The world has a way of shaping our literature, bending our writing to align with the arc of history. I began writing The Kindest Lie, my debut novel, in earnest during President Obama’s second term in office, a time when Americans were grappling with the promise and limits of hope. The racial and socioeconomic chasm of that period influenced my narrative and provided the cultural milieu for the book.
Soon, we’ll all emerge from this international health crisis into a new world order, a new normal defined by this global pandemic. I’m in brainstorm mode for book two, and I can’t help but think of how the times we are living in will inevitably change me and my approach to fiction. In these Darwinian days when we fear for our health and know that basic necessities like toilet paper are scarce, it becomes difficult to trust others. I predict that the issue of trust will appear consciously or unconsciously in our writing.
I’m wary everywhere I go now, my eyes narrowed and judging above my tight-fitting mask. Last week, I stood in the condiment aisle of the grocery store and glanced furtively at an unmasked man approaching with his shopping cart. Instinctively, I pivoted and leaned into the shelves of ketchup hoping he’d pass quickly without breathing on me. Unlike a presidential era that can on a good day be viewed as an academic exercise, what we’re living through now is an inescapable, seismic shift in our way of life. It will change us as people and it will change our fiction, too.
It won’t be as simple as modifying the fashion choices of our characters in contemporary stories by adding masks and gloves as accessories. Many of us are under stay-at-home orders and will cycle through quarantines for months and possibly years to come. As people, we crave human touch and for prolonged periods we will be starved of it. I wonder how isolation will manifest in our fiction and how deprivation will drive story. Maybe we’ll translate aloneness and loneliness in new ways on the page. But I also imagine we’ll think more creatively about connection after watching quarantined people in Italy sing their national anthem from balconies.
I like to think that I write books in a dream state, but now COVID-19 clouds my actual nighttime dreams. In a recent dream I lived on a college campus in a dorm where a classmate said something hurtful because of misinformation. I had misjudged him, too. We both realized our mistakes in this one charged moment and stood facing each other awkwardly, taking halting steps toward one another. Just as we were inches away from a forgiving embrace, we jumped back, suddenly aware that we were about to engage in the most harmful behavior: hugging. That fear will find its way into my writing and the psyche of my characters, I’m sure.
I don’t write romance, but this virus will change the love story, or at least the meet-cute part. In the past, a realistic plot might have involved two people asking to see each other’s HIV status as proof they were “safe.” Now there’s a new layer of criteria for safety that could include a rapid test for COVID-19 and perhaps another test for antibodies to determine whether a potential partner has immunity. Beyond the health considerations, dating couples in our novels will likely struggle with intimacy in this new world where trust is precarious. It’s likely been weeks since you touched your own face, let alone anyone else’s.
This health crisis adds another level of burden to communities of color and the poor who are more likely to become sicker and die from this virus. My Chinese-American friends are the newest targets of hate when COVID-19 is labeled as the “Wuhan virus.” As an author who writes at the intersection of race and class, I can’t imagine telling a contemporary story set in this year or the next that doesn’t acknowledge those realities.
A black male writer I know jokingly posted Ninja-style photos of himself on Facebook wearing a face mask and a hoodie. I commented that while this was funny, it wasn’t a safe look for a black man in America. With his trademark wry humor, he responded, “Oh, there’s a safe look for a black man in America? Do tell.” Touché. The gear we now wear to protect ourselves though may do more harm to some of us. My narratives will be incomplete without telling that story, too.
Isolation has sharpened my observation skills. I’m keenly aware of budding trees, the high-pitched squeal of birds, and the deafening silence of rush hour. Writer and social commentator Roxane Gay tweeted about watching her neighbors walk their cat and reposition their cars at random times throughout the day. Their habits have become Roxane’s fascination because this is the first time in six years that she’s been still in one place for so long. I look forward to imbuing my next novel with this newfound, finely tuned attention to detail.
