
B is for Blazing Beginnings
In an April 2001 article of Writer’s Digest, JoeCardillo (director of Southern Vermont College’s creative writing program) suggested that the three elements of hooking a reader resemble the steps he uses to train his Samoyed puppy: 1) arouse interest; 2) delay, then 3) reward.
The writer arouses interest in the reader by providing enough detail to get the reader to ask questions. Now they want something. You tease them with the delay; that keeps them reading and turning the pages. It also gives them the chance to try to come up with the answers themselves. In some books it can be a game between reader and writer; can the reader come up with the answer before the writer provides it? The reward comes in stages. Don’t answer all the questions at once. Parcel them out slowly. That’s what the book—the story—is for.
There is no beginning without an end. In a workshop at the 1998 Surrey Writer’s Conference Elizabeth Lyon, author of The Sell Your Novel ToolKit (2002), suggested that the beginning of a novel should “reflect the entire book. There should be a tie-in [between] the beginning and the end.” This is sometimes called “framing” a story, where the principal thematic problem is given in the beginning and then resolved in the end.
Bill Johnson, author of A Story is a Promise, describesit as a promise tothe reader. The beginningof a book sets up acovenant between writerand reader, a covenantfor a journey they willtake together towardresolution. Johnson describesthe story promiseas doing three things,similar to Cardillo’s three steps (arouse, delay,reward). Johnson calls them setting out a story’score dramatic issue (the promise), movement,and fulfillment of the promise.
C is for Charismatic Characters
Your characters have a dramatic function, a role in advancing the plot and/or theme; they need a reason to be there. Your characters are the most important part of your book (more so than the plot or premise). Through them your book lives and breathes. Through them your premise, idea and your plot come alive. Through them you achieve empathy and commitment from the reader and a willingness to keep reading to find out what’s going to happen next: if the reader doesn’t invest in the characters, she won’t really care what happens next. Dramatic function aside, in order for your character to be memorable he needs to have a charismatic personality. He needs to show qualities that make him distinctive. All memorable characters show some character development (as story arc) from beginning to end of story. The more your character changes over a story, the more she will be noticed.
The Fiction Writer is a digest of how-to’s in writing fiction and creative non-fiction by masters of the craft from over the last century. Packaged into 26 chapters of well-researched and easy to read instruction, novelist and teacher Nina Munteanu brings in entertaining real-life examples and practical exercises. The Fiction Writer will help you learn the basic, tried and true lessons of a professional writer: 1) how to craft a compelling story; 2) how to give editors and agents what they want; and 3) how to maintain a winning attitude.
“…Like the good Doctor’s Tardis, The Fiction Writer is larger than it appears… Get Get Published, Write Now! right now.”
A snowy day in Ontario (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Trickster wind kicks up clouds of snow, ghosting trees (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In Part 1, I introduced and described the concept of giving voice to the Other in eco-literature through the literary device of character-coupling. Character-couplings manifest in story through theme, plot approach, narrative form, and ultimately the writer’s own intentions. Particular techniques used by writers of eco-literature include the use of time, language, POV, narrative style, the senses, archetype, symbolism and metaphor, such as personification, synesthesia, and synecdoche.
In the seven examples provided below, nature’s avatars coupled to a protagonist represent the greater natural world; it is often the greater natural world that is ultimately Othered, and achieves a voice through its avatar (e.g. the quiet ‘voice’ of the polar bear in Colleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole represents the quiet ‘voice’ of the Arctic, itself Othered by the loud voice of the greater human world).
1. Use of Language, Time and Displaced Narrative in Cli-Fi Allegory: Inuk Woman and Polar Bear
Coleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole uses simple language, and displaced narrative linked to silent action to convey an immediacy of moment and character and to create empathy. Murphy’s spare and focused narrative achieves a timeless, dreamlike quality that plays strongly on the emotional connections of the reader; it elicits immense empathy for the Other in a deeply moving saga on the tragic dance of colonialism and climate change.
The story begins in 1535, when the Inuk widow Hummiktuq risks her life to save a lost one-eared polar bear cub on an ice floe and adopts him. She names him Angu’ruaq. We soon learn that Angu’ruaq is timeless when we encounter him in scenes over the centuries from the Franklin Expedition in 1845 (who he helps by bringing them food) to 2031 when Angu’ruaq—old, hungry, his fur yellowing—returns to the breathing hole where long-dead Hummiktuq rescued him. By then the glaciers have receded and the ground is slush. The constant thumping of the Circumpolar Oil platform can be heard in the distance. There is no mistaking Angu’ruaq’s archetype as Other. When someone says to wildlife biologist Qi’ingaqtuq (who is tracking Angu’ruaq), “I hope you find your bear,” she responds, “It’s not my bear—bears belong to everyone and to no one”; Angu’ruaq is the quintessential homo sacer. Under Agamben’s biopolitics he is both sacred and cursed, both beneath the law and outside the law, a meaningless bare life that may be killed by anyone but not sacrificed (Agamben, 1998).
Told sparingly, often through humorous dialogue, the tale of the young polar bear—and by extension the warming Arctic—plays out through the point of view of various characters. Murphy’s effective use of displaced narrative (e.g., protagonist’s ‘story’ told by other characters) provides varied perspectives of how others view the Other. Some are disparaging and all are akin to gossip. This ironically achieves incredible reader empathy. Throughout the play, the bear does not speak; yet it wields tremendous impact through its silent actions. The bear has no POV and no voice—except in the very last scene five hundred years later in the oily waters of the Northwest Passage. Angu’ruaq—skeletal, desperate with hunger and covered in oil—boards an eco-tourist cruise ship and is fatally injured by cruel actions of eco-tourists aboard. As he struggles from drowning, “gasping for breath, gasping as he tries to stay afloat in the black, oily water,” Angu’ruaq thinks he hears Hummiktuq and “cocks his one ear, hoping to hear Hummiktuq’s voice on the wind … then he raises his foreleg as if reaching for help…but there is no help”. No one sees him. No one on the cruise ship (except for one little girl) cares as he slips under the dark waters—possibly the last polar bear in the world; even as—in terrible irony—cruise ship patrons cheerfully watch a fake mother and her cubs on a fake ice floe, like some fake ‘reality’ show.
