I don’t know about you, but I get bored no matter what I’m doing, if I do it long enough. Even if it’s writing. My favorite characters start staggering drunkly across the page, my intricate plots begin to dissolve, and my settings go cardboard-flat. But I do have a great trick for revitalizing my interest in writing, and even in the characters: Take them out for a joyride.
Nonfictioneers, this will work for you too. Hang in there, I’ll explain how it all links up.
So where are we going? To an Alternate Universe.
So what’s an AU?
An AU, or alternate universe, is a setting that your characters weren’t originally designed to interact with. It’s a pretty common literary device in fan fiction for describing stories with familiar characters but new settings. Think of these:
- Mad Max Fury Road, but set in 2018 and Furiosa works in Planned Parenthood
- Cinderella, but Cinderella is a hotel maid in the 50’s
- Pretty Woman but set in the world of Magic Mike XXL
All of these ideas take familiar characters, with familiar motivations, and give them a completely new setting. What WOULD your character do if they lived in modern day New York instead of a dystopian village? How would your characters’ interactions change if instead of being in a spaceship they were on a Napoleonic-War-era frigate?
Changing your world dramatically can be hilarious and fun, but just as importantly it can give you vital insights into how your characters think and react that you might never have a chance to discover if you left them alone in their original setting.
Don’t like fanfic? That’s fine: don’t write it. Go back and find a story you wrote a while ago and write it again, but in a completely different era. Different setting. Different world. What needs to change about it? What’s better? What’s worse?
Noodling around with your characters and ideas can open the door to entirely new stories. It can also get you writing again, because you’re only doing the heavy lifting for one part of the story as opposed to all of it.
But, nonfiction?
Nonfictioneers, you, too, can benefit from AUs. Think of them as a framing device for the story you’re trying to tell, or try writing your story from a different genre.
Think about how Vonnegut’s writing carries a weight of satire because he writes like he’s utterly unfamiliar with his surroundings and how absurd they are. Or write your perfectly normal – otherwise – story of trying to find the toy your kid wanted for their birthday as a film noir story.
You can also examine how your own stories would have played out in an AU: That time I stepped on not-yet-President Obama’s foot, for example (I’m really sorry, Barack, but in my defense I was waiting for a friend, I turned around, and there you were. It was a little disconcerting) and then nothing happened. What if something HAD? Write your what-if’s (just be very clear that they’re what-ifs for your reader’s sake). An easy literary framing device for nonfiction AU writing is to start with a negative. “I didn’t talk to Obama that day. But I could have, I guess.” And then start speculating. Build a story out of insteads. And end with something like “and that’s how I didn’t get the phone number of Michelle’s personal trainer, and now I have to live with just the arms I have.”