The themes we pursue in our fiction will undoubtedly shift to an interrogation of the social contract: How much fidelity do we owe others to be responsible for their safety and well-being? Where does personal liberty begin and end? In spite of the bitter divide in America over these issues, we see people practicing empathy, asking coworkers, neighbors, and even online strangers if they’re really okay. I religiously followed a Twitter thread of a woman whose husband died suddenly from a non-COVID condition. I witnessed thousands of people on social media hold her hand through the burial of her husband, maintenance emergencies, and her first meals alone in her empty house. I want to bring that heart for people, for my characters, into this new world. I want to dig deeper with my characters, not accepting their first, perfunctory answers when they tell me how they’re doing.
We all know death more intimately now as we lose loved ones to the coronavirus, and thinking about our own mortality will hopefully inspire us to make every moment and every word on the page count. This global pandemic reminds me of particular lyrics from the musical Hamilton:
Why do you write like you’re running out of time?
Write day and night like you’re running out of time?
Death is the only certainty we have, the one guarantee in this life. But most of us have had the luxury of living our lives as if we just might be the ones to cheat death. However, a raging virus has sobered us, perhaps humbled us. I will write like I’m running out of time not because I might die soon, but because I need to be more intentional in my living and my writing. I have more stories to tell and I want to convey all the meaning I can in them. I will be as honest as I can be with others and myself as I cope with this new normal, exposing the fear and anxiety along with the hope.
When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the 1963 March on Washington, he talked about “the fierce urgency of now.” Those prescient words should be the rallying cry of writers today in this moment. They are for me.
I will tell the stories of what it means to live in this time. I will tell the messy truth in my fiction and I will do it now.
How do you anticipate the global pandemic changing you as a writer? How do you believe what we’re living through right now will influence your approach to fiction writing?
About Nancy Johnson
Nancy Johnson writes at the intersection of race and class. Her debut novel, THE KINDEST LIE, is forthcoming in 2021 from William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins. This is the story of an unlikely connection between a black woman searching for the son she never knew and a poor, 11-year-old white boy who finds himself adrift in a dying Indiana factory town. THE KINDEST LIE was named runner-up for the 2018 James Jones First Novel Fellowship Award. Nancy’s work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine and has received support from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, Tin House Summer Novel Workshop, and Kimbilio Fiction. As a television journalist, Nancy received Emmy nominations and multiple writing and reporting awards from the Associated Press and the Society of Professional Journalists. When Nancy’s not writing, you can often find her exploring bookstores, festivals, and restaurants in her hometown of Chicago. Nancy is represented by Danielle Bukowski at Sterling Lord Literistic.
I think it’s very early, perhaps even too soon, in the pandemic to analyze what it will do to our creative process – though it certainly cannot be ignored! Thanks, Nancy, for an excellent piece sharing your musings about it.
The question is: How much of COVID-19 should we include in the setting of our on-going or future novels – insofar as one might expect the pandemic to impact our characters (and the plot). Perhaps the most inclusive (and successful) attempt so far is Lawrence Wright’s just published The End of October, about a pandemic eerily like COVID-19. Really a prescient book. A bit of marketing luck too, in fact, it is reported that Ridley Scott has just bought the rights for a movie.
Given the long times for publication in the industry, up to 2 years from the moment you’ve finished your manuscript, it’s hard to tell how important this pandemic will really be in our lives and in our writing (unless you are writing sci-fi, as Wright did, and then anything goes).
But if you’re writing fiction that closely reflects the real world as it is (or as you, the writer, perceive it is), then we might need to wait a little longer and see how all this turns out.
Consider this: If the pandemic is over in, say 5 months, and there’s no devastating second wave, contrary to what many people think there will be (basing themselves on what happened with the Spanish flu), then long-term changes in social and cultural habits are highly unlikely. We’ll all go back to the way we were before.
How much of all of this you want to include in your ongoing work-in-progress is really not clear. And whether literary agents and editors are looking for this is not clear either. I’d love to hear what they have to say…
I’d like to hear more writers and agents comment on this as well. My next two books coming out in 2021 and 2022 are already finished, and I don’t intend to go back and add anything related to the current crisis. The two after that are in progress, but they occur in the recent past, so it won’t be an issue for those either. But after that? Who knows.
One thing I do know is that in the early days of quarantine, my agent tweeted out something to the effect of: Writers, just telling you right now that I don’t want to read your pandemic novel.
