How Do You Plug Into a New World?

 How do you plug in?

I’ve just begun Murakami’s massive tome 1Q84, which in a few short pages has already pulled a woman out of one universe and into another, slightly altered, other world. It’s an exciting book to say the least. And it’s gotten me thinking about the John Updike quotation about writing stories. According to Updike, stories should bring “news from another world.” This is particularly obvious when we read science fiction or stories of exotic lands and different cultures, but it’s also true about our very own backyards. Every single person on the planet is his or her own world, and the joy of reading fiction comes from plugging into the other world of someone else’s head, seeing the world from someone else’s eyes. So how do we do it ourselves — how do we plug our brains into another universe?

Let yourself and your ego recede.

If you expect to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, or imagine an unearthly new horizon, you’ve got to shed some of the baggage that you carry around with you wherever you go. You’ve got your own ego, your own desires, assumptions, and ambitions; all of these have to get pushed to the back for a while. You’ve got to become instead an all-seeing eye, imagining and absorbing without judgment. You’ve got to be curious, passionate, and at least for the moment, neutral. The moment you start judging another world or another person, you start shutting them into familiar boxes.

Imagine the details.

So you’re trying to access a new world, something no one has seen before. This new world could simply be the head of a new character; it doesn’t have to be planet Floxx. The things that make this new world real are the details. We look for the way something tastes and smells; we look for the foods being eaten; we look for the clothes being worn; we look for a small rules of a different society. Be detailed; be thorough; do your homework. To access a new world, you’ve got to leave yourself behind in many ways. Become a conduit, a simple live wire transmitting information. Let images, details, and characters travel through your brain and down to the keyboard. Now you’re really plugged in.