No one weeps for the bear. But the reader weeps. We weep for him and we weep for his world destroyed by apathy.
2. Use of POV, Senses and Symbolism in Cli-Fi Allegory / Fable: Girl and Bear
The Bear by Andrew Krivak is a fable of a post-anthropocene Earth told through the point of view of a young girl—possibly the only remaining human in the world—and the bear that guides her. Unlike the polar bear of The Breathing Hole, who remains silent and is clearly victimized by humanity’s actions, the black bear of The Bear lives with agency in a post-anthropocene world; he proselytizes and tells stories to instruct the girl on living harmoniously with Nature. His actions and elegant use of speech reflect his archetype as mentor in this story. This is foreshadowed in the fairytale the girl’s father recounts to her of a bear that saved a village from a cruel despot through cleverness and a sense of community.
This fable about humanity’s deliverance to nature’s dominion flows like a river under ice, revealing profound depth beneath spare yet sensual prose. Krivak does not name the girl, father or bear; allowing each to clearly symbolize ‘what we are, what we could be, and the natural world.’ Krivak gives the bear the power of direct voice through its ability to speak with the girl. Soon after the girl meets the bear she asks him how it is that he can speak. He tells her that long ago all animals could make the sounds she and her father made to communicate, but humans stopped listening and the skill was lost. He suggests the real question is how she can understand him. He then tells her that if she is patient enough, she too will hear the trees.
As the story progresses, the girl transcends from lonely last human in a post-human world to one of Nature’s beings, living as part of the natural world. In this way, the girl embraces the society of the Other and casts aside her previous identity with the Othering society.
The transition begins with her found ability to understand the bear. Near the end of the story, she is an old woman who communicates with all of Nature; “they came to her without fear of dominion and ate with her the plants and seeds and fruits she grew and picked.” The woman rejects her human trappings—the old house and its books, her parent’s grave, rising each morning with the sun and laying to sleep with the setting sun.
A descendant of the bear returns to bury her on the mountain, a place “where end and beginning were the same … the sky beginning to pale behind him like the world itself being born.” This fable celebrates humanity’s potential to participate humbly with the natural world and to embrace the Other by engaging with it and respecting it.
3.Use of Fractal Association & Archetype in Dystopian (mundane) Cautionary Tale: The Windup Girl and the Cheshires
Paolo Bacigalupi’s biopunk science fiction novel The Windup Girl makes effective use of trickster archetypes in character-couplings of Windup girl and Cheshire cats to illustrate Nature’s silent power to herald change. The fractal associations of gene-manipulated Windup girl with manufactured-come-wild cats illustrate how Nature—when pushed—navigates the predatory world of a 23rd century post-food crash Thailand. By then global warming has raised sea levels, depleted carbon fuel sources, and destroyed the wilderness through genetic manipulations. Thailand struggles under the tyrannical boot of ag-biotech multinational giants—predatory companies who have fomented corruption and political strife through their plague-inducing and sterilizing genetic manipulations.
Anderson Lake is a farang (of white race) who owns a factory trying to mass-produce kink-springs—successors to the internal combustion engine) to store energy. The factory covers for his real mission: to find and exploit the secret Thai seed bank with its wealth of genetic material. Emiko is an illegal Japanese “windup” (genetically modified human), owned by a Thai sex club owner, and treated as a sub-human slave; gene rippers built her sensual and obedient—even when abused.
When Emiko meets Lake, he cavalierly shares that a refuge in the remnant forests of northern Thailand exists for New People like her; Emiko embarks on a quest to escape her bonds and find her own people in the north. Like Bangkok itself, both protected and trapped by the wall against a sea poised to claim it—Emiko cannot escape who and what she is: a gifted modified human and herald of a sustainable future—vilified and feared by a humanity obsessed with the road set before it. Just as with the unintended consequence of cheshires (modified cats that wiped out regular cats), Emiko heralds in a post-modified world created through reckless greed and lax environmental protection. When she meets an old generipper after the floods have destroyed Bangkok, he admits, “Someday perhaps all people will be New People and you will look back on us as we now look at the poor Neanderthals.”
Bangkok’s cheshires are genetically created “cats” (made by an agri-giant as a fun “toy”) that wiped out the regular cat Felis domesicus. As with Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat, these crafty creatures have adapted to Bangkok’s unstable environment. The shapeshifting cheshires exemplify the subversion of good intentions gone wrong, when Nature plays the trickster.
Emiko and the cheshires serve both trickster and herald archetype; genetically created by the very people who despise them. Humanity understands that on some level those like Emiko and the cheshires are the future and they the past. As Bangkok drowns, Emiko meets an old generipper, dying from the gene-hacked casualties of cibiscosis and blister rust; he claims god-status to her and she responds, “If you were my God, you would have made New People first…We would have beaten you. Just like the cheshires.”
Toward the end, policewoman Kanya is instructed to take the greedy corporate farang to the vault and hand over Bangkok’s precious seedbank to them. In a sudden moment of clarity Kanya singlehandedly creates her own coup by executing the farang and instructing the monks to safely dispatch Thailand’s precious seedbank to the jungle wilderness. Husked of its precious treasure, the city implodes as pumps and locks fail. Then the monsoons arrive. The City of Angels gives in to the sea that chases refugees into the gene-hack-destroyed outer forests. While Kanya triumphs in her own personal battle, she remains less agent of change than feckless witness to Nature’s powerful force as it unfurls like a giant cheshire and claws back what humans have taken from it.
From the beginning, the cheshires embrace their difference and fate as Other; It is only near the end of the book, signaled by nature’s own rebellion, that Emiko breaks out of her oppression—including the one built into her—and embraces her survival in this changing world. Both she and the cheshires are the change. The epilogue to Bacigalupi’s cautionary tale belongs to the Other—Emiko and the cheshires—and an uncertain future with promise of change.
