Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

First, a bit of business.
My third Quarantine eBook Giveaway is live, today through Monday.
Free books! Tell a friend.

Now, onward to a writing quandary that has been rattling around in my pea-brain this week.

When I was writing speculative fiction (alternate history, high fantasy, science fiction), my process was unaffected by changes in modern life. I was writing about times past, alternatives to the present, or imagined futures, so I didn’t have to worry about current trends or innovations. At most, if a piece was set in the near-future, I might have to extrapolate forward from the day’s news, but in general, I had free rein and could build the world as I wished.

My current work-in-progress, however, leaves those genres behind; it is set spang in the middle of the Here and Now. And I mean that literally. My new novel’s main plotline is set in Seattle’s downtown and northern neighborhoods. My Seattle. Right here. Today.

Except “today” has changed, hasn’t it? It’s changed a lot, and I have to take that into account. Or do I?

Here’s my thinking (as of today).

The questions I’m dealing with are less a matter of “What has changed?” and more of “What changes will endure?” and “What changes affect my characters?”

• Many of us are in self-imposed quarantine, but (though I know it feels like it) it won’t be forever. Eventually, we’ll have vaccines and enough herd immunity for us to get back out there and resume normal activities. But what will those “normal activities” look like? Will they be the same as our pre-COVID lives? Or will we come out of this with new behaviors, new perspectives, new priorities? Will physical, in-person social contact be more important to us, or less? Will we be more comfortable with only remote contact? Will our previous introvert/extrovert priorities be intensified, or lessened? As an introvert, I can say that I now place a higher value on in-person contact, so perhaps extroverts are finding greater satisfaction in remote interaction. But my one data point doesn’t define a trend, so that’s an unknown at this point.
• Many of us are experiencing financial hardship during this time. Unemployment, financial difficulties, family breakups, ruined retirements. I have friends who are out of work right now, struggling to get by with only unemployment and relief checks. Others, like me, are lucky and can work from home. But my characters are in a different situation. They both work in food-related industries in Pike Place Market, but those businesses, though deemed essential, are still having to lay off staff as business recedes, change their business models to include more delivery and take-out options, and in some cases just fold up as their already razor-thin profit margins disappear. It’s possible that one of my characters lost their job, or even their business, or saw their retirement savings evaporate. At the very least, their daily routines will have changed, possibly in profound and lasting ways.
• Many of us, sadly, are also grieving deaths. At this point, it’s likely that all of us are within two degrees of separation to a COVID-related death—a friend of a friend has died—and for some, it has reached nearer. Whatever degree of separation we currently have from COVID, in the coming months it is likely to get closer. While those particular deaths might not have a lasting effect on society as a whole, they definitely affect us as individuals, and since my characters are individuals, this will be a factor in their lives as well. How close did COVID-death come to my characters, and how did it change them?

I wonder how many writers out there are doing similar evaluations on their works-in-progress, because without doubt, this pandemic will change the psyche of our nation. From the political to the practical, global to the individual, the world will be different. Some of those differences will not affect a particular author’s work, but many might.

None of this is to downplay or dismiss the importance, risk, anxiety, and grief brought to us by this new virus. In fact, it is because of those factors (and others) that I’m even thinking about this. With every book, I strive for realism, but realism in an imagined past or a distant future is much easier to achieve than realism in a paroxysmal present that stands at a junction point. I want this book to reflect who we are, but right now “we” are in flux, a fluid null-set of unknowns, impossible to predict with accuracy.

The answers I seek, though, need not achieve complete accuracy. They merely need to be probable, and have enough global reach to resonate with readers. And so, every few days, I sit down with my characters and ask them, “How did the pandemic affect you?”

I hope you are all safe, healthy, and that you stay that way.

Go read a free ebook, and forget the world for a while.

k