Quantum Storytelling

I’m having trouble finishing up the vacation story, which may be fine because I’m honestly not sure how many people care?

But there is something else I want to talk about concerning travel, and that’s how it affects a writer’s perspective.

We all get buried by our routines and habits. Sometimes it’s difficult to break out of our own perspective and write something fresh. There’s the old writing rule, “Write what you know.” But that’s pretty obvious isn’t it? And it doesn’t apply in every case. I think back to when I was a janitor working nights. I didn’t have much of a life, and really the only thing going on in my life was being a janitor. Write what you know, eh? Well that would have been the most mind numbing story I can possibly imagine.

So yes, we have to break from routine and experience new things in order to put some spark in our perspective.

Travelling does this really well. Each time I go to Mexico, I marvel at all the tiny differences between Mexico and the United States.

Building codes for one. There, a person can choose to live in a 5×5 adobe shack with a corrugated tin roof. If they want to ‘expand’ their house, they just toss on a second level, or knock down a wall and build a new room.

In the U.S., we are smothered in beauracracy. Want a new room on your house? Well, that requires a permit from the city with full approval and 500 point inspection. Do you still want to build that room?

This encourages some crazy random construction in Mexico. You will see things that you would never see in the United States. Things like rebar poking up from the tops of buildings. Ya know, those steel rods they set as a guide for the concrete? Yeah, well in the U.S. they cut that stuff off and patch it up when they’re done with the construction. In Mexico, literally every building has rebar poking out of the roof. Why? Because they might want to expand someday…

How does this apply to writing and fiction? Imagine two societies at opposite extremes. One of them is badly beauracratic in the name of public safety. Everything you do is subject to the permit, approval, and inspection of others. The second society requires no permits or inspections, and allows you to do pretty much whatever you want.

Since I’m interested in sci-fi, it’s fascinating to see how this might apply. If I was going to write about an alien culture, I’d start closer to home as a basis. I’d look at the differences between cultures that exist here on Earth, and then I’d extrapolate that on another species and take into account millions of years of separate evolution.

They might have all kinds of bizarre customs and rituals, or things that seem insane from a human perspective. You almost can’t go too far with this, because we’re talking about aliens, right?

So traveling is definitely good for the perspective. My only problem now is that I’m back in the same old routine, which feels a bit stifling after a nice vacation. Now I’ve got to find ways to freshen my perspective here at home.

What tricks do you use to change your perspective?