4.Use of Personification, Archetype & Symbol in Post-Apocalyptic Cautionary Tale: The Tea master and Water
In the post-climate change drought-affected world of Memory of Water, Emmi Itäranta personifies water and couples to main character Tea Master Noria, to explore consequences of commodification and exploitation. Symbols of water as shapeshifter archetype and its omnipotent life- and death-giving associations flow throughout the story, from the ‘fishfires’ in the northern skies to the painted blue circles on the doors of water criminals about to die.
The government considers water a resource to strictly control and water crimes are punishable by death. When her dying tea master father reveals that he used a secret spring in a cave by their house in his ceremonies, Noria is conflicted whether to continue guarding it as secret for use in her ceremonies or risk exposure by sharing it with those she loves in the village who struggle with poor water rations. “Secrets carve us like water carves stone.” Noria convinces herself to keep the hidden well a secret based on the Tea Master’s rhetoric of ceremony and notions of water’s sovereign nature: “Tea masters believe there are times when water doesn’t wish to be found because it knows it will be chained in ways that are against its nature.”
This works for a while until she discovers her friend trying to illegally tap a water main to draw off water for her sick baby sister. Fearing for her friend’s safety, Noria shares her secret well with her. Soon after, the town discovers its existence, and Noria quietly feeds the thirsty townsfolk, avoiding the realization that she too has now commodified water by serving as reluctant threshold guardian to water’s own journey.
Of course, she is eventually caught by police for her ‘water crime’ and sentenced to death. She may be a Tea Master but she is not a Water Master. “Water walks with the moon and embraces the earth, and it isn’t afraid to die in fire or live in air.”
In choosing to control water, the tea master becomes victim in a power play of ideology that fails to recognize the hidden power of this sovereign and arcane substance. As companion and harbinger, shape-shifting water is portrayed simultaneously as friend and enemy. As giver and taker of life. “When you step into it, it will be as close as your own skin, but if you hit it too hard, it will shatter you … Sometimes death travels hidden in water, and sometimes water will chase death away, but they go together always, in the world and in us.”
Ironically, the wisdom Noria quoted at the beginning of the story comes back to her too late. “The story tells that water has a consciousness, that it carries in its memory everything that’s ever happened in this world, from the time before humans until this moment, which draws itself in its memory even as it passes. Water understands the movements of the world; it knows when it is sought and where it is needed. Sometimes a spring or a well dries for no reason, without explanation. It’s as if the water escapes of its own will, withdrawing into the cover of the earth to look for another channel.”
5.Use of Symbolic World and Archetype: The Fremen and the Sand Worms
Frank Herbert’s Dune uses powerful world building and symbols of desert, water and spice coupled to the indigenous Fremen, to address exploitation and oppression by colonial greed.
The novel chronicles the journeys of new colonists and indigenous peoples of the desert planet Arrakis, enslaved by its previous colonists. The planet known as Dune lies at the heart of an epic story about taking, giving and sharing. The planet also serves as symbol to any new area colonized by settlers and already inhabited by Othered indigenous. It is the Mars of Martian Chronicles, the Bangkok of The Windup Girl, the North America of Barkskins.
The immense sandworms of Dune are strong archetypes of Nature—large and graceful creatures whose movements in the vast desert sands resemble the elegant whales of our oceans: “It came from their right with an uncaring majesty that could not be ignored. A twisting burrow-mound of sand cut through the dunes within their field of vision. The mound lifted in front, dusting away like a bow wave in water.”
Misunderstood, except by the indigenous Fremen, the giant sandworms are targeted as a dangerous nuisance by the colonists who are mining the desert for spice—when, in fact, the sandworms are closely tied to both spice and water through the ecological cycles of the desert planet.
In their oppression of the native Fremen, the colonists reflect an oppression of the desert and its very ecology—and a misunderstanding of Dune’s intricate connections to well-being and to spice. The main character quickly intuits the intimate connection of the native Fremen with the huge 400-metre long sandworms that roam the desert, attracted by vibration and sound and upon which the Fremen ride like dragons; he also makes the connection of the giant worms to the cinnamon-scented spice mélange, recognizing that the worms are “guarding” the spice deposits from interlopers as they look for prey. Mélange is, in fact, a byproduct of the life cycle of the giant sandworms, which created and maintain the desert and require the arid climate for their survival.
Fremen respect the giant worms that dominate the dunes. The Fremen embrace their environment. This is reflected in how they view themselves—as a single “organism” bound by water. Kynes, an ecologist and spokesman for the Fremen, argues that “a man’s water, ultimately, belongs to his people—to his tribe”. This proclamation represents a humble participation with the Other.
6.Use of Symbolism in a Historic or Contemporary World: the Mi’kmaq and the White Pine Forest
Annie Proulx’s Barkskins uses strong metaphor-based character-coupling of indigenous peoples with the native forests to illuminate their oppression and exploitation.
Barkskins chronicles two immigrants who arrive in Canada in 1693 (René Sel and Charles Duquet) and their descendants over 300 years of deforestation of North America; a saga that starts with the arrival of the Europeans in pristine forest and ends with a largely decimated forest under the veil of global warming. Barkskins (woodcutters) are indentured servants who were brought from the Paris slums to the wilds of New France to clear the land, build and settle. Sel is forced to marry a native Mi’kmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two cultures.
Missionary Pere Crème is dumbfounded by how the Mi’kmaq treat aspects of nature as their equals. “To them Trees are Persons. In vain I tell them that Trees are for the uses of Men to build Houses and Ships.”
The fate of the magnificent pine forests is cast by the shadow of nature’s exploitation and mistreatment of the Mi’kmaq by settlers with a fierce hunger for more. The Mi’kmaq lose their culture and their links to the natural world—even as that natural world slowly erodes. In a pivotal scene, Noë, a Mi’kmaw descendent of René Sel and a métis, grows enraged when she sees a telltale change in her brothers. That morning, she heard the men leaving and knew what it meant: they were wearing boots, not moccasins: “The men should be setting out to hunt moose, but because of the boots she knew they were going to work for the French logger.”
