WHERE AND WHEN

by Steven Steinbock

It wasn’t until the late 1700s that science began to reconcile that space and time were the same stuff. “Stuff,” incidentally, isn’t a scientific term; nor, as a noun, is it a very helpful literary term. But sometimes no other English word will do. Twenty-three hundred years ago, Euclid of Alexandria posited that there are three dimensions of space, and ever since, it’s been hard for most scientists and other linear-thinking humans to wrap their brains around time as a dimension.

Human consciousness, as expressed in two of its offspring, Language and Religion, has always known about spacetime. In English, the expressions forever and infinite don’t discriminate against space or time. In Hebrew, the word olam means “world.” But add the prefix l’ (“to” or “for”) and l’olam means “forever” in both spatial and temporal dimensions. My understanding is that the Incas had similar notions.

What does all this have to do with storytelling? Damned if I know. But it was fun thinking about it. Then again. . . .

Time and space are typically compressed in a short story. All the action takes place in a fairly concentrated chunk of time and real-estate. An epic, on the other hand, is set in unbridled space and time.

There aren’t any hard and fast rules about timespace in novels, but most detective stories, suspense novels, and thrillers are set in a rather confined span of time. My impression has always been that the action should all take place in less than a week.

But is that really true? I’m currently reading a Julian Symons novel (A Three Pipe Problem) in which the murders occur in one week intervals. And it seems to be working.

I’m also currently writing a novel that, for plot-relevant reason, must take place over a period of months. At first I was ready to throw in the towel. It couldn’t work, I told myself. The action of a mystery can’t span five months. (I’ll take advice and suggestions from anyone out there who has something to offer). I’m still not sure whether or not it will work, but I think I came up with a good workaround. I’ve confined the central action to a period of about a week. The book opens during that period with the action already underway. Then I use the next ten chapters to take readers from the initial period (more than two months earlier) up to the period of the main action. The final one or two chapters of the book, assuming I haven’t lost my readers by then, take up the action two months further down the road.

Again, if any CB readers or regulars have any experience or can think of any examples that might help me, I’d be obliged.

Serendipitous Meetings in Time and Space

Last weekend, spatial and temporal dimensions converged for a mini-Criminal Brief gathering in north Seattle. I was in the Pacific Northwest with my two sons. My stable-mate, Robert Lopresti, was driving with his wife Terri from Olympia (a couple hours south of Seattle) to their home in Bellingham (a couple hours north of Seattle).

We met at Saffron Grill, a lovely Indian/Middle Eastern restaurant resting on what I’m convinced is the exact real estate where, thirty years earlier, stood a Denny’s restaurant where I was in the habit of taking my backpack for regular late-night study sessions.

A great time was had by all, and we both look forward to the next meeting at Bouchercon in San Francisco this fall.

I’ll see the rest of you somewhere in Spacetime.