Talking politics

One of the greatest challenges a fiction writer faces is whether or not to include references to current events in one's work. If your story is set during a recent historical event, that's one thing.  It's also par for the course to include familiar sites and cultural touchstones to guide the reader and give them a sense of place. But what if you're crafting a world out of thin air?

There are many major works of literature that contain veiled references to contemporary political issues and cultural figures. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ayn Rand's books come to mind, and they weren't always straight-up allegories either. Those works can be appreciated if you don't understand the references, but reading through their entries on Sparknotes certainly fills in the gaps.

But in a few years (let alone 50 or 100), who's going to care about a spot-on caricature of a society matron or a send-up of an obnoxious political operative? Why risk future readers conflating an interpretation of the author's time with a message for all time?

Also, some authors who tackle political analogies in their fiction don't always get a warm reception. In A Dance With Dragons, the most recent installment of ASOIAF, George Martin was accused of modeling one of the book's subplots on the U.S.'s recent involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. He denied drawing inspiration from those wars, but the perceived parallels made the already shaky subplot even more unpopular with readers.

That's he conundrum I've been wrestling with lately. So far, I've come up with one answer. Shoehorning in pop culture references is a sure road to irrelevance, but there's always interesting people in the world, no matter what era you live in. If those people have something equally interesting to say in your world, maybe you should let them in.

Hey everybody, I'm writing a novel!

-->Like the rest of the civilized world, my husband and I were hitting Game of Thrones pretty hard last year. I was awed by George Martin's ability to craft a nuanced, believable world. At that time, we were also reading a book by Neal Stephenson, one of the best-known names in speculative fiction. That book was "Anathem," which is about a planet where science and the regular world are firmly divided, to harrowing results.

One day, my husband Barnaby said to me out of the blue "I have an idea for a book." Turns out it was not "out of the blue." He had the main plot, themes and characters fully developed in his mind from conception, to the point where he told me an amazingly detailed story from start to finish. The man is a genius.
Instantly I knew this was the kind of book I had always wanted to write. The more we talked about it, the more excited we became. As lifelong science fiction and fantasy fans, we were thrilled to discover something this good to give back to the community that have brought us so much inspiration and enjoyment over the years.
I've wanted to write a book - this book - for a long time. As we shared the idea with friends, we got overwhelmingly positive feedback. "I would read that" so many people told us. We knew were onto something special. So this year, with my husband's support and with the support of my readers and friends, I left my full-time job as a journalist to focus on writing full-time.
Imagine, if you will...
A traveler arrives into a medieval world to prevent the original rift between magic and science that has caused so much strife throughout history. His goal: kill a messianic figure foretold by prophecy. Known only as the Evenarian, this man (or woman) was responsible for spreading a revolutionary message that led to science's supremacy over magic, and to a future full of war. To save history, the traveler has to do more than eliminate a person. He must kill a prophecy. 

And now, we're able to share this story with all of you. Stay tuned for more!

--Julia P. Dickinson