Some people want to read or watch movies about a pandemic while going through one (how else to explain that Outbreak was in Netflix’s top ten for a while last month?) but probably a lot of them don’t. They’d rather spend mental time in a world where this is not an issue. They may need books that don’t focus on fear or anxiety about the world or about the future or about personal safety. They may want books about more internal struggles than external. Family dynamics, friendship, love, and nostalgia.
And the other important thing to consider is that we as writers don’t write a particular book just because we think that’s what people want to read. We write it because we need to write it. Our own personal feelings, anxieties, and desires drive what we decide to write about. So we may need to write stories that others may not want to read.
As agent, I’ll comment. The world returned to “normal” after the Spanish flu of 1918, and while it was a different world, it was a world more changed by the Model T and the trenches in France than by a pandemic.
We could say the same about AIDS. Yes, a different world has followed but romance novels still rarely mention condoms. The greater changes have to do with acceptance of pre-marital sex, not to mention Tinder.
Fiction dates, you can’t help that. Gatsby’s world was rotary dial telephones, but his novel is still The Great Gatsby.
My point is that great fiction may contain social details and even language of its time (see Shakespeare) but what makes it great is not that. Great fiction is timeless…the topic of my next book on the craft.
Don, I’ve heard you talk about how timeless great fiction is. I’m looking forward to reading more about that.
I do believe there may be changes in human interaction because of this pandemic. For example, I’m hearing people say that the handshake as a form of greeting may disappear. Can the same be said of hugging? The way we approach human touch (whether we crave it or shun it) is on my mind these days and even if I’m writing a book set in 1970, I will be hyper-aware of touch simply because of what I’m living through now.
As always, thanks for your wisdom.
Nancy, I have to say that I don’t believe the handshake or hug will disappear. Think of the plagues the world has lived through in the past. Humans don’t stop being humans, a high-touch being, just because some people get sick when we touch them. We’ve known for a long time that touch can spread disease. But we still need it. I think the prognostications about how different human society will be are, in the long run, hand-wringing. A longer view of history helps put things into perspective in times like this.
I definitely hope you’re right, Erin! I would miss the spontaneous hugging. It’s such an important way to connect. I’m staying with my mother during this quarantine period and couldn’t imagine being alone right now with no human touch. Now as for handshaking, I do it as normal course of business in professional settings, but I don’t think I’d miss that custom if it disappeared. :)
Hi, Erin. I’ve also heard agents and editors say they’re not looking for “pandemic novels.” To me, that relates to books where the plot centers on COVID-19.
I don’t plan to write a COVID-19 book either. What’s more interesting to me though is how my experience of this pandemic will impact how I approach the family novel or anything else I write going forward. Some of that happens on the unconscious level.
Also, if I write a novel set in the first half of 2020, the characters’ interactions will be impacted. Many will be wearing masks and social distancing. So much to think about.
Thanks for your thoughts on this!
Claude, thank you for this perspective. I’m intrigued by what you said about how it may be “too soon” to analyze the impact of the pandemic from a writing perspective.
This reminds me of my Tin House writing workshop in 2018 where the author Tayari Jones suggested that it may be too soon for me to include Obama in narrative. She thought we didn’t have enough distance yet from the Obama years to interrogate it in fiction. In my book, Obama’s election places us in a certain time, shaping the way my characters experience life. I think it’s the same with the global pandemic. I do believe this moment is changing us even if it doesn’t turn out to be a multi-year ordeal.
I, too, am interested in how the publishing industry views all of this. Thanks again!
Nancy, I just started reading Hilary Mantel’s third book about Thomas Cromwell. Henry Vlll has just beheaded Boleyn and married Jane Seymour. Talk is of uncertainty, not just about the mercurial Henry but about religious affiliations that could one day raise you up and on another day, get you killed. Talk is of the sweating sickness, the plague, and the vagaries of this ‘strange new time’. In my own lifetime, I’ve seen the violence of the sixties followed by devastation wrought by AIDS and the seismic shift caused by 9/11. All those things made me double down on the story I had begun to tell. King’s words about the urgency of now apply in all such moment, but for me, especially this one. I have grandchildren now, and if I wondered before about these things would all affect me, now I wonder what kind of world they will inherit. It keeps me up nights and makes me do as you did in the condiment aisle, stepping back for self-preservation so that I can hang around long enough to find out, and hopefully to contribute in some meaningful way to a positive change. So as daunting as this all, it has given me new resolve. I’m stubborn by nature, so now my heels are dug in. Thank you for this thoughtful and thought-provoking post, and stay well.