Proulx’s bleak impressions of a harsh environment crawling with pests such as bébites and moustiques underlie the combative mindset of the settlers to conquer and seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource—and foreshadows the forest’s eventual destruction by settlers intent on conquering Nature. The natives are called sauvage just as Nature is considered an “evil wilderness.” Both are Othered, used by the white settlers as resource or tool, subdued and controlled.
The great pines of the Gatineau forest are raped and destroyed just as the Mi’kmaq. They cut indiscriminately, leaving what they don’t need to rot on the ground.
7.Use of Archetype & Identity in a Historic or Contemporary World: the Botanist and the Douglas Fir
The Overstory by Richard Powers explores powerful archetypes through the coupling of several characters to avatar trees to illuminate individual aspects of nature, the wonder of forest cycles, and of its destructive and reckless exploitation.
The novel follows the life-stories of nine characters and their journey with trees. At its heart is the pivotal life of botanist-ecologist Patricia Westerford, a hearing- and speech-impaired introvert who discovers that trees communicate. Patricia Westerford is the archetypal ‘mother tree,’ who ultimately brings the tangle of narratives together through meaning. Westerford writes in her book The Secret Forest: “There are no individuals in a forest, no separable events. The bird and the branch it sits on are a joint thing.” Hers is a journey of becoming.
When the scientific community destroys her career, she travels to the giant trees of the west coast, where she is overwhelmed by their massive size, dense biomass and profligate nature: “The air is so twilight-green she feels like she’s underwater … Death is everywhere, oppressive and beautiful.”
Patricia identifies with the Douglas-fir trees. Tall and straight, they tower a hundred feet before the first branch. Yet these independent behemoths tell a different story beneath, in their roots. Just as Patricia secretly yearns for humanity, these trees seek community. Before a five hundred year old Douglas-fir dies, it will send its storehouse of chemicals to its roots and out through its fungal partners, donating its wealth to the community: “We might well call these ancient benefactors giving trees.” Patricia remembers the Buddha’s words: “A tree is a wondrous thing that shelters, feeds, and protects all living things. It even offers shade to the axmen who destroy it.” And with those last words, she seals her fate of becoming.
“No one sees trees. We see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade. We see ornaments or pretty fall foliage. Obstacles blocking the road or wrecking the ski slope. Dark, threatening places that must be cleared. We see branches about to crush our roof. We see a cash crop. But trees—trees are invisible.” Like she is.
In her final moments—as she stands at the podium in the Stanford auditorium to deliver her first and last keynote—Patricia opens with a sacrificial eulogy to trees that will strike at the very heart of who and what she has become. “When the world was ending the first time,” she begins, “Noah took all the animals, two by two, and loaded them aboard his escape craft for evacuation. But it’s a funny thing: he left the plants to die. He failed to take the one thing he needed to rebuild life on land, and concentrated on saving the freeloaders.” The crowd laughs, not fully understanding where she’s going with this. Then she gets to the point and mentions how, when asked by a reporter how much is enough, Rockefeller responded with ‘just a little bit more.’
The audience begins to stir restlessly, not clear on her progression. “Just a little more timber. A few more jobs.” Now the shifting in the seats, nervous coughs and whispers, as she nears her closing. “Link enough trees together and a forest grows aware,” she says. “The dying mother [tree] opens a hole in the canopy, and its rotting trunk enriches the soil for new seedlings.” At which point Patricia, too, ends her life to a startled audience.
It is the ultimate parental sacrifice. Through archetype and identity, we realize that Patricia has not only fully embraced the Other; she is the Giving Tree: the ancient tree that in its last act gives all its secondary metabolites—her wisdom—back to the community. Like her stunned audience, we are moved and our perspective changed.
Heavy snowfall on the Otonabee River, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
The Power of Changing Perspective Through Character-Coupling
A good story explores a character’s journey through their relationships—to their environment, to other characters, and ultimately to themselves—who they were, are, and will be. In story, characters are defined through their experience and their approach to the unfamiliar, the Other. By describing the Other, writers describe “us”, given that it is through our own eyes that the Other is viewed and described.
Scholars Ganz and Lin argue that convincing narrative can translate values into sources of motivation and build relationships committed to a common purpose. In her 2015 PhD Thesis, Shirley Roburn writes that, “Well chosen stories, which activate positive feelings such as hope, solidarity, and a sense of connection and purpose, can help listeners connect to their core values and approach challenges with a confident, action-oriented outlook.” Such reactions are elicited and heightened through effective use of character-coupling, particularly by giving voice to the Other.
Roburn shares a good example of character-coupling that gives voice to the Other through the re-branding of a mid-coast timber supply area into the compelling narrative of the Great Bear Rainforest, home of the rare Spirit Bear. The Gitga’at Nation tells the story that “the raven left one in ten bears white to remind them of the Ice Age when things were clean and pristine.” Following the revelation of this special bear’s existence and its compelling story, public pressure spawned the creation of a 21-million acre park to protect its home.
This example of character-coupling not only heightened engagement, increased empathy, and connected readers to their core values; it moved them to action.
Old shed on the Otonabee River during a snow and fog, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
References:
Agamben, Giorgo. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press. 1998. 228pp.
Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl. Night Shade Books, New York. 2015. 466pp.
de Beauvoir, Simone. “The Second Sex.” Modern Library, Random House, New York. 1968. p.144 In: King, Ynestra. “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology.” Chapter 2. Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, edited by Judith Plant. New Society Pub, 1989, pp. 18-28.
Dwyer, Jim. Where the Wild Books are: A Field Guide to Ecofiction. University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada. 2010. 264pp.
Ganz, Marshall and Emily S. Lin. “Learning to Lead: a Pedagogy of Practice.” The Handbook for Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being, edited byIn Scott A. Sook, Nitin Nohria, and Rakesh Khurana. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2012. 354p.
