#immersion

Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now

at M+ Hong Kong

I am no expert here! Whenever I wrote historical fiction it was anachronistic historical fiction. This advice is from a reader’s perspective and from my experience writing high fantasy.

So what’s the deal with immersive dialogue? I’m going to ignore writing dialects and accents and so-called “old English” with the thee, thy, thou and such. Solely focusing here on the narrative telling me this isn’t set in present times, and yet the dialogue being painfully colloquial like present times.

This is coming from a book I had to read set in HRE times. In it, characters were spouting modern curse words, tacking on verbal tics and crutch words like “or something” and “um” and drawing out words like “daaaamn” and “nooooo”. Rip out the dialogue and toss it in a script with zero context and it would read like two high schoolers from 2009, not two adults from the Holy Roman Empire. Which is a problem, because it completely shattered the immersion. —

1. On so-called “formal writing”

Everybody knows that nixing contractions doesn’t do a damn thing to help your writing look more “formal”, it just looks robotic and stiff, right? We’ve gotten past this as a society? There’s a time and a place for replacing contractions with the full words, but not for every single sentence.

I swear this show keeps creeping into my writing advice but here we go. Transformers Prime. The context for Optimus’ dialogue has a lot to do with his aging voice actor, Peter Cullen, and the perception of the character over the decades from the corny 80s paragon hero everyman type leader to the grizzled and wizened old soul type leader. Optimus isn’t “one of the guys,” he’s old. Very old. He’s the dad of the group (one dad, his grumpy medic is the other dad).

So he gets lines like:

“I fear Megatron’s ambition is at its zenith.”

“But if his return is imminent as I fear, it could be a catastrophic.”

“I bore Skyquake no ill-will.”

He doesn’t curse like the other Autobots. His voice only raises in surprise, horror, or rage. He doesn’t go “um/ah/so/but/eh” and always thinks about what he’s going to say well before he says it. Despite him, Ratchet (the dad medic), and Megatron all being very old, Optimus is the only one who’s “proper” and collected and dignified with his lines. The writers didn’t achieve this simply by omitting contractions, he gets them where necessary and removes them when effective (e.g “We do not.” / “We don’t.”)

2. Thesaurus Rex

Continuing with the Optimus example, no other character in that show would use “zenith” unironically. Or “ill-will”. This doesn’t mean crack open and abuse a thesaurus but there’s a huge divide between:

“Megatron’s gone crazy and he’s going to implode soon” and “Megatron’s ambition is at its zenith”.

I can’ think of a better word to use than dignified, perhaps distinguished to describe his dialogue.

He doesn’t say “what?” when he’s confused, he pauses and says something like “please elaborate”.

This is both word choice and a syntax issue so if you’re struggling to fit a non-contemporary vibe for your work, pay attention to both.

3. When to abstain from cursing

There’s something very special about the dialogue in the Lord of the Rings movies: It’s PG-13 so they can’t curse, but if they had, it would have probably ruined the trilogy. These characters are able to yell in rage and anguish, spit vicious insults at their enemies, and stare down armies that are determined to kill them, all while never breaking the immersion.

Insults like:

“Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear.”

“Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth, you witless worm.”

“Your words are poison.”

And all three were said by or about Grima Wormtongue.

Characters aren’t dumbasses, they’re fools, with the exception of Gollum’s insults toward Sam, the “stupid, fat hobbit”.

Even devoid of name-calling, Denethor absolutely trounces his second son by asking (and I’m paraphrasing) “Is there any man here willing to do his lord’s bidding?” right after Faramir expresses some apprehension about a suicide charge with his remaining soldiers, completely ignoring him and implying that he’s not a real man.

LOTR is full of juicy lines beyond curse words, too. One of my absolute favorites is: “Dark have been my dreams of late” as opposed to “I’ve been having nightmares lately.”

Do you see?? It’s poetry. The motif of Shadow and Darkness as if they’re real, physical things, all the lines of poetry pulled straight from the books like Theoden’s “where is the horse and the rider” monologue just before Helm’s Deep.

It’s dignified.

—

This one was a bit harder to, ironically, put into words without doing a full-blown case study into either franchise’s ability to write dialogue and monologues. I didn’t even talk about Ratchet’s several monologues (one of which was done perfectly in the sound booth on the first take) because Jeffrey Combs has a voice like ambrosia.

TLDR: Immersion goes far beyond your vivid setting descriptors and the clothing or the names and languages. I mostly write fantasy and sci-fi and whenever I read or watch fantasy and sci-fi that isn’t meant to be a world different from our own, or about characters who don’t speak modern English, and they go off with modern slang, syntax, and verbal tics, it just feels sloppy and weak. Pay attention to the following:

Syntax

Modern slang and jargon

Filler words/verbal tics

Curse words/curses

Flat, unmotivated vocab

This is my guide on how to quickly and efficiently level up your ability to immerse in your mindscape. By following these tips and tricks, you can anchor yourself and make mindscape exploration a valuable tool for switching and relaxing in your personal paradise. It’s a common precept that figuring this out requires trial and error, also that it takes a very long time. I believe the reason it takes some people so long is that they’re training in an inefficient way (though I may be wrong!). These tips will help develop your abilities quicker, leading to great progress quickly. It's better to view this as not a "master skill within days", but rather a marathon of constant improvement. Keep your expectations low to avoid demotivation.

One: Training. Every. Day.

If you want to build your skill, or any skill, the key is consistency. This is definitely, in my point of view, THE most important factor for developing your ability to immerse. By training every day, you fall into the mindset that every day is better than the previous one. It’ll take time for results to show up at first, but after even a week of this you’ll see your ability is better than Day 1. 10 minutes a day is much more effective than an hour once a week. You can start small and build up as the weeks pass, start with 5 minutes if you have to.

