Pandemic Fiction
Events that shape history not only dominate the news cycle, they eventually shape fiction across all genres. COVID-19 is yet to be at the heart of too many of the stories being released, but it is inevitable we will start to see the impact grow. This might not be stories based around the pandemic, but the little changes that impact our day to day life will start being presented more in books, film and television. Every genre may start seeing this, even if perhaps not quite as facetiously as the below examples indicate:
Romance: ‘She was dressed to impress, a skimpy face mask revealing just a subtle glimpse of nose.’
Crime: ‘Our mission in this case is not to work out whodunnit, but who hasn’t done it,’ the inspector said as they began their quest to find the unvaccinated.
Comedy: After finding out that the virus impacts your smell and taste, I started self-testing by smelling and tasting wine. It’s the first time I’ve ever been willing to have twenty-five medical tests in an evening.
As a travel author, I considered the idea of something along the lines of ‘Sarah’s Sojourn to the Spare Room.’ We’ll see about that!
Many people compare the current pandemic to the Spanish Flu pandemic and while the similarities are obvious, from a fiction writers perspective there are additional elements to consider.
The two world wars bookended a thirty-year period that also saw the Great Depression ravage humanity from an economic perspective. The Spanish Flu pandemic, though responsible for 500 million cases (a third of the worlds population at that time) and up to 50 million deaths, disappeared from the primary consciousness of humanity because of the tumultuous events that surrounded it. In a world where the news and media cycle wasn’t as it is today, Spanish Flu seemed a comparative footnote to the greater global crises.
COVID-19 has arrived in a very different world. We do live in a world that is equally as tumultuous in its own ways, but even as modern life shrinks our world, the issues dominating life are more regional than a century ago. Against this backdrop, COVID-19 has had an incomparable impact.
There are two main factors holding up COVID-19’s place in fiction. The first of these is verisimilitude, which is the desire to have legitimate and accurate background to the story. As the pandemic has progressed, the realities of its impact on life have significantly changed. What a writer would have sought to focus on in mid-2020 would have looked inaccurate and irrelevant a year later. Each new wave has seen different approaches and different outcomes dominate the international landscape. The other major factor is that people living a drama prefer to avoid having the same drama as the focus of their fiction.
The World Wars continue to feature in fiction to this day. Writers always look to the past, even to tell the stories of today. In all of the travel novels I am releasing in the next year, there are varying extents to which World War II features. Survival in Saint Petersburg deals heavily with the worst battle of the war. Getaway in Guernsey features an often-forgotten conflict from the same era. World War II isn’t directly featured in Hurdles in Hobart but the key character is the son of a scarred war veteran, so the war still has a substantial impact on the story.
I have a travel fiction story set in Berlin that is heavily built around the global pandemic and border closures. I have placed it on hold, conscious that I want it to truly reflect the scenario of the place and time. Whatever adjustments are needed, it is something I hope to release when the pandemic has been confined to history.
COVID-19 has changed the world, so that 2022 looks quite different to the world of a couple of years ago. How different it continues to look in another few years will dictate how pronounced its impact will be on fiction in the long-term. Whether we see ‘pandemic fiction’ or the lesser impact of more characters wearing face-masks and socially distancing, only time will tell.