Herbert, Frank. Dune. Ace, New York. 1965. 884pp.
Itäranta, Emmi. Memory of Water. Harper Voyager. New York. 2014. 266pp.
Kerslake, Patricia. “The Self and Representations of the Other in Science Fiction.” Chapter 1. Science Fiction and Empire, Liverpool University Press, 2007, pp. 8-24.
King, Ynestra. “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology.” Chapter 2. Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, edited by Judith Plant. New Society Pub, 1989, pp. 18-28.
Krivak, Andrew. The Bear. Bellevue Literary Press, New York, NY. 2020. 221pp.
Miles, Kathryn. “Ecofeminism: sociology and environmentalism.” Britannica, britannica.com/topic/ecofeminism.
Walking the Rotary Trail during aheavy snowfall, ON(photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
The knight in Vivianne’s dream (illustration by Tomislav Tikulin)
If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration
Nikola Tesla
In my historical fantasy The Last Summoner, Vivianne Schön, the Baroness Von Grunwald, travels through time from the 1400s to 1905 to meet Nikola Tesla and make a deal with the eccentric scientist in a bid to make the world a better place:
The Story (excerpt of The Last Summoner)
New York, 1905
VIVIANNE straightened when she glimpsed the elegantly dressed Serbian as he entered Bryant Park. From her bench in the shade of a sycamore tree, she watched him saunter to his favourite bench then sit down and cross his legs. He emitted a somber sigh, pulled out a small notebook from his jacket pocket and began to write. Vivianne studied his long face, straight nose and well groomed mustache. It was an intense face, though worn with reserve. He quelled the fire that burned inside him beneath a shell of enigmatic reflection. He brushed a hand over his thick hair, then set his mouth in a thin line of determined concentration as he hastily sketched something inside the notebook. He didn’t look terribly heartbroken for a man who had just lost his dream, she reflected. But she did recognize disappointment on his furrowed brow. He was used to that, she decided, reviewing his personal history, which had been plagued by rivalry and betrayal for nearly all his life. A visionary of his genius quality was easy fodder for bullying, whether it was schoolmates or the scientific community.
After adjusting her brimmed hat and flowing blue lace gown, Vivianne rose and approached the forty-eight year old Serbian visionary, musing how he would later be called the “Father of the 20th Century”.
She was barely a metre away from him before he looked up, ready to express annoyance at being interrupted. She took pleasure in seeing his expression change from a glower to a startled look of curiosity. She knew she was beautiful, but it was rather delightful to see that she could divert this intense scientist.
“Hello, Mister Tesla,” Vivianne greeted him with a curtsy. “I am the Comptesse d’Anjou at your service. May I join you and sit down?”
He frowned at first then nodded politely with not quite a smile. He was not known for his smiles, she recalled. Tesla rose to his feet and bowed to her but did not offer his hand. She did not press him, knowing of his particular compulsion for avoiding human contact. “Of course you may,” he said with a mild accent and nodded to her in invitation. They both sat down in unison and he added, “To what do I owe this pleasure, Comptesse? Do I know you?”
“No, Mister Tesla.” She smiled with irony. “We have never met—not in person, anyway. But I believe you may be interested in what I have to say.” She paused to take in his curiosity and continued, “Pardon me for what I am about to reveal of your affairs, but I represent the interests of La Banque Internationale du Monde in Geneva, Switzerland—perhaps you know of us—and the law offices of Frankl & Frankl. We are one of the five largest investment banks in the world, dating back to the late 1400s with offices in Amsterdam and Hamburg. We are a private bank who screen for altruistic and environmentally conscious investors. In short, we help finance only those projects that will help make the world a better world.” She paused.
Tesla studied her inquisitively but said nothing.
She smiled internally at his puzzled expression then continued, “We are very interested in your Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, Long Island, and associated global wireless power transmission.”
Tesla slid his notebook back into his jacket pocket and now gave her his full attention. She knew that he’d been trying for years to gain backing for his enigmatic projects with little to no success.
She continued, “You theorized that electrical energy can be transmitted through the earth and the atmosphere…without power lines.”
“Yes, I can light lamps at moderate distances and can detect the transmitted energy at much greater distances. The Wardenclyffe Tower uses a rapidly alternating electrostatic field and was a proof-of-concept for global wireless power trans-mission.”
“Yes, I know.”
He frowned. “But my funding—“
“Yes, I know. Your backers don’t like the idea of unmetered power consumption.”
His face hardened with dark thoughts. “Free electricity isn’t profitable.”
“Least of all to greedy bankers with no vision or faith like J.P. Morgan or John Jacob Astor,” she added. “I know you’ve been in financial trouble with high construction costs since Morgan pulled out last year and encouraged other investors to do the same.”
Her last remark made him stiffen. She was hitting a painful nerve.
“I know about your expired patents and the resulting lack of royalty payments,” she continued. “Within another five to ten years your projects will all be defunk and you will be totally broke. And no one will listen to the ideas that come to you fully formed through visions and dreams.”
He straightened and looked her directly in the eyes. “What do you want of me, Comptesse? Who are you?”
“An ally,” she answered. “I am well aware of your humanitarian pursuits and altruistic nature. I know that you wish simply to make the world a better world. That is my wish also. Energy is and will continue to be one of the most important forces on this earth. Like water, it should be free and available to each and everyone of us. I think you can provide us with that gift and would be happy to as well. Mister Tesla, I want to offer you financial backing at zero percent interest.”
He let loose a humourless laugh. He had finally learned to be cynical about bankers, she thought.
“Make no mistake, Mister Tesla; I expect to become one of the wealthiest people on this planet because of you. But I will gain that wealth only as you gain yours, through a partnership, and not at the expense of others; rather, for the benefit of others. Your wireless technology will help in areas you have yet to imagine: instant global communications and the personal computer; clean energy for homes and industry; laser medicine; robotics; interstellar travel; instant matter transference; even time travel and so much more.”
He was staring at her now. “Who are you, really?”
