Colourful background and significant plot developments and guns

[Hex]

I've been wondering about the whole Chekov's gun thing. Well, Chekov's gun and the red herring, and colourful-background-information-intended-to-give-an-insight-into-the-world. What clues can/ should one give the reader so they don't get confused?

So there are things that sort of go on in the background in my wip -- like statues missing from plinths. But the statues are not significant. They never reappear. They're simply missing because that's often what happens in post-revolutionary cities -- the statues of the previous regime's heroes get taken down and destroyed (or, in Moscow, put together in a big park).

The next stage is stuff that happens that's supposed to indicate something about the past but doesn't really have a major role to play in the story -- is there a way to indicate to the reader which aspects of the context are highly relevant and which are not?

(Does that question even make sense?)

 

[HareBrain]

Could the relevant statues be holding Russian guns?

I wouldn't worry about it. A loaded gun on the mantelpiece in a family drama is one thing, background colour is another. Many's the time I've thought, when coming across a piece of detail in a book, "Aha! I bet that's a clue to something!" and it turned out not to be so. Didn't bother me unless I thought the author had been deliberately (or recklessly) misleading me, and as long as there were lots of other things in the story that did seem meaningful.

 

[Prefx]

It sounds to me that you already have a clear idea as to why these elements are relevant to the story. If you can't include a scene where a statue is being pulled down, a brief remark still seems appropriate: the statues (or lack thereof) help establish the scene for the rest of your fiction. Even if you don't explicitly come out in the text and say, "this is relevant for x reason but not y!," if properly written, the purpose will be clear to readers with an eye for detail. Personally, as someone who is mildly obsessed with the French and Russian Revolutions, I very much would like this small detail included.

I don't believe writers have to confine every sentence to the plot at the expense of world building, especially in science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction. In fact, one of my main complaints about contemporary fiction is the emphasis on "action" instead of incorporating more vivid descriptions or ideas.

 

[alchemist]

I agree with HB and Prefx. Like many concepts in writing, Chekov's gun can be over-emphasised. If everything is relevant later, it becomes all too predictable.

The statueless plinths is a simple and effective description, which says a lot more than just "vandalised park."

 

[The Judge]

I think it depends how you write it. If you lay great stress on the statues disappearing, with people discussing them etc, then yes, it will seem like a plot point and readers might get narked when the statues don't re-appear. If you say something along the lines of "The usual effects of revolution were seen -- the statues removed, the photographs doctored, the non-persons created." then it becomes background.

My feeling is if you raise it and it isn't important, you ought to make that clear, unless it is a deliberate red herring. In a short story it's particularly vital, I'd have said, because if you're taking up space in a short to say something, the reader will automatically think it's necessary.

 

[Hex]

Thank you.

I'm getting a little tied in knots between things that are there for background, things that are hints towards the plot, and things that are supposed to lead on to sequels. As long as there's no defined convention for identifying them (all hints to main plot go in italics?) then I will soldier on and let people be confused.

edit because TJ's post appeared while I was faffing. The statues (which may be a bad example) are just things in the background. They're not explained, they're just there. The specific issue I was worrying about is connected to a character's behaviour, and to background. It comes back a little in the main plot, but isn't a major part of it. Perhaps I have overemphasised it in the text.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think it is about exactly how significant you make them. I put one in the WIP that relates to the sequel and there's no reveal for yet, but no one has come back to me and said, what was the craic with the convoy of ships? they'll probably have forgotten about it by the time I refer back to it.... but too much that seems relevant and has no explanation, that might be different, cos i'd be confused.

 

[Hex]

I think I might be falling into an old snare of mine -- that things happen all the time in life that -- you know, just happen, and don't have any significance. I know (now) that you shouldn't do that in a book, and apart from emphasis -- or perhaps: and a part of emphasis -- is the order in which information is presented. So if the first thing in your books was a massive convoy of ships appearing from somewhere, I'd kind of expect to hear about them again.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Hex, the statue-less plinth is a great way to show that times have changed, and last regime's hero is this new regime's villain.

It doesn't have to mean more than that.

Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to herd all of your red herrings into one corner, and your significant duelling-pistol squids* into another corner. Not until the denouement. Or possibly the sequel.

*It has been noted that the duelling-pistol hanging over the mantlepiece in Act One must be fired by Act Three. In Science Fiction, the flintlock duelling-pistol is often replaced by a genetically-engineered poison-ink-spitting cephalopod.

 

[Abernovo]

I wouldn't worry too much. Personally, I like a bit of description in a story, so I can 'see' the world. Also, for me, part of the enjoyment is working out what is relevant and what isn't. That may be due to my love of detective fiction, where I look for clues, but as my favourite SF&F novels tend to have some element of mystery, thriller or discovery in them, I think it crosses over well.

So, background colour is good. So are red herrings and Chekhov's gun placements, so long as they are done in moderation.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Oh, and I also read a fantasy trilogy some time ago -- there were no red herrings or colourful bits of background added for no purpose other than colourful-ness. Everything was important...and so I had figured out 99% of the Great Revelations at the end of the trilogy before I was halfway through the first book. Very disappointing.

 

[David B]

If you're going to focus on a missing statue why not give it a role:

I couldn’t pass this section of the park without staring at Uncle Vlad’s empty plinth and reciting the inscription they had chiseled off, leaving it nameless. Only marble shoes remained covered in fallen leaves. I had expected the monument to outlive me until thugs cut his statue off at the ankles and hammered it into rubble. They carted the fragments away and used them as hardcore for an underpass. Vlad had been dead too long to care, but my prospects and the family’s fortune collapsed with the old regime.

 

[Sapheron]

I always get the impression that the subtle hints given throughout a book should always be mixed with, and at the time indistinguishable from, the random snippets of background information that they are fixed with. Rather than going 'Ah ha! Statues were mentioned and thus must be an important plot point!' a reader should be thinking 'That's an interesting piece of scene setting' followed up by a much later 'My God! That thing about the statues was actually of great importance; all the facts were before my eyes and yet the revelation of the mystery is still surprising and wonderful!'

 

[Hex]

Excellent. I can do indistinguishable (although the statues are still just... statues)

 

[James Coote]

You could set a scene in the statue park. In setting the scene you imply "the revolution has brought down the old Gods/heroes and now they are for people's amusement, huddled together in fear of the day even that wears off and irrelevance sells them to the scrap yard" or somesuch

Or "the plinths still had the jagged metal reinforced concrete spikes protruding from their bases, no one having come to tidy the mess left when the statues were torn down in the revolution, nor replace them with new heroes"

Point is you can reflect the post-revolution atmosphere by implication of actions taken on statues, and it only need be a couple of sentences

Also I think you're thinking of the statue park http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_Park in Budapest in Hungary. Most of the communist era statues are still around in Russia, "the heroes discredited, but the ideals they represent still present in the populaces mind, in the background, tinged with nostalgia and regret" (or at least that was the impression I got. I'm not Russian)

 

[James Coote]

Here's a good example of the statue of Yuri Gagarin near Komsomolsk na-Amur:

The locals have knicknamed it the 'towel and brick' statue, but not out of spite for a well loved Russian hero. The statue is well tended, as you can see

 

[Hex]

I've definitely been to one in Moscow too. I think it was Sculpture Park, by the Tretyakov Gallery -- though it contains lots of other sculptures, not just 'fallen heroes'.

I can't remember if I've been to Memento Park -- but I did see plinths without statues for the first time in Hungary. And the bullet marks in the walls from the 1956 revolution. It was amazing.

 

[James Coote]

Oh and speaking of Chekov, here is his statue at the museum in his honor on Sakhalin:

I'll stop posting for now.....