ULTRA-HARRIER TONY’S CHAIN LETTER · TO THE
SWARTHMORONS
Place characters in exotic settings
Chapter 20
My final words about artistic writing concern setting,
2Which is important up to a point,
3But only up to a point.
4In general, it is far better to place your characters in exotic settings,
5cSuch as Argentina, and Europe, and the Far East, and New England,
6dInstead of Des Moines and El Paso and Scranton,
7Because everything seems more subtle and more charged with meaning in some permanently melancholy foreign land,
8Which frequently results in epiphanies almost automatically,
9And lets you convey a sense of loneliness and isolation without ever saying a single word about alienation,
10eWhich is the most important feeling your setting can provide in modern artistic fiction.
11Besides, you don’t actually have to go to these places to write about them,
12Since it’s pretty well understood all over that if you’re a serious writer you have to live on some campus in fNew England,
13Unless you prefer to live in San Francisco or New York instead.
14Even so, you can still have your characters do exactly the same things they would do in gDes Moines or El Paso or Scranton,
15hAnd just have them do it in Argentina or New England,
16iWhich creates a whole bunch of irony automatically,
17jAnd practically ensures that everyone will recognize how brilliantly you convey the sterility of modern life,
18And man’s inhumanity to man,
19And the pain and anguish of human existence,
20kIn a sad, doomed, random world.
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Chapter 20 / 38