An angel, she thought to herself. “I’m part of the future, Mister Tesla. A future of your making.” Then without thinking, she held out her hand. “You can call me Vivianne.”
To her delighted surprise, he smiled for the first time. He took her hand then lightly kissed it, as was the custom of most eastern Europeans. “And you can call me Nikola.”
The Man
Nikola Tesla and his experiments with electricity
Nikola Tesla intuited that energy waves in the earth and the atmosphere could be used to transmit power to any point on the globe. He understood that the surface of the Earth, the ionosphere and the atmosphere together form one gigantic electrical circuit—an electrified Gaia, so to speak—and this formed the basis for his work on wireless energy transmission. Tesla was able to transmit power and energy wirelessly over long distances (via transverse waves and longitudinal waves). He transmitted extremely low frequencies (ELF) through the ground and between the Earth’s surface and the Kennelly-Heaviside layer of the ionosphere. Tesla patented wireless transceivers that developed standing waves and it was he who discovered that the resonant frequency of the Earth was about 8 Hz and in the range of the Schumann Resonance or Cavity.
Tesla in his Colorado Springs lab
Modern technology appears to be threatening humanity’s connection with earth’s fundamental frequency and the natural vibrations of Schumann Resonance. Threats include artificial man-made EMF radiation, wireless technology, and high frequency heating microwaves pulsed at 2.45 GHz. Whether we co-evolved with Earth’s natural electromagnetic environment or were created with Divine Intelligence to live in harmony with it, many experts believe that artificial man-made EMF radiation masks the natural beneficial frequency of the Earth and may create an environment that is literally `out of tune’ with Nature itself.
The Book
The Last Summonerby Nina Munteanu is a fresh twist on chaos theory and observer-induced collapse of quantum entanglement. It’s June 14th, 1410, on the eve of the Battle of Grunwald when history records that a ragtag peasant army will slaughter the arrogant monk knights of the imperialistic Teutonic Order … or will they? Because of an impetuous choice, 14-year old Vivianne Schoen, Baroness von Grunwald, makes the startling discovery that she can alter history—but not before she’s branded a witch and must flee through a time-space tear. Now in an alternate present-day France ruled by fascist Black Knights of the ancient Teutonic Order, she must decide how to remake history.
Detail of ‘The Battle of Grunwald’ (painting by Jan Matejko)
“For those in love with science fiction at its best, The Last Summoner is a complex story of ignored responsibilities and their dire consequences, of love and betrayal that span centuries and multiple worlds. Time travel, multiverse travel, immortality, alternate history in which the Nazis have won, not in the twentieth century but way earlier, in the Teutonic age. Angels and mutants, utopias and dystopias, even a Tesla occurrence— everything a science fiction reader could ever desire in a book. A masterfully told story with great characters. Nina Munteanu moves flawlessly from a medieval story to a modern one and everything in between.”
Depiction of fierce Teutonic Knights crusading in the Baltic north during the 13th Century (illustration by Mariusz Kozik)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
McGill University, view from main gate on Rue Sherbrooke (photo by Nina Munteanu)
I’ve just returned from Montreal, where I was invited to participate in a two-day conference hosted by McGill University’s Bieler School of Environment at Esplanade Tranquil. Named after Kim Stanley Robinson’s eco-fiction novel New York 2140, the conference brought together a diverse assemblage of scientists, academic researchers, urban planners, speculative fiction writers, artists, and students in a small setting dedicated to encourage cross-pollination of ideas and visions through panels and workshops. I sat on a panel and a roundtable with other writers, urban planners, engineers, scientists and activists to discuss futures through science and story. Much of the event focused on the literary genre called Hopepunk—a sub-genre of Speculative Fiction devoted to optimistic themes of scientific transformation, discovery and empathy. Resulting dialogue explored forms of communication, expression, and ways not just to deal with growing solastalgia, eco-grief, and environmental anxiety but to move forward through action and hope.
Breakout groups in Seeds of Good Anthropocenes Workshop (photo by Nina Munteanu)
McGill faculty in Panel on ‘Turning Research into Hopeful Stories’ (photo by Nina Munteanu)
In the Thursday morning writer’s panel, in which we explored the role of science knowledge and hope in story, I shared the writing process I underwent with my latest published novel A Diary in the Age of Water, which I categorize as a hopeful dystopia (‘Hopeful dystopias’ are much more than an apparent oxymoron; they are in some fundamental way, the spearhead of the future—and ironically often a celebration of human spirit by shining a light through the darkness of disaster):
The main character in A Diary in the Age of Water was a limnologist like me who kept a journal (the diary referenced in the title of the book). This part of the story took place in the near-future when the water crisis and associated climate change phenomena had become calamitous. Being a scientist with so much intimate knowledge of the crisis, the diarist became cynical and lost her faith in humanity. I recall my own journey into despair as I did the research needed to convey the character’s knowledge and situation. I found myself creating a new character (the diarist’s daughter) much in the way a drowning swimmer takes hold of a life-saver, to pull me out of the darkness I’d tumbled into. The daughter’s hopeful nature and faith in humanity pulled both me and the reader out of the darkness. The cynical nature of the diarist came from a sense of being overwhelmed by the largeness of the crisis and froze her with feelings of powerlessness. The diarist’s daughter rose like an underground spring from the darkness by focusing on a single light: her friend and lover who pointed to a way forward. As Greta so aptly said once, “action leads to hope” and hope leads to action. Despite the dire circumstances in the novel, I think of A Diary in the Age of Water as a story of resilience. And ultimately of hope.
I came to the conference as a writer, scientist, mother, and environmental activist. What I discovered was an incredible solidarity with a group so diverse in culture, disciplines, expression and language—and yet so singularly united. It was heartwarming. Hopeful. And necessary. This conference ultimately felt like a lifeline to a world of possibilities.
Organizers brought in a wide variety of talent, skill, and interest and challenged everyone through well-run workshops to think, feel, discover, discuss, collaborate and express. Workshops, panels, and multimedia art incited co-participation with all attendees in imaginative and fun ways. On-site lunches and drinks helped keep everyone together and provided further space for interaction and discussion.
