"The Man The Man Who Bridged the Mist" is third on my list of recognized shorts from The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2012 that I'm attempting to dissect. I'm seeking what the author did right, so as to know how to fix what’s wrong with my own work.
I'm not happy with this dissection; too much by example and too little about the author's choices, but I need to finish this and move on to other projects.
For each story, I try to answer the following questions to help me in my own work:
Why is the story good; why might it have been awarded/bought.
How does author:
- do character/alien descriptions
- put the reader in the protagonist's skin
- evoke emotional truth/reader emotion
- depict character emotion
- create mood
- handle EDACE (Eric Witchey's analysis tool, which I'm employing in a truncated fashion)
"The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by Kij Johnson was originally published in Asimov's, October-November.
For starters, I loved this story. Just loved it. Nice slow immersive world building. In retrospect, the story is on rails somewhat, and feels a tad long especially around midpoint. Re-reading it, though, it still grabs me on every page. It builds relationships as the bridge is built and the details accumulate slowly to deepen the people and the reader's comprehension of their technology and world. The story feels incredibly simple in memory but on second read is emotionally and viscerally complex. It also does something "progress" stories rarely do: it deeply honors what is lost while also showing the gains.
Why is the story good; why might have been awarded/bought.
Immaculate craft. It immerses one in a fantasy world (mist-river, two moons) yet requires its characters to deal extensively with realistic, lethal constraints.
The main characters seem real; we care about them. It's a love story about the passionate love of one's life work, the love of the wild and the dangerous and testing oneself against it, and the love of bridges. Eventually it's also about the love between the bridge builder, Kit, and Rasali, the woman whose dangerous ferrying livelihood will be eliminated by his bridge -- and for whom Kit eventually imagines giving up his beloved bridge-building for a more mutual undertaking.
Kit understands people and the politics of big projects such as this one, which makes him fascinating, and he passionately loves his engineering work, which makes him sympathetic to many fans of Science Fiction and Fantasy. He's a geek, of a fantasy sort, from the first paragraph, where he lets his trunks lie in the mud but holds his folio close; an outsider seeking a way in to these people's hearts and lives -- to get a job accomplished, yes, but he also seems to care about them as people. He does not expect this care in return. His only mistakes in the entire story are in his handling of his relationship with Rasali; saying the wrong thing, once pushing her to cross the river when it was dangerous and unnecessary, triggering in her a near recklessness that worries him (she no longer asks people to wait, crosses the mist whenever enough people want to go).
Rasali is the adventurous lover of life who tries herself against the elements and knows who she is; a deeply satisfying character who cares enough about Kit to reach past his shell.
How does author:
- do character/alien descriptions
Kit is described by:
* behavior: work first, he treats his plans better than his clothes; a planner who dislikes having his plans upset (he wanders all over Nearside trying to find someone who will take him across so he can meet Jenner and puts Valo's outburst on a mental ticker to deal with later; and a humble hard worker, a lead engineer who helps unload carts.
* how he sees places, what he notices: "Nearside was small, especially to a man of the capital, where buildings towered seven and eight stories tall, a city so large that even a vigorous walker could not cross it in half a day" (which also gives us a sense of this world's technological level) and people, "'The one in red' was tall, her skin as pale as the of the rest of the locals, with a black braid so long that she had looped it...Her shoulders flexed in the sunlight as she and the youth forced a curved plank...after three pegs, the boatwrights straightened....Strong, Kit thought." This is the first sight of the woman he falls for, and he sees not breasts, legs, and face, but height, coloring, shoulders, action, and strength.
* how he imagines another might see him: "a stranger, small and very dark, in gray -- a man from the east." His features seem irrelevant to him, merely his build and color and point of origin, much like bridges.
* thoughts, "...he didn't want to seem arrogant. The invisible web of connections he would need for his work started here...with all the first impressions.."and "Strong, I wonder if I can get them for the bridge?" "She was well liked, clearly. Her opinion would matter." He is a careful observer of people and things; he sees everything through the filter of his work; getting the bridge built.
* dialogue, which is polite yet direct, undecorative, assertive without arrogance. He says, "I could buy out the trip's fares, if that's why..." not "She'll go if I pay her enough." Several times he holds his tongue but thinks responses instead; what he does not say, who he does not reach out to, is also informative.
* beliefs: "from his work in Atyar, he knew what was to be known." (about the mist) In fact, he learns from experience but largely from Rasali and the fisherfolk, though at first he resists this (despite his awe of the blinding swath, he tries to find someone else to take him across).
*his compartmentalized, project-oriented worldview. Temporariness. Changeability? Not sure how to word this. A theme of the story, in fact its point, is the temporary nature of everything, from Valo and Rasali Ferry's swiftly passing emotions to the lives of fisherfolk and bridge builders to a bridge that will eventually crumble. Kit's belief that his time in Nearside and Farside is temporary means that the relationships must also be influences his mood as well as the story's. The larger world relationships (the independence of the secondary capitol across the river) reflect this as well.
* backstory: The backstory is very brief at first and directly connected to showing us relevant bits of his personality and experience; also told in distant third. First segment: three graphs of Kit as a geek-child: not good with other people, easy to tease or ignore, sick and happy with his books and puzzles and quires of paper, including the story of the clock he tore apart and put back together, two paragraphs -- maybe 250 words or less -- that define his character. That backstory, showing a meticulous nature that rises to a challenge, is placed after he is stymied by something beyond his comprehension, a natural phenomenon vastly more powerful than himself or anything he's built, and a woman who rides that phenomenon not by engineering or science, but via observation, experience, and intuition. Second segment: five shorter graphs, probably the same number of words, of Kit's internship at his father's side, ending with "After awhile, Kit noticed that a large part of the pattern that made a bridge or a tower was built entirely out of people." The story's nugget. Several additional pieces of backstory are placed as needed; always short although they get longer.
