Creating Reality With Words

We viewed the latest Bruce Willis flick, Surrogates, last night. While the movie had the usual shoot-em-up and save the world plot we've come to expect from Willis, I cannot say I was very impressed. I walked away with ten questions about how the plot does not hang together.

Anyway, what got me going is how this relates to the work of a novelist. We do not have access to the technology to simulate a world that allows users to interact with that environment. Most current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, with some advanced ones offering added auditory and even tactile information. In Willis's Surrogate world all senses are engaged as the surrogates interact in place of the humans, who remain safely on a couch in their homes receiving feedback.

So what does the writer have to work with? Words, only words. We create words in endless combinations so as to evoke a response from you, the reader. We use words to take you into this reality that we are creating. We depend upon your imagination and your experience of reality to evoke an emotional response.

Consider the following excerpt from my next novel, Freya's Child. It is a crisp fall night, shortly before midnight. We are deep in the woods of northern Minnesota, watching Hulda, the Wiccan Priestess perform a mystical rite to call forth a response from the gods. What is your response to the scene?

At the final circle on the west Hulda drew a fourth pentacle and  paused, searching the darkness of the forest. “Give me the heart and liver,” she commanded. 

Al unfolded the bloody leather pouch and handed the organs to her. His hands were sticky from the congealed blood on the organs and their pouch. The smell nauseated him. With the heart in her right and the liver in her left, she resumed her previous keening. Her shrill voice echoed through the woods and bounced back from the lake. Higher and higher rose her singing until Al thought his head would burst from the sounds entering his ears. Again he fell to his knees, trembling so violently he could not control his limbs. Tears poured from his eyes and spittle from his mouth. 

Suddenly a large black shape appeared at the edge of the clearing. It was a bear, undoubtedly the one to whom the cave belonged. It growled and moaned and growled again as it rose on its back feet to a height of eight or more feet. Al could see huge, wretched claws extended from the great paws, but was frozen where he was. At some level he was aware he was soaking his pants with his own urine, but was completely unable to do anything about it. 

The bear advanced toward the motionless Völva. As it approached she stopped her shrill singing and fell to her knees to place the deer’s bloody organs in the middle of the circle. The bear dropped back to all four feet and padded silently to the circle. In two swift gulps it devoured first the heart and then the liver. Then, licking its chops, it made a strange moan as it came nose to nose with Hulda. She did not move. After a few seconds, the animal backed away and bent down to grasp the deer rump with its powerful jaws. Whining, it turned away from Hulda’s circle with the deer meat in its mouth, padded to its cave and disappeared into the inner darkness.

As I said, all we have to work with are words.