Student-led break out group discussing ways to transform eco-emotions into hope (photo by Nina Munteanu)
At every turn, I made contacts across disciplines and interests and had stimulating and meaningful conversations. I discovered many hopeful ‘stories’ of Montreal and elsewhere on hopeful visions and endeavors. These included “Seeds of good Anthropocenes” (small ground-rooted projects and initiatives aimed at shaping a future that is just, prosperous, and sustainable); turning scientific research into hopeful stories; and world building as resistance. I talked with artistic creators, students doing masters in Hopepunk literature and co-panelists on all manner of subjects from urban encampments, greening and rewilding Montreal, to how Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring informed a main character in Liu Cixin’s novel The Three Body Problem.
Creating visual art via MAPP (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Marc-Olivier Lamothe stands next to a MAPP projection (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Conversations often led to an acknowledgement of art as an effective means of expression and creative therapy in the context of the climate crisis. I met creatives such as Marc-Olivier Lamothe and his colleagues at MAPP and had the chance to experiment first hand with his creative tools. I had wonderful discussions with storytelling visual artist Alina Gutierrez Mejia of Visual Versa, whose evolving mural of each day’s events was truly mesmerizing to watch—and rather revealing.
Alina Gutierrez Mejia creates a visual representation of the day’s conference (photo by Nina Munteanu)
In future, I’ll post more on these and other creatives I encountered at the conference.
Program for Montreal 2140
THURSDAY morning began with an introduction by BDE Director Frédéric Fabry.
This was followed by a panel entitled Hopeful Stories Across Science and Fiction, in which I participated, along with fellow writers Su J. Sokol (author of Zee), Alyx Dellamonica (author of Gamechanger), Rich Larson (author of Annex and Ymir), Genevieve Blouin (author of Le mouroir des anges) and Andrea Renaud Simard (author of Les Tisseurs). The panel was moderated by McGill geographer Renee Sieber and McGill urban planner Lisa Bornstein.
After lunch, a panel entitled Faculty Workshop: Turning Research into Hopeful Stories was moderated by McGill researcher Kevin Manaugh and Annalee Newitz (journalist and author of Four Lost Cities). McGill researchers included: Caroline Wagner (bioengineering), Hillary Kaell (anthropology and religious studies); Jim Nicell (civil engineering); Sébastien Jodoin (law); and Michael Hendricks (biology).
McGill students who lead the workshop on Hope and the Future stand with one of the conference organizers Daniel Lukes (photo by Nina Munteanu)
The faculty panel was followed by the Student Workshop, Hope and the Future, led by McGill students Tom Nakasako, Rachel Barker, Tatum Hillier, and Lydia Lepki.
Annalee Newitz gives her keynote (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Annalee Newitz closed the day with their keynote presentation Worldbuilding Is Resistance that explored the dystopia binary of environmental science fiction. A theme to which the next keynote by Kim Stanley Robinson would touch on as well.
Elson Galang presenting Seeds workshop (photo by Nina Munteanu)
FRIDAY morning started with Elson Galang and Elena Bennett (McGill University), who led the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes Workshop, which introduced the concept of seeds programs then further explored through breakout discussion groups they moderated.
This was followed by faculty-led Teaching and Learning for Hopeful Futures Workshop, in which McGill instructors from varied disciplines (including education, political science, environment, urban planning and planetary sciences) discussed translating science into hopeful narratives.
pre-meet on Zoom of participants of the Roundtable
I then participated in a roundtable of authors, scholars, researchers and planners entitled Telling the Story of the Future, moderated by Chris Barrington-Leigh (McGill BSE/Health and Social Policy). The roundtable included fellow authors Alyx Dellamonica and Su J. Sokol. Other participants of the roundtable included Stephanie Posthumus (languages, literatures, cultures at McGill), Jayne Engle (public policy at McGill) Richard Sheamur (urban planning at McGill), and limnologist Irene Gregory-Eaves (biology at McGill).
BDE Director Frédéric Fabry introduces the conference (photo by Nina Munteanu)
The final keynote was given by Kim Stanley Robinson (author of New York 2140 and The Ministry of the Future).
Storyboard of the first day of the conference by Visual Versa (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Maude Barlow, author of Boiling Point, Chairman of the Council of Canadians
Like a car, every novel has its point of ignition: a spark that sets it in motion. This occurs when a premise or idea comes together with an incendiary moment of clarity or a thematic question. Mine—though I didn’t know it at the time—happened in a church on the Summer of 2016.
I was in a United Church on Bloor Street, in Toronto’s Annex, watching a talk given by Maude Barlow on water justice. The radical talk was based on her recent book Boiling Point, a comprehensive exploration of Canada’s water crisis—a crisis that most Canadians weren’t—and still aren’t—aware. Canada is steward to a fifth of the world’s fresh water, after all. It is a water-rich country. Of the dozen largest inland lakes in the world, Canada holds eight of them. So, why water crisis? Barlow explains. And you should read Boiling Point, particularly if you’re Canadian. It will open your eyes to the politics of water and how multinational corporations—like Nestlé—are already grabbing and funneling water away from Canadians and into the global profit machine.
I sat close to the front of the Church sanctuary to best see her. But I soon noticed that many people had elected to sit in the gallery above. I found myself focusing on a young mother and her little girl. The girl had some paper and crayons and was busy with that as the enthusiastic mother listened to Maude deliver dire facts about corporate water high-jacking and government complicity.
I saw a story there.
What mother would take her pre-school child to a socio-political talk on water? I would later reflect that memory of the mother and her little girl through my characters Una and her little daughter Lynna, the diarist in my novel A Diary in the Age of Water (eventually published in 2020 with Inanna Publications).
Fresh water flows down the barrel of a hand-operated water pump.
