Writing Versus Real World Events Part II

To quote the giant in Twin Peaks, “It is happening again.” 

I wrote last year about the bad luck I had that in 2018/2019 I wrote a novel about a fantasy world in the throes of a pandemic, and before it was polished enough to publish our world experienced a pandemic. Now I seem to be on the other side of that sort of timing. I have just begun to draft a novel that I outlined a couple years ago that has run up against real world events. 

The novel I’m drafting is a set in the same version of our world that I’ve used for a number of short stories (as well as a novel that I believe will be out some time next year.) In this version of our world, the 1933 Long Beach Quake tore a fissure between worlds, and magic (which always existed in the background became much more prevalent.) In my outline for the new novel, there are a number of villains both paranormal and mundane. My bad luck with timing of real world events: the main mundane villain in the outline is a California gubernatorial candidate who is a right wing nut job. So I’m starting this first draft just in time for a sleazy recall election which, if the recall passes, will likely result in California getting a right wing nut job as governor (despite the fact that he might only get 11% of the vote.)

I get that the severity of potentially electing a terrible governor, especially one that doesn’t even represent the will of anything approaching half of the electorate, massively outweighs the importance of my novel, but I still have a decision to make. Do I rewrite the outline to avoid politics entirely, even though politics will be a big factor in my thinking over the coming year? Do I wait to write this draft until after the results of the recall election next month? If I do there is still an actual, normally scheduled gubernatorial election next year. (That’s just how sleazy the recall is, they’ve wasted our money to hold it when there’s a normal election coming up in just a year’s time precisely because they know they can’t win a normal election.)

My first three novels ranged from dystopian to cosmic horror to apocalyptic. I have generally tried to write something more positive since then for a number of reasons. 

1. It’s important to challenge myself if I want to grow as a writer, and I feel like it’s easier to write dystopian fiction. Look around. Things are much more dystopian. Also there’s a long tradition of telling stories where things get worse, where there’s no good solution. Prometheus, Genesis, Frankenstein, much of Lovecraft, and 90% of Michael Crichton stories, are all about man learning something he shouldn’t  and it biting us in the ass. Wouldn’t it be better if we as writers lead the way with stories about how we focussed on learning and it benefitted us? It’s also easier because it’s the simplest way to have tension. Someone discovers technology and it all goes wrong has built in tension. Someone learns something and it solves problems is a tension killer. 

2. I’ve often thought about stories from Borges or Philip K Dick where the story creates reality. And then I look around at the real world and the dystopian nature of it and I wonder, did we forge this into being with too much focus on dystopian stories? Never mind that the reality is usually worse, a lot dumber, and often sleazier than the fiction. Don’t believe me? Bladerunner is a dystopian story, yes? They don’t just have flying cars in our year, they have off world colonies, great street food, rain and available housing in Los Angeles. Also the people in charge might be evil, but they’re not shameless out in the open grifters and pedophiles or anti science the way today’s GOP are. Personally I’d jump at the chance for that “dystopia.” 

So if writing isn’t difficult enough I now have to deal with trying to pick the more difficult route of positivity and contend with the coincidence of real world events being too close to what I’m working on. If only the real world events would be the positivity I’m striving for in my fiction.