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A sense of wonder

Maybe, for me when it comes to the romance genre it's not so much wonder. For me in them, it's about the characters, their drives and ambitions and the eventual romantic entanglement. Not sure it's wonder or not, just the want of a happy ending. At least for me. Then I've always kind of been more of a character focused sort.

I think I'm extremely keyed into the psychology, philosophy (both inaccurate and accurate) that characters hold, worldviews—their habits of thinking. For me, characters and the struggles they go through, what this reveals about them and about us, human beings, can be quite wondrous.

As a teen, I began reading Les Misérables, and I never made it through the whole book, only about half. But fairly early in the book, there's a scene where a bishop lies for Valjean. Just the build-up, then that happening, had me in tears. At the time, it was a wondrous thing.

This is odd, on one hand, because I'm not religious in the normal sense of the word and wouldn't consider myself to be a Christian. But I've had the experience many times. There's the character in the movie The Mission, a slaver who breaks down then seeks absolution (and/or punishment; repentance) through hauling all this massively heavy gear, bound together, up very steep inclines into the jungle. Just the struggle, what this effort signified, (and many other bits and pieces in the movie relating to the character) was wondrous for me.

There's the bit of Salieri in Amadeus, actually several bits, where he's...immersed, to borrow another word from the thread, in Mozart's music. That one scene in particular:


Of course, that also has the benefit of the music itself, heh, and also a character, Salieri, reacting with wonder. Incidentally, that a) a character's reaction plus b) something, the music, that I as viewer can judge for myself were used in conjunction.*

I can't count the number of times I've had a sense of wonder about what was happening inside a character, or the greater significance of what was implied simply by the conjunction of various factors in a story not strictly relating to the physical milieu or even, really, to anything particularly new.

*Edit: Then, also, there's the narration: Displace one note, and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase, and the structure would fall.

Edit#2: I suppose all this is just to say that catching a glimpse inside a person, of something unexpected and very human—something that broadens the view, a revelation of sorts—can be quite wonderful, for me.

Edit#3: Also, an act of extreme heroism, an unexpected sacrifice, some kind of awesome transformation of a character (mindset, trajectory) can be wondrous for me,
 
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Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
Can wonder be reserved for certain scenes? Certain parts but not the whole shebang?
I think that's the way to do it.

You establish what's the norm for the story you're telling, and you get your reader immersed in it. Then, and only then, do you kick it up a notch.

I mentioned something earlier about pushing the boundaries. If you do that all the time, that becomes the norm, and the wonder seeps out of it.

Another way, again, of thinking about it is in the context of exploration and discovery. There's a certain excitement in stepping off the beaten path and following a new trail you've never walked before (literally speaking). You're seeing new places and new things, and you're discovering things. There's an anticipation of what you might find beyond the next hill.
It's probably just another valley, but there might be a nice view of a lake sparkling in the sunlight, and there might be another valley beyond it, and if you're curious enough, you might keep walking.

Eventually though, your legs might get tired, and your feet are getting blisters, and it's just another stupid lake in the next valley too, and you start worrying about how smooth the trail is and how steep the slope is. You get jaded, and the spectacular views that so impressed you, no longer do. It takes something else to impress you.
Perhaps a gothic castle perched atop a steep cliff, or maybe the mountains end and a cast plain of nothing but green, green grass like you've never seen before takes over - or the sea, or the edge of the world.

...anyway.
Push the boundaries, but don't do it all the time, and don't cross the line of what your reader is willing to accept. :)
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I agree, Chessie. Wonder is a kind of event that happens, not something to sustain for a whole story.
 

Chessie2

Staff
Article Team
I agree, Chessie. Wonder is a kind of event that happens, not something to sustain for a whole story.
It sounds exhausting trying to make it last the whole time honestly. :beaver: ( I don't know why the beaver. Just cuz the beaver...)
 
Wonder is probably like cliffhangers, high-octane tension and action, etc. It could be exhausting for a reader or simply become absurd if held at the same level constantly.
 
First (instructions to self), create your wonders. Size is a favorite--big or small, but make it exceptional. Grotesques are reliable--the old half-man, half-horse gambit. Take whatever you like, but give it a twist. Surprise is another, and here behavior provides a good opportunity. Make the giant kindly, the wee fairy treacherous.

I went back and listened to the Writing Excuses podcast on Wonder (11.06: The Element of Wonder). and they also mention that it's not just about being big. At one point they give the example of a package arriving. You could say merely that a cardboard box arrived: Not wondrous. Or you could use the example that Howard Tayler used. Let's suppose the box is covered with labels of everywhere it's been, and some are dated years ago while others are dated in the future. Whoa.

Lesser wonders call for less prose. I have to be careful not to wear the reader out, lest this become just one thing after another.