My novel really began with a short story I was invited to write in 2015 by editors of Future Fiction and Mincione Edizioni about water and politics in Canada; the premise of this story would later find it’s way into the larger novel. I had long been thinking of potential ironies in Canada’s water-rich heritage. The premise I wanted to explore was the irony of people in a water-rich nation experiencing water scarcity: living under a government-imposed daily water quota of 5 litres as water bottling and utility companies took it all. I named the story “The Way of Water.” It was about a young woman (Hilda) in near-future Toronto who has run out of water credits for the public wTap; by this time houses no longer have potable water and their water taps have been cemented shut; the only way to get water is through the public wTaps—at great cost. She is in a line of people; she’s two metres from water—and dying of thirst.
“The Way of Water” captures a vision that explores the nuances of corporate and government corruption and deceit together with global resource warfare. In this near-future, Canada is mined of all its water by thirsty Chinese and US multinationals—leaving nothing for the Canadians. Rain has not fallen on Canadian soil in years due to advances in geoengineering and weather manipulation that prevent rain clouds from going anywhere north of the Canada-US border. If you’re wondering if this is possible, it’s already happening in China and surrounding countries.
The story first appeared in 2015 in Future Fiction, edited by Francesco Verso, and in 2016 as a bilingual (English and Italian) book and essay published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. The story has so far been reprinted seven times in magazines and anthologies, including “Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change Anthology” (Exile Editions, Bruce Meyer, ed), in 2017, “Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction” (Francesco Verso & Bill Campbell, eds; Future Fiction / Rosarium Publishing, Rome and Greenbelt, MD) in 2018; and in Little Blue Marble Magazine (Katrina Archer, ed) in January, 2019 and in their ‘Best of’ anthology. It was then published in 2022 in Metastellar Magazine and later in their ‘Best of’ anthology. “The Way of Water” received generous praise from review sites and the press worldwide.
After the success of this short story, I realized that I needed to tell the larger story—how did the world—Canada—get to where Hilda was? Her mysterious mother, the limnologist Lynna who was taken away by the RCMP in 2063, clamored for more attention. I remembered that four-year old girl and her mother in the gallery at Maude Barlow’s talk on water politics. And I thought of my characters: young Lynna and her mother Una. How does a daughter of an activist mother behave and think? How best to express her voice? I had earlier written a short story that was a mix of correspondence (emails) and third person narrative (“The Arc of Time” in Natural Selection, later reprinted in Metastellar Magazine), which I felt captured the voices of the characters well. I realized that a diary by Lynna would be an ideal way for her to express her unique worldview and cynicism—yet allow her vulnerable humanity to reveal itself through this unique relationship with her diary. The remaining characters and their narratives emerged easily from there: Una, her activist mother; Daniel, her conspiracy theorist colleague (and her conscience); Orvil, the water baron (and lover she betrayed); and Hilda, her “wayward” supposedly mind-challenged daughter—who appears in the short story that takes place later.
I had a lot of material; I had already been researching water issues and climate change in my activism as a science writer and reporter. In 2016, Pixl Press had published “Water Is… The Meaning of Water”,essentially a biography of water, written from the perspective of mother, environmentalist and scientist. I had practiced as a limnologist for over twenty-five years and could mine my various personal experiences in the field, lab and office with genuine realism. I chose Wetzel’s Limnology (the classic text book I used in my introductory limnology course) for quotes to each of Lynna’s entries; this added an opportunity to provide additional metaphor and irony through Lynna’s scientific voice. I placed the child Lynna (who was born in 2012) into actual events in Toronto, where I currently live. This pushed the story further into the area of documentary and blurred the lines between fiction and non-fiction to achieve a gritty and textured reality. Lynna also taught limnology at the University of Toronto, where I currently teach.
Just as Water Is… served as a watershed for all my relevant experiences as mother, environmentalist and scientist, A Diary in the Age of Water would galvanize many of my personal experiences, doubts, challenges and victories into compelling story. Although parts of the story wrote themselves, the entire book was not easy to write. There were times when I had to walk away from the book to gain some perspective—and optimism—before continuing. When I found myself drowning in Lynna’s voice, I invoked Hilda to guide me to shore. I found a balance that worked and compelled. Ultimately this opened to some of the best internal conflict and tension I have experienced in my writing.
Like water itself, A Diary in the Age of Water expresses through many vessels and in many perspectives, spanning hundreds of years—and four generations of women—with a context wider than human life. Through its characters, A Diary in the Age of Waterexplores the big question of humanity’s deadlock with planetary wellness and whether one is worth saving at the expense of the other. One of the characters asks Lynna the hard question: “If you had the chance to save the planet [stop the mass extinctions, deforestation and pollution ravaging the planet], but it was at the expense of humanity, would you do it?”
Water is, in fact, a character in the book—sometimes subtle and revealed in subtext, other times horrific and roaring with a clamorous voice. Water plays both metaphoric and literal roles in this allegorical tale of humanity’s final journey from home. The story explores identity and our concept of what is “normal”—as a nation and an individual—in a world that is rapidly and incomprehensibly changing—and in which each of us plays a vital role simply by doing or not doing.
A Diary in the Age of Water promises to leave you adjusting your frame of reference to see the world, yourself—and water—in a different way.
Illustration on Liisbeth article (photo collage by PK Mutch and Dreamstime
This is what PK Mutch of Liisbeth and Ariel Kroon (PhD graduate of English Literature at the University of Alberta and co-editor at Solarpunk Magazine) say about A Diary in the Age of Water, published by Inanna Publications in 2020:
The novel has received wonderful praise and prizes, including the Literary Titan Award, the Foreword Indies Award and finalist in the International Book Awards. I wonder if Maude Barlow has read it?… Maybe I (or someone) should get her a copy, huh?…
Maude Barlow with ‘Save our River’ sign
Maude Barlow is a Canadian activist and author of Blue Gold, Boiling Point and several other books on water justice. She chairs the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch and Ottawa-based Blue Planet Project. Maude co-founded the Council of Canadians and chaired its board for over three decades.
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Nina Munteanu Writing Coach 