Two: Increasing working memory

Working memory is basically the human equivalent of RAM. The more RAM you have, the more you can focus on before you get overloaded. There’s many ways of improving working memory, from Dual N Back to Complex Working Memory training (both of which are available here). This, of course, is more effective if you TRAIN EVERY DAY. It’ll be hard but very much worth it. Also, as you train every day the amount of working memory required to immerse will decrease as your brain develops more efficient ways to immerse. All while your total working memory increases. Working memory is also needed to immerse while another headmate is switched in, as they’ll be using it to function as well. Start with easy tasks like immersing while another headmate does something simple like counting to 100, then as your ability grows graduate to immersing while another headmate takes a walk. We used Ultimate Custom Night to help learn this: Scout (one of my headmates who switched in) would play with a low score and I would immerse and keep my senses in awareness while sitting in a chair. Then, as he passed night after night we’d gradually add more score and I’d do more complex things like doing exercises and walking in mindscape. 

NOTE: There's still uncertainty on how effective working memory training is, but I and many others have seen improvement in my abilities from developing it, so I think it's worth it.

Three: Improving visualization

Visualization is a skill that can be developed just like any other skill, and there’s SO MANY ways to improve it. Here's a good resource on it, as well as this and this. You can do this skill all the time during everyday life, like imagining animations while listening to music or reading fiction. Getting to a point where you can visualize easily will do wonders for your journey.

Four: Anchoring your senses

You want to be able to feel your senses in mindscape without directing conscious energy towards it. This mirrors everyday life; you don't need to think about feeling cold when going out on a winter night, it just happens. You can start with a single sense, then when it’s developed to your liking evolve the habit by adding another sensation. Be careful to not neglect the sense you just formed, it’s easy to forget about it after training it. For example, I started with feeling my bare feet on various mindscape surfaces, then kept going until it was second nature. After, I decided I wanted to feel my tail behind me, so I imagined how it would feel. Then, I’d constantly keep that sensation in my awareness until it got strong enough to barely need to focus on it. I’d go on to add more senses until I was satisfied. You can use the anchoring techniques used to stop yourself from dissociating, but for the mindscape. Find 5 things to see, 4 to feel, 3 to hear, 2 to smell, and 1 to taste. Then, take one of each to keep with you for as long as you can. I like to use gum for taste; as you chew on it constantly you can set a timer to aim for in order to get a concrete way to measure yourself. Start with a minute and go from there! Then, try to go for a streak of how many intervals you can achieve in a row. This is an excellent way to measure your success. As the skill gets better you’ll have spare RAM to either intensify the feeling or lengthen the duration, forming a loop of constant improvement. Eventually you’ll find yourself immersing much more efficiently, which will help prevent snapping back to the body.

REMINDER: keep safe while doing this, y'all.

Five: Create a meditation routine...Meditation is an excellent way to help develop your habit as it promotes neuroplasticity, a powerful brain functions that helps form your routines. The more of this you have, the less time it’ll take to form your habit, freeing up more time to develop the routines. There’s also many other benefits to meditation that’s a nice bonus!

Six: Create an “Immersing Room” in mindscape

By having a constant area that never changes you can develop a habit to help anchor yourself quickly every time you switch out. I have a meditation room that’s simply a large floating bedroom, but with glass for walls. Every time I switch out I go to this room and perform the 5-4-3-2-1 method to help anchor within a few minutes. Then I do whatever it is that I want to do in mindscape. By doing this repeatedly you’ll form a habit to instantly anchor yourself without even needing to think about it.

Seven: Practice without switching out

By switching I mean transferring bodily control to another headmate. You don’t have to be switched out to develop your habits. While in the physical body you can imagine chewing a piece of gum or feeling a phantom limb, then when you switch out you’ll find that you need less brainpower to achieve the same effect.

Eight: Log your results

Logging your progress periodically gives you the ability to more effectively check in on yourself. Reread your logs to keep track of what works and doesn’t, and plan your next steps accordingly. This also contributes to neuroplasticity.

Nine: Reward yourself

By rewarding yourself for a job well done you encourage the brain to develop the skill faster, as the subconscious links the two together. You can also create motivation to practice more for more enticing rewards.  The subconscious will be conditioned to equate good progress to more rewards (leading to more desire to practice), and you can reduce bad habits for an extra bonus. For example, I want to reduce my time spent on my phone, so I abstain from it until I do a great job for the day. You can get very creative with this, literally anything can be a reward if it’s something you desire. Use small rewards for small progress and adjust as you do more intense training. As I’ve said in a previous post, I’m definitely more motivated to go above and beyond if I’ll get a brand new GPU for an intense goal (It’s an extreme example but it still applies).

Ten: Get good rest

Getting a full night of sleep cements your habits much more effectively than being sleep deprived, as you’ll have much more energy to spare for it. By being sleep deprived, you severely handicap your ability to learn new things like habits. If you’re constantly sleep deprived, gradually nudge yourself in the right direction by getting into bed at a regularly scheduled time, reducing screen time as bedtime approaches (read or log your progress instead!), and other common antidotes listed here.

Also, if you’re training heavily every day, take some days for lighter sessions. Mental fatigue can be pretty detrimental as you’ll accidentally form bad habits if you overlook something.

Eleven: For those of us with ADHD

ADHD will definitely affect your progress, but there’s many steps you can take to reduce interference. ADHD messes with the brain’s reward system, so you’ll have to think outside the box to do well. We crave instant gratification, so we’ll need other techniques to improve our progress. This is where gamifying the process, rewarding yourself, and taking short breaks really shine.