Susan, I imagine every generation has lived through a “strange new time.” Who we are affects how we process it and the impact it has on us. As a grandmother, you have a heightened sense of urgency right now because of your grandchildren. Undoubtedly, that will influence the urgency in the narratives you craft.
Thanks for sharing!
Such a beautiful and profound piece, Nancy, as always. I keep adding sentences and deleting them … which tells me that it’s better not to gild the lily, only to acknowledge your wise and eloquent words.
Barbara, thank you for that. Sometimes it’s hard for me to find eloquent ways to express everything that is so pressing for me in the moment.
I’m glad my words resonated with you.
Nancy, you made me rethink a few things. This is a time of profound adjustment and I’m going to admit that my work has faltered during the past three plus years. The joy in writing is often replaced by anger and sorrow and now, for certain, it is at a new height. So when I do write, I lose myself in the novel of another time. Not the time of Hilary Mantel, but some years back where again people walked through their world able to concentrate on “normal” things and deal with the challenges they face. I have never been a fan of dystopian literature, I don’t read it. Thus I’m not doing well with the reality around me. My conclusion is that a pandemic probably will not feature in my work, ever, that I will cling to the normality I so desire and find comfort in the lives of my characters who don’t know plague. But your piece is amazing, as always, and I hope someday to sit and talk “writing” with you–and no masks needed.
Beth, I can’t wait to sit with you someday unmasked and talk writing again. :)
I think we’re all longing for what used to be normal, even with its flaws and absurdities. We knew what to expect, which was often more of the same when it came to injustice, lack of empathy, and all the issues you and I have discussed. But I do think that the issues we lamented in the past are magnified now in the age of this pandemic, unfortunately. While I will never write a classically dystopian novel, I can’t help but wonder if some of those themes will be unavoidable in the “normal” books I write next.
Thanks, Beth.
Hey Nancy – God, I love it when we’re treated to one of those deep-dive essays here on WU. The kind that take time to be absorbed, and that you’ve got to let steep, and then they hang with you–become a part of our cumulative writerly experience. This is one, for sure.
I’m in a sort of unusual position (although I suspect it’s far from rare). Since I began, I’ve been working on a series of stories with an overarching set of themes, a generational cast of characters, all set in the same story world. As the years go by, and our world evolves and changes, I keep working along. And, of course, I absorb and process, and I’m sure my stories change as a result. But in some ways, it amazes me how little the events of my stories have changed. And still, in those events I can see the applicability of almost every circumstance that’s arisen over the course of their creation.
I was thinking about all of this as I read Claude’s and Erin’s comments above. And I feel like it’s one of the underappreciated aspects of my chosen genre (epic fantasy). It’s considered escapism by many, of course, and it truly can be. But the aspect that I think is underappreciated by those who don’t read epics and SFF with broad worldbuilding is the applicability. It carries us outside so that we can truly look back in, and see from a new perspective.
George Lucas has said, regarding all of the various aspects of the Star Wars Universe ““You see the echo of where it all is gonna go. It’s like poetry, sort of. They rhyme. Every stanza rhymes with the last one.”
I can easily see aspects of the current circumstance (the divisive politics, the pandemic, the resentment of a societal “old-guard”) in my storytelling. It was already there, and I often feel like my stories are being outdone and made obsolete by current events. But I wonder. If I do my job well, will my stories offer that escape and outside view? Am I providing a stanza that rhymes just enough to offer a prism for new understanding?
I hope so. And that hope is what keeps me going. Wonderful essay, Nancy. Thanks much (and also to the other commenters) for the deep-dive and the introspection and new perspective.
Vaughn, thanks for this thought-provoking perspective. Can your work ever be made obsolete if it’s timeless, as Don mentioned above? This pandemic may change the circumstances of our lives but things like love and truth and resolve will always remain.
