A Dash of Words with Loleta Abi Romance Author

The Writer’s Wheel 4/12/2020: A Writer’s Perspective

Loleta Abi

I know we’re all a little on the edge. The more time that goes by without things returning to normal, if we can go back to a normal, the more it seems everything is going to change drastically forever. I don’t mean to sound the doom bell on things. It’s just maybe we can’t go back. Only forward with a new norm. Maybe most of the population will work at home. Grocery delivery might become a thing we’re used to. Visiting might be less than it was at one time. Then again, as humans, we go through birth pains as nations all the time from first the horse and carriage to cars to airplanes.

Will Travel as We Know it Change?

Maybe. I doubt we’ll see the tourist business as it was for some time. People are most likely going to be hesitant to leave their countries especially going back to where the virus spread from originally. They will remember and avoid, my guess is. Popular destinations within countries might flourish again for locals. There might be a special pass needed to travel out of their country. Maybe a limit on how many can go.

Fact versus Fiction.

In our books, the worlds we know may look vastly different from our own. Maybe some authors guessed too much along the lines of things and are being asked: How could you have known? The truth is: they didn’t. They created a place in their imaginations that seemed to fit their characters. They had no idea that some of the events would’ve become possible within our own.

Writers figure scenarios. More science fiction or fantasy. More dystopian or apocalyptic. This or that. A dash of everything. Mix. See what you come up with. No, we’re not fortune tellers. Sometimes we guess spot on. Sometimes, we get it way wrong. It’s the part of creation that keeps us up the most at night. Always attempting to bring it as close to the truth as our characters describe it. We have to research things to see if it might be possible given the variations. We have to trust our gut when we have to take a leap of faith.

The truth being, it’s easier to live in a world already known then create one from scratch. There are so many things that can go wrong.

We’re Harder to Placate then Our Characters Are.

If something goes wrong for us, there’s all these emotions to deal with. In another world, a character might not HAVE emotions. Besides which, they’ve only ever known their world and when things go out of whack for them, it knocks them for a loop as well. Everyone takes time to catch their breath. To get their head wrapped around the new perspective.

It’s all about stepping out of the norm. That’s the way to get conflict going in your story. In real life, we don’t like to deal with conflict much. But it’s really good for fiction because it shakes up the status quo and thrust the character/s into the story. It’s what makes them or breaks them. I suppose that could be said for a lot of past generations and what one day said about us during this time. We did the best we could. We adjusted. Fought. Didn’t quit. Came out the other side. That’s all any of us can do. Trust that all will work out in the end and that someday we’ll look back at the lessons we learned today. No, it won’t be to hoard up on toilet paper. It might simply be to appreciate a hug again one day. From a neighbor. A friend. A loved one.