Is 4 Billion Years of Context-Setting History Too Much?

"Too thick to drink, too thin to plow," is one of the most famous lines from James Michener's Centennial, a novel about a fictitious town in Colorado of the same name that is located on the South Platte River, which is the object of that line. Another great dig at the Platte is it is “a sad, bewildered nothing of a river….It is the butt of more jokes than any other river on earth, and the greatest joke is to call it a river at all.” It's also referred to as "the sorriest river in America".

Those are only some of the derogatory comments! But it they're driven by facts and data. The Platte is in many places barely more than collection of rocks and sand dunes with a little water running past them. For much of the river during some seasons, you would need to carry your canoe as it's too shallow to float without hitting bottom. It doesn't provide enough water to make the land around it as productive as one might hope, etc.

So why do I bring it up? Well, the opening 100 pages of Centennial is a master class in storytelling. It is probably one of the best (and most extreme) examples of context-setting I've ever read.

The book opens by explaining almost the entire 4 billion year history of Earth. Seriously, this book focused primarily on 18th-20th century Colorado, begins with the formation of the planet. That's some serious context-setting. But it is riveting.

We learn about how the planet formed, and the difference between the crust and the mantle and how certain geological forces push different types of materials to the surface. For instance, we are told about magma breaking through the crust in a particular way, which creates veins of gold, which was such an important part of the history of the American West. And those geological differences also have a huge impact on how land erodes and evolves over millions of years, how it reacts to glaciation and other forces, and therefore, how a river might develop that is worthy of mention (or not) in a story like this.

We similarly learn about the evolution of life. We learn the story again from the very beginning with single cell organisms and plants and pretty quickly we meet animals like a small unidentified mammal living many millions of years ago and we have its perspective on a day in its life, including when it sees an enormous dinosaur slowly emerge from a pond. And we follow that dinosaur and its family's adventures for a while. Each story leads to the next. We experience a bit of the life of a struggling young beaver–a very important animal in the river and for the time period of this story. We meet Rufous the bison, and a pack of wolves, and even witness an epic battle between a snake and an eagle. Eventually the first human character appears, the Native American Lame Beaver, whose story is the first primary focal point of the novel.

This fictitious tale gives us the information we need in a way that a historical timeline ("dinosaurs lived from 245 million to 66 million years ago") could never do. We feel the plight of these animals and the relevant geography in a way that sticks.

And it's important. About 400 pages later, a team of cowboys herds 3000 head of cattle for a brutal 1200 miles, eventually reaching the Platte. They're making fun of this pathetic "river", while discussing settling the land nearby. When one of the characters points to bluffs in the far distance on both sides and says that one shouldn't be so flip about this river because when it floods, it reaches both of those, we remember that context and geological history, and even the stories of the animals' experiences with the river. So that message really sinks home.

You've heard the phrase "show, don't tell". This is a master class in showing. And everything Michener shows us helps carry the story forward. All of this context-setting would be beyond silly for an article in Scientific American, but it's perfect for an American novel. We understand WHY the land is so unforgiving, WHY the river is so important even though it seems insignificant and unworthy.

So the next time you're creating content for an audience, think about context-setting. And try to show your audience what they need to know to REALLY understand the rest of the story. If that means walking through 4 billion years of history, do it! If you can get to the heart of the matter a bit more efficiently, that also might be OK.

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