Social peril is a fantastic tension point in stories of all genres and styles of writing: Bridgerton-type society romance and drama, the precise contemporary observations of literary fiction, pacy commercial fiction, historical fiction from last year to the Ice Ages, fantasy and science fiction... Basically, wherever you have a society, you have the opportunity for social peril.
It’s something that we personally feel as an intense threat, it’s about as bad as threats can get for a human, but it’s hard to explain to others why it would be so bad. It’s hard enough to explain in our own lives, even harder when the society you’re writing about is removed in time, place, or imagination, or simply in sub-culture.
“But Mu-um, everyone will look at me!”
“So?” says Mum.
I mean, really: what’s the worst that could happen?
Good question! Exactly the question we, as writers, need to be asking – and answering. So here’s a plotting exercise that’s great for turning internal fears and existential crises into tangible events. It’s also very helpful for creating a richer sense of society in story and for practising story shape. So give yourself the gift of 10 or 20 minutes’ writing time, grab your notebook, pen, and a cuppa, and let’s explore that.
1. Pick a society
Pick your society: Regency high society, the Stone Ages, a ship’s crew, a small English village, a secondary school, the magi in your epic fantasy, a fast-paced law firm, whatever. If you have a story in progress, you can use this to explore it. If you don’t, pick whatever tickles your fancy.
You can do the rest as a 10-minuter or a 20-minuter, as you prefer; just follow the shorter or longer time suggestions.
2. Brainstorm: what are the very real and practical ways someone relies on the group? (3 or 6 mins)
Be as specific as you can, at this point. If you’re using your own story, you’ll be drawing on the specific situtation of one of your characters. If not, let the character details emerge through the brainstorming. For example, if I chose the Stone Ages, a Stone-Age hunter needs others to hunt with, and also needs gatherers for other food, etc.
There are a lot of ways that we formally and informally rely on each other. Brainstorm as many different things as you can.
3. Brainstorm: What are the very tangible, practical consequences of social disgrace? (3 or 6 mins)
If they’re outcast, whatever that means in your society, what happens? For example, my Stone-Age hunter can only hunt small game if they’re working on their own; they might not have access to a fire, so they’ll be eating it raw, which is more of a health risk and less nutritious; they won’t be getting the gatherers’ food, so will probably start getting scurvy, or might poison themselves gathering the wrong thing; the furs from their small game would rot because they don’t know how to handle those properly... and so on.
Use the ideas from your first brainstorm and anything else that emerges. As you brainstorm, more details about both the character and the society will start to emerge and sharpen.
4. Turning it into story (rest of the time: 4 or 8 mins)
Now you know exactly what’s the worst that can happen, it’s time to whisk all that together into story, with five questions:
- What could cause social disgrace? (eg in my Stone-Age society, that might be stealing food, killing a pregnant animal, etc.)
- Who specifically would turn against them? This needs to be the majority, but think of some specific influential people, to show it happening. (If you’re making this all up as you go, you can just jot bare details, eg “tribe leader”.)
- How might you stage out the disastrous consequences? You don’t want all the bad things to happen at once, so arrange them in order of what happens. (You can just number your brainstorm in order of size of disaster / logical order)
- Who might stay on their side, even a bit? This is definitely a minority, and they might not be able to speak out, but they do care. Think of one to three specific individuals.
- What could restore their name?
Et voilà! Social peril, that so-human but so amorphous fear, is turned into stuff that happens. Which is exactly what we want to do, as storytellers.
And if you want to explore more ways to bring your stories alive, you can still join the Immersive Fiction course in person in Oxford: a hands-on eight-week evening course, taking a deep-dive into the four elements that most make fiction immersive. All in a friendly, supportive atmosphere with no social peril, and a lot of fun!
Bookings for the in-person course close this Monday 11 May. Click here to see all the details and book your place.