I’m fascinated by the concept of escapism, too. Can we write escapism well when we’re fearful of fellow shoppers in the grocery store? I’m curious about how our current mindset and circumstance will impact our ability to step outside of that reality on the page.
So much to ponder. Thanks for thinking about all this with me!
Nancy, I love that quote from Rev. Martin Luther King. And what a beautiful essay–not a single one of us will be unchanged by this pandemic. I, too, feel the urgency to write the stories that burn within me, but as a person who’s always thought about death, it is the norm for me. My life isn’t much different now since I was already a homebody but I’m still surprised when I see people wearing masks while they’re out walking in the fresh air.
I’m sure there will be stories about love in the time of coronavirus but human nature what it is, I doubt the stories will be any different. Risk vs. security is a timeless theme.
Vijaya, I like what you’ve said here. We’ll be changed forever by the pandemic, but we’ll also be the same. Yes, I believe both can be true.
I’m glad you connected with the idea of writing stories that burn within you. Sometimes, I wonder if people are giving me the side-eye when I speak so passionately about that. But sometimes I feel that “running out of time” urgency. It fuels my work so I’m going to keep leaning into it. Thanks again!
Nancy, thanks for such a thoughtful post. You raise so many important issues about how writers live and make sense of our world, and how COVID-19 will affect each of us going forward. I just finished reading Ron Chernow’s excellent biography, Alexander Hamilton. One of the chief take-aways for me was that self-interest almost killed the fledgling democracy in the years after America won its independence from England. And, we see it today, but that’s a subject for another day. For me, I haven’t written any new fiction since I started graduate school 20 months ago. Having graduated, I need to get back to my manuscript, which is almost ready for publication. I am unsure how, or if, I will address COVID-19 in my writing. It has brought out the best and the worst in people, but it has also meant a new appreciation for social contact and a thankfulness for the gifts we all enjoy. Thanks for such an insightful post!
CG Blake, I need to check out that Hamilton biography. This resurgent interest in the Founding Fathers keeps reminding me that American experiment is still somewhat new and fragile. The self-interest of that time is still threatening our democracy, the “union” more imperfect than perfect. The current crisis just illuminates and exacerbates our fault lines.
Yet, like you, I’m grateful for small moments of kindness and social contact that I once took for granted.
Thanks for your perspective.
Nancy, thanks for your feedback. As an avid reader of historical biographies, I have concluded that some of the fissures and fault lines dividing our country, which date back to its founding, still exist. Flash points and crises, unfortunately, have a tendency to magnify them, rather than to bring the nation together. Writers and artists play an important role in bringing about a better understanding of the human condition, with all of its capacity for greatness, as well as its faults. Again, I enjoyed your post and best wishes on your new book!
Nancy, hello! What a poignant, true, and heartbreaking essay. I doubt I will write “about” the pandemic, but this experience is changing our world so fundamentally that I feel it’s bound to impact my writing. I’m copying/keeping this essay to read again and again. Thank you!
Hi, Gerry! I’m so glad this piece resonated with you. Like you, I don’t plan to write about the pandemic either, but the experience will undoubtedly influence my writing.
Great seeing you here!
Nancy, I’m always impressed with the roads you take us on – especially when they’re hard to think about. Thanks for yet another great piece.
While I’ve found myself gasping lately when characters on TV or novels don’t wash or social distance, I feel it’s too early (for me) to change course on my novels. Shorter pieces for immediate publication? Yes. But there will be so much more to learn about Covid in the year or two before a new novel would be published. I would be sad if, after so many, many deaths, I could determine how this disease changed our society that easily. I don’t have the bandwidth, but I’m sure there are others who will get that vision quickly.
Thanks, Michele! Yes, as a reader, I’m hyper-aware of human proximity and distance now in books.
The staggering U.S. death toll has already surpassed that of American death in the Vietnam War. This is our war and history tells us that war changes us. It has to. But I think you’re right that we won’t know the ultimate impact for quite some time. Maybe it will only be years later in retrospect that we will truly understand it.
Thanks for weighing in on this!
