But how do we get on with our stories?

By John Warner

By the time anyone reads this, I will have received my second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and will be just over a week away from full-powered antibody protection.

I know I am not alone in wondering how to go about living as a post-vaccinated person in a still-COVID-endemic world. I do not walk around imaging myself as a character inside a novel called “life,” but at the same time, I sometimes find it useful to turn to some of the tools of literary analysis to secure a better understanding of the world. Let’s try it.

When I teach fiction writing to novices, I tell them that “drama” comes from the intersection of freedom and agency. Freedom is the degree to which a character is constrained (or not) by external (and sometimes internal) forces. Agency is the actions a character takes within the boundaries of freedom.

Many stories essentially tell the tale of a character realizing their own possibilities of agency, or using their agency to expand the boundaries of their freedom. Conflict flows from these intersections and drives the story.

When the pandemic took hold last year, we experienced a simultaneous blow to both our freedom and our sense of agency. Not only were our activities restricted by external forces, it became difficult to know what we could or couldn’t do inside those restrictions. I’m sure I’m not the only one who left his mail outside for 24 hours. Hindsight has found this unnecessary, but who knew at the time?

Losing agency and freedom together results in is a kind of stasis, a paralysis that would make for a lousy fictional narrative. It’s proved to be less than satisfactory as real life.

Ling Ma’s “Severance” features a pandemic in which the afflicted go about minor life tasks like setting the table in an endless loop. Life felt that way for a while, didn’t it? It illustrates why we don’t write novels from the mindless zombie’s point of view.

The blow to our sense of agency also created a grief-driven negative feedback loop. Grief is the least predictable and most debilitating of emotions. Lack of agency intensified our grief, which further diminished our agency, which intensified our grief and so on.

Over time, some things improved. We practiced our agency within the boundaries of our freedom, and life became something understandable, negotiable. The narrative might not have been great, but at least we could follow it.

Now, the vaccine brings a twist: Where those who were previously being careful suddenly have new choices. From a narrative perspective, this is exciting stuff. The arrival of something that alters the balance of agency and freedom in a character’s life creates great potential for action and drama. Think of the last compelling story you encountered, and I’ll bet you find something like this at work.

Normally, I scrupulously attempt to avoid drama in my day-to-day life, but a year of a pent-up desire to be free and use my personal agency has me both excited and anxious.

I know I need to start doing things, but I’m not sure what.

If you’re worried that you’re not feeling as overjoyed and liberated as you think you should, go easy on yourself. You’re in the midst of a big plot turn, and that isn’t easy no matter how the story turns out.

Quammen

Richard Ayoade

Zoran Nikolic by Arkady Bronnikov

There are some interesting conversations going on at John’s place, based on this list. I’ll try to give him more fodder with Mark Harris’ fascinating study of the year film changed forever in America,

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