It's All One World

Sometimes a work gets under your skin, and it itches.  You don't know why, but the novel/play/film sticks to your soul. I'm talking about that lingering sensation there's a puzzle piece missing but you just can't...

If you ever feel this itch, sit up and pay attention.  Epiphany is on the horizon.   Ernest Cline's novel Ready Player One clung to me this way.  I kept thinking "Why does everything feel just a little off, as though I've fallen through a dazzling mirror?"  That's when realized, Cline saturated his novel with the very nostalgia the book critiques. The characters, situations, and themes are all extensions of a 1980’s imaginative universe.  

Queue epiphany.

It wasn't only the characters in Ready Player One that are obsessed with the '80's.  The tone,  themes, and the very architecture of Ready Player One celebrates the '80's in every way possible.  It is an immersive experience that rivals virtual reality.  Ready Player One's level of cohesion should be an aspiration for writers.

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The novel is utterly, unashamedly, immersed in the '80's in every way.  It revels.  It joys. Cline is so thorough in his world building I couldn't always tell what was intentional and what was the author’s obsession bleeding through the page. A pleasurable, immersive obsession is what it takes to be a writer.  It manifests in the big structural choices (a rogue genius kid taking on corrupt corporate greed is such an '80s movie plot) and in the smallest detail.

Here’s an example of a small detail from the book: early in the book the protagonist, Wade, talks about his history class virtually visiting King Tut’s tomb in 1922 A.D. That’s right, A. D.-- Anno Domini.  Its hard for me to believe a public high school teacher in the year 2045 uses Anno Domini instead of C.E.: Common Era.  I wondered: is this an intentional throwback by Cline to keep us inside his 1980’s-esque world?  Is this character development telling us that Wade is so into 1980s America he’s his brain translates C.E. into A.D. automatically?  Or is Cline so lost in the ‘80s he didn’t even realize how strange A.D. might sound?  If the answer is this last option, someone may need to throw Cline a lifeline and save him from his own universe… or maybe not.  The obsession seems to be working out for him.

But I think to some extent, all three are true.  From that standpoint Cline is teaching us something important about how world, character, and plot are all part of a single argument, and the neglect of one is the neglect of all.  A good author finds something to obsess about and dives into the opulent Deep.  That work will pay off.  Careful preparation and research will manifest in little details that make the world (and its characters) feel more full.  The good writer obsesses.  The great writer obsesses with intention.  

This was my epiphany: The great writer knows how to drive plot, character, and action together, grinding the elements against eachother without flinching until they achieve singularity (singular vision) and burst apart into beautiful work.

I wish you all a little opulent obsession today.  Dive into the Deep and drink.