- put the reader in the protagonist's skin:
sensory detail: drying mud, hard-packed dirt road, golden limestone, the smell of animals living behind the inn. Gives us not just a setting but a level of technology and hints of difference from what we might expect. Burning sensation from caustic mist.
emotional detail: how he sees others perceive him, how he wishes to not offend, to make good relationships if not friends.
He's a newcomer so we learn about the town as he does, but we also are held at a slight distance, as he
holds himself apart and they forever see him as an outsider.
- evoke emotional truth/reader emotion
This is a Man "conquers" Nature or Environment story (although it's less conquer and more avoid danger)
Story nut:
man seeks to change a corner of the world
succeeds
is changed himself
The archetypical "testing self against nature" personality (and the resulting calm, "no need to prove anything" adult is depicted via Rasali's behavior and dialogue, etc. -- it's not told (although Rasali says at one point of Valo that he wants to test himself against the river) as is the self-contained competent engineer.
The sense of being an outsider is depicted in the description of interactions from which Kit is or feels excluded, in the traditional greeting and introduction that names one's home: "Kit Meinem of Atyar."
dialogue is spare. emotional exchanges are spare, adding to the emotional isolation of the protagonist and the personality of the main characters.
Kit is still the student here. Rasali is given the teaching lines; "Anything is safe until it kills you."
- depict character emotion
Choice of verb tense: past tense adds to slight distancing of emotion and character; adds to readers' sense Kit is an observer of his own emotional life.
choice of POV: distant third person, which sets the reader of as observer of Kit's life, and sets us up to see him in that way as well.
Accustomed to being in charge of at least his own schedule:
depiction by action: even after being turned down by Rasali and awed by the mist, Kit tries to find a way across the mist by talking to a fisherwoman, then clearly tramps the width of town asking everyone. Also, trust: he hesitates, but he hands Rasali his (precious) folio. And of course lust (or interest) He then hands his folio to the mason so he can help Rasali after his first trip across.
Depiction by lack:
All the descriptors and nouns and verbs beginning the story are simple. The first "technical," highly specific words come with the work Rasali is doing on the new boat; augur, rib, boatwright. The complexity of language ebbs and flows; always simple and spare around emotional exchanges except the one with Jenner, which by its nature has to somewhat technical, very specific and clear around the construction.
Kit's strongest showing of emotional and technical competence, his first discussion of his own influence and importance, is in his first exchange with Jenner -- where it matters -- not in his actions with the townsfolk. He could have been throwing all that influence in the capitol in people's faces all along, and he didn't.
stronger example: Three-quarters of the way through, the author has Kit anxious about the crossing with the rope, asking a child's question and then recognizing Rasali's joy in her work. He wonders about her emotional future, then describes the ferryfolk's brief celebration together, walking up the levee together without looking back. This is an exciting bridge-accomplishment moment for Kit, as well, and he's tried to talk to Rasali during the crossing so surely wants to now, but all we get is: "Kit left the ferry to join Jenner Ellar." His loneliness, his thwarted desire for connection with Rasali here and now, his unwillingness to reach out to her to obtain it, is unstated but clear.
- create mood
weather reflects mood. He arrives in a muddied state the day after a storm (outwardly calm, inwardly anxious on the coming conversation with Jenner and all the temporary relationships he needed to build to get the bridge done).
Too, the mist's "condition" is so essential to the story that it causes shifts in mood; his initial anxiety lightens as the mist settles; Rasali's temper and Kit's heartrate boil because the mist does; their tension with each other the day he talks her into crossing is because of the mist's unstable condition.
- handle EDACE (Eric Witchey's analysis tool, which I'm employing in a truncated fashion)
I've "diagrammed" EDACE below but many conflicts are not related to the actions of the protagonist. They arise instead from the process of building the bridge, which the protagonist is responsible for, but it's a structured process, a scaffold if you will, not a character-driven set of events. Kit is almost too perfect; he thinks of everything, resolves everything, his only flaw is his aloneness and in his interactions with Rasali Ferry. When Rasali breaches that to allow him to grieve, we know they'll be together at the end (heck, when he hands her his folio we know they will), assuming she's not the one who dies in the mist.
Kit is: determined, frustrated, awed
tries to argue with ferrywoman, is stunned by mist.
chooses to divert energy to what can be done, makes plan changes, waits, goes when she is willing to risk it
fearful, grateful
says the wrong thing, helps her with boat at Farside
is tense, possibly anxious (implied) about meeting with Jenner
is confronted by Jenner; chooses to speak blunt truth, wins Jenner's willingness
relieved, satisfied.
works. spends time with ferry woman. builds friendships.
explosives for the pilings makes the mist roil high, brings a Big One
Rasali furious, afraid, him taken aback, Kit sees something awe-inspiring and scary to ME, but no emotion shown (evoked fear?)
Does not back down, orders blasting to continue
Rasali leaves, furious?
construction death. Takes care of everyone.
worries about impact on the job, on the crew.
Rasali insists he take care of himself, too.
Grieves with her (not alone for the first time?)
Moves on, works on. "Temporary man" as an aspect of character.
falls in love, or at least in lust, with Rasali.
Changes: Learns to appreciate her schedule, to be patient
Her nephew dies in the mist.
Grieves, tries to help her and then
says the wrong thing,
misses her
Finishes the bridge. She approaches him.
love; the world "rights" itself
asks her to go with him; she agrees "for a bit."
realizes this is a loss he can prevent (is changed by the bridge and its people himself); alters his life plans
acceptance
Tells her he'll go with her.
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