Sanderson brought up the concept of "basking." When there's something wondrous, that attention gets drawn to it and held on it. I suppose this can be the character needing the extra time to digest what he's seeing, if it's from a character POV. If it's from an omniscient POV, this still could give that sense of basking. More words, more prose, as the attention is fixed on the thing. In comparison to the surrounding narrative, the focus can be held and longer.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
How do I apply this in my own writing?
I've got two examples from my own stories where I feel I've managed to achieve a sense of wonder. It probably won't work for everyone, but it works for me, so hopefully it will work for at least some other people too.
Neither of these examples were specifically created specifically to instil a sense of wonder in the reader. Rather, they're points of high tension at or near the climax of the story. I'll explain what they're about and why I think they work.

The first one is the sleigh ride with the magic carrots at the end of Emma's Story.
Most of this story is quite low-key and mundane. It's about sitting in front of the fireplace and getting drunk with your friend and worrying about whether or not to accept a marriage proposal. It's mundane and pastoral, and there's nothing spectacular happening at all. However, there are references to magical and wondrous things sprinkled throughout the story: monks, gods, shamans, kin and unkin, snow speakers, and the spirit of the land. It's never shown to actually work, but the characters of the story, very clearly believe it's all true.
These are things I sprinkled in to add a little depth and wonder to the world of the story - things to get the reader's imagination jogging.

The norm of the story is pretty low-key on the fantasy aspect, until towards the end when Emma's mother shows up with some faintly glowing carrots she'd dug up from underneath the holy tree down by the river.
Emma eats the carrots, and at first nothing happens, but finally, when everything is at its absolute worst, the magical fireworks go off. There's thunder and lightning and transparent fire breathing horses and the awesometer gets turned up to eleven and then to thirteen.

Only, it might not be real. It might not be magic or the favour of the goddess. It could just be that Emma's tripping her face off on hallucinogenic carrots. You don't know for sure, but it could be real.


The second example is from Lost Dogs #3 and it's the scene where Alene finally transforms into a rainbow coyote.

She transforms into what?
That's the key here. It's established early on that Alene's a shapeshifter, and shortly after we learn she's a rainbow coyote. We don't learn what it is, but we learn that it's something that's dangerous and a bit mysterious. Later on there are mentions of antlers and of scales.
It's not until near the end of the story that the reader actually gets to see the rainbow coyote though.

In a way, this kind of breaks the rule about not showing the monster, but it had to be done. Perhaps the wonder isn't in the description of the rainbow coyote, but in the anticipation of finally seeing it. The reader might already have a bit of an idea about what it looks like.
The transformation also happens just as everything has turned from bad to worse and the tension is sky high. It may not be the rainbow coyote as such that's the source of the wonder, but the circumstances under which it appears.

Also, I do make use of the trick with showing the reactions of the characters in the story at this spot. There are plenty of witnesses when this happens, and they do react to what's going on.

Those are my examples.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Of course I don't post topics like this unless they are of direct, practical interest to me, so I might as well come clean. My WIP is entitled Into the Second World, and at a certain point in the story the characters ... well ... go into the second world. There's a long buildup, as we move from the surface down through endless tunnels to get to the center of the earth, and the moment we emerge needs to be, in a word, wondrous.

Thinking about how to pull that off is what got me thinking about a sense of wonder (and adventure) in the first place. I realized I really hadn't put much thought to it and that there is surprisingly little in the way of Sage Advice to be had on the topic. So I brought it up.

I'm writing those scenes now. Very likely, I'll post them (there will be more than one) in the Showcase once I have them presentable--hair combed, shoes tied--to get some feedback. I'm reminded of some fairly widespread advice that we need to have the courage to go big with the big scenes, and this is a big scene. The reader needs to feel that the journey so far has been worth it. Don't get cheap on me now, Dodgson!

We'll see. But as I've worked my way up (or down) to this point, I believe I have another spice to add to the mix: the buildup needs to be proportionate. Part of instilling a sense of wonder is how we lead the reader up to that moment. What expectations we create. The tone we set. Even the rhythm of the language. Not unlike how a composer orchestrates the buildup to a crescendo.

One of my favorite tunes is East/West by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. It builds to a crescendo in a fairly straightforward manner, with dual guitars (Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, oh my) and Butterfield's harmonica climbing over the top of each other, but that's not the payoff. The payoff comes as all of them cut out abruptly, leaving just Arnold's driving bass line, with hushed drums and harmonica, then Bishop on a sweet solo line. It's the contrast in tone as well as volume that's the payoff. It's like driving off a cliff, then soaring in a glider.

That, if you'll forgive the fanboy moment, is what I want to achieve to create a sense of wonder. It's the moment when they cut to color in the Wizard of Oz. It's the change from ordinary to remarkable. I recognize there are other paths to wonder. It's that buildup that I'd not thought about before.
 
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