Modern fiction writers will be affected by this pandemic

I was all set to write my second mystery novel this year, before the pandemic hit. One of the many initial decisions a fiction writer must make is to choose WHEN the story happens:

• it is modern fiction, happening now?
• Is it historical fiction, happening 20 or more years ago?
• Is it science fiction or futuristic fiction?
• Is it fantasy, set in an imaginary world?

My next book takes place in the summer, and I’d decided it would be set in 2020. With technology changing so quickly these days, present-day is the easiest “when” choice for an author.

But now we’re mid-pandemic.

Mid-pandemic considerations for the fiction writer

I can’t set my novel in the summer of 2020, because we may very well all still be in lockdown then, and the story I’ve created takes place at an archery shoot and in other outdoor, communal, pre-pandemic settings.

What if I set my story in the future? 2021?

If I write a story set ANYTIME after now, it will be speculative: I’ll have to invent what a post-pandemic world looks like. I’ll have to invent a world where we’ve lived through the pandemic, and imagine all the ways our world and society will have changed.

And since no one knows what that looks like, or what our timelines look like for isolation / social distancing / herd immunity / vaccination, I’ll therefore be writing futuristic, fantastical fiction.

That’s a hefty challenge.

What if I change the setting of my story to someplace other than Invermere, B.C., Canada?

In a moment of extreme denial / not enough caffeine, I considered moving my story to somewhere else in North America, or beyond.

But there is no alternative place to set my story: this pandemic has affected EVERYONE around the world, in essentially similar ways.

It’s a more shared experience even than the big wars.

Let’s think about that for a second.

In the wars, there were “sides” to the battles, and people’s lives changed in many different ways. A Canadian might join the Royal Canadian Air Force and serve overseas while their family worked the farm and shipped food over, while a Londoner lived in terror of air raids, and a soldier tried to survive in a war camp: just three sample experiences of many.

While, yes, there are differences in how our countries are handling the crisis, and in how our options differ depending on our socio-economic situation (I feel for the Americans these days, with such deep divisions), our basic fears, anxieties and “living in limbo” mentality are shared.

Denial. Historical negationism. Revisionism.

My final option is to set my story in 2020 or the future, and simply ignore the pandemic. Just proceed as if life had continued as usual.

Imagine if the wartime writers had done this. My English lit classes would have studied this phenomenon, and judged these writers using the big words above.

Forced to live in the past

So my only option, assuming I don’t want to change my story into a mid-pandemic murder mystery, is to set it in the past. 2019 is the simplest option.

I’m not the only writer facing this decision

Every modern fiction writer is now making this same decision of WHEN to set their stories.

And there we are: the coronavirus has now changed literature. There will be pre-pandemic fiction, mid-pandemic fiction, and (we hope) post-pandemic fiction. A line in time has been drawn.

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