In the weeks since Corona, people crammed grocery store checkouts, fought over the toilet paper and barricaded their doors to any outsider.  Why? Fear of dying? Well..yes. But there’s a bit more to it. You see, the virus breeds a particular type of fear for the fear of death is not equally applied to our reality. For example, swimming pools kill 10 people a day  in the US, yet there’s no unified call to fill them up. Automobile crashes kill over 3,000 per day and no medical officer has stood behind the podium with the appeal to scrap cars. So why do we not fear pools and cars as we do the virus? 

Chaos.

Swimming pools are polite and lazy creatures. They go out of their way to be recognized and will never leave your yard to go on a nocturnal killing spree. Cars do as we say and are easy to negotiate with. They’ll readily agree to wear winter tires, and add on airbags, lane departure systems and anti-lock brakes if we’re willing to pay the price.  And when we broker such deals, we feel secure that we have some control over our safety. We can also modify our driving behavior during differing weather conditions, keep sober and obey the established traffic rules, all of which serves to further minimize our risk to fatality. In other words, these modern accoutrements give us a sense of mastery as we hurtle down reality’s freeway and to a great degree – make the road-trip – predictable. The virus is nothing but. It spreads before we know it’s there, lulls us into a sense of security once the transmission rate drops and springs back with a vengeance when life resumes again. And so, there is no way to negotiate with it and no easy means to control it without upending modern life and all those nice accoutrements that we have become used to.

And so, the virus is like chaos in a way swimming pools and cars are not. That is, chaos is a threat to the established order of things and thus represents a godsend to writers who should exploit its psychological impact. Right?  Yes. But wisely.

One way, would be to craft the villain as the embodiment of chaos itself.  Think Star Wars ‘A New Hope’. Few things upset the natural order like Darth Vader destroying your planet with the Death Star – especially if he sounds like James Earle Jones. Now, far be it for me to say, but I think George Lucas played his chaotic hand too quick, because – where do you go from there? When the forces of good knock out chaos itself, who then becomes the number one contender? And so, the Empire Strikes back and Return of the Jedi are simply one elongated movie – starting and ending with a Death Star. 

I believe there’s a better way to do it. Think of Game of Throne’s many villains and the endless anticipation we experienced with their rise and fall. As terrific and terrifying each of them was, none of them represented a purely existential threat to the entire order. Sure, the heads of the ruling house would roll, but for the average serf, things would pretty much be the same – dig, plant, harvest and die penniless.  George R. R. Martin’s brilliance was that he had revealed the chaotic threat all along, here and there like whispers in a cold wind – the White Walkers. Just when it seemed like things in the kingdom were about to be settled, he unleashed them, and their zombie-making superpower made serfdom look like a gold-plated job for life.  The Seanchan in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is another true embodiment of chaos that is hinted at and acknowledged here and there while the heroes and villains vie for dominance. And once they do, that thing that skulked in the shadows, and lulled you into a sense of security is ready to rise and strike.

What better way to set up your sequel? In Star Wars, they used the chaos card early and had little else to do but recycle it for two more films. Game of Thrones and the Wheel of Time chose to hide it in the shadows, just like a virus, and let it worm its way slowly into the psyche. So fill your stories with swimming pools and cars but have that thing that threatens to tear everything asunder lying in wait. Chaos is a valuable tool for an author and not one to be squandered. Reveal it here and there while you let the conflict unfold, lull your reader into a false sense of security as the dust settles, and then, bring it out clean house.

Cheers!
BG