Great post, Nancy, with much to ponder. The days are different, so is the aloneness in a home without my guy. My suitcase has not been put away since my husband passed away, always beckoning me to get out and explore rather than face what our home feels like without his presence. Now, with the stay at home order in place, I can’t bring myself to stow the suitcase back in the loft where it belongs. It’s a token of hope, that better days will come again. In the meantime, I’m confronting an aspect of grief that I’ve avoided, and that is what does life look like from now on. Your words, “because I need to be more intentional in my living and my writing,” struck me as exactly what I’m choosing to do going forward. Thank you for putting the words in play for me.
On a happier note, I’m finding daily pieces of joy amidst the tragedy that is unfolding on a global scale. My neighbors, who have always waved a hello or spoken a few words as we go about our daily lives, now chat at a safe distance, check with each other to see if their are needs. my next-door neighbor children have chalked messages of hope up and down the street, and covered my driveway with messages of love and fun. I bring flowers from the garden inside, and take long walks through the neighborhood. My current work in progress has changed, I tossed a lot of what I had and started over to deal with the broken trust in the story, I arrived at a similar thought process to yours as I’m considering what trust is going to mean culturally in the future. I also almost climb into the shelving if someone gets too close, and am relieved that now masks are required in the stores I shop in. It’s hard to imagine sitting at a concert, a ballgame, a crowded restaurant, and yet we will…someday. I guess I’m focusing on hope. Hope that we become a better people, a more caring people, that we pay more attention to our loved ones needs, and what we can do in our communities to help those who need support. Thank you, Nancy, for your words today.
Deb, please accept my condolences on the loss of your husband. I can’t imagine grieving alone as you are. But I am so glad you’re experiencing moments of joy through it all.
The broken trust is something we’ll all have to grapple with for some time. Thanks so much for sharing.
Nancy, thanks for your feedback. As an avid reader of historical biographies, I have concluded that some of the fissures and fault lines dividing our country, which date back to its founding, still exist. Flash points and crises, unfortunately, have a tendency to magnify them, rather than to bring the nation together. Writers and artists play an important role in bringing about a better understanding of the human condition, with all of its capacity for greatness, as well as its faults. Again, I enjoyed your post and best wishes on your new book!
Nancy,
This is another of your posts that I’m marking to re-read and think through.
I think we’re still too mired in the morass to fully grasp if and how this pandemic will change our society. Like another person noted, I’m hoping for positive changes.
I’d love to see these circumstances teach humans to be better at building and maintaining equitable communities. But I’m also not sure we have the willpower needed to make those changes.
I am absolutely certain, though, that it will change my writing and my priorities as a writer. I have already started the painful process of examining how I spend my days and asking if that’s really the best use of whatever time I might have left. None of us know the number of our days, and this present situation emphasizes that.
It’s morbid to dwell on it, I know. However, I also think that impulse is a part of why I’m a writer. I need to analyze and pick apart how things work. I’m always looking for the whys and wherefores of it all.
As an editor on a ‘zine, I’ve already seen a few pandemic stories that are clearly reactions to the present moment. And I don’t think those stories were as polished, reflective, and insightful as they could have been if the writers had given themselves some distance to reflect on their words.
But who’s to say that my take on those stories was accurate? Perhaps they were exactly what another reader needed now.
Please keep asking these tough questions in your posts. I love an opportunity to dig deep and reflect, and your posts always provide that.
Ruth, thanks for weighing in on this. You’re right that it’s hard to know the full impact of this moment while we’re still living in it. We may need the perspective of distance. I can imagine that many of the stories coming in to your ‘zine probably feel rushed and reactive.
I have no plans to write a pandemic story but I wonder if this experience will still permeate my narratives. This passion I feel to do more, to do better with my creativity is something I want to hold onto if I can.
I’ll continue to ask the tough questions because I can’t help myself. I’m glad to know that my musings helped your reflection, too.
Another powerful essay. Thank you for sharing!
Hi, Alison! Great seeing you here. I’m glad you enjoyed the piece. :)
Hi Nancy,
These are certainly tough times. We all are or at least most of us are locked in our homes and it is tough for many people to stay indoors.
This pandemic has shown us a lot about how people react when there is an emergency. We have seen people fight for toilet paper while they should have got more food, medicine, or even sanitizer.
It has shown us what our priorities are and what they should have been.