Dear Readers, how big is your world?

Do you measure it in feet, inches, kilometers, days of travel, or is it merely too big to imagine?
“C.R. this is an odd question. Also, why do you say ‘your world’ like you aren’t a part of it?”
As to the oddity of my question, I know there may be better things to talk about, but I like to climb on my soap box every once in a while, and I’m going to do that this time.

I should point out, however, that when I say ‘your world’ I mean the world you perceive, not the actual facts of the world. A cardboard box can be big to a baby but small to a grownup. It’s a matter of perspective, yes, but it really is almost like they live in a different world.

As a writer, getting a grasp on the size of your world can be important, too, because you control the perspective of your reader.

I like to categorize the perspectives writers take as “A Big Story in a Big World” and “A Little Story in a Big World.” 

What do I mean by these, though? Well, since for some strange reason there are many people who aren’t readers, I’m going to explain these using movies, which are similar in how they control their audience’s perspectives.

A Big Story in a Big World implies that the story has total impact on the perceived world. Have you seen Star Wars IV: “A New Hope”? The early instalment in the Star Wars series follows heroes who must blow up the Death Star. The story is told to make it clear that the fate of literally everything we see will be affected by the results of the plot. The story fits the size of the world.

But what about ‘A Little Story in a Big World’, is it even possible to tell a plot that won’t affect the world a viewer is shown? Absolutely, my best example is the movie “Finding Nemo.” A clownfish crosses the ocean to rescue his son from an Australian dentist. (For those who haven’t seen the movie, yes that is the actual plot.) Throughout the movie, the father clownfish Marlin crosses the ocean to find his son and interacts with many people who hear his story, but very few of them are actually impacted by the results.

If the characters in Star Wars fail, the universe will be forever changed, but in Finding Nemo, this is a personal journey.

Any story, no matter the genre or plot, can tell a story in either of these fashions. It’s merely a setting of the reader’s perceptions. Finding Nemo didn’t have to show us the ocean and could have just shown us a closer view of Marlin’s journey, changing the size of the world to better fit the narrative. For Star Wars, they could have shown the universe as bigger and the Death Star as smaller so that our hero’s journey seemed more personal.

Once again, the size of the world is not always the same.

That being said, let me ask again: Dear readers, when you look at your story, how big is your world? And, what would happen if you changed your perspective on it?

Until Next Time,

~C.R. Ware

P.S. – Getting to 20 reviews on amazon is a huge deal for small authors like me, if you’ve read my new book please leave a review!