Yeah, But What If…

Dad joke warning.

Which is smarter an English teacher or a math teacher? The answer is simple—the English teacher. He knows the value of every letter while the math teacher is still trying to figure out the value of x. In much the same way physics lags behind.

Physicists theorize that there are multiple universes containing every possibility for every choice ever made all existing simultaneously. It took them a long time to come to that conclusion. All they really needed to do was ask a writer. Writers have always thought this was so. From the time man figured out that he could use squiggly marks to denote the sounds of speech writers have been exploring unseen universes. The best writers are out there creating even more universes.

This happens when a writer observes an occurrence in this universe and responds with, “Yeah, but what if…” Suddenly, with a big bang, the alternative he imagines takes on its own reality. It's a vague sort of reality at first, like a black and white movie, until the writer adds the color and special effects.

It gets even more complicated. While adding effects and plunging protagonists into seemingly unending peril, the writer creates layers of “what if”. If all goes well, the protagonists and antagonists get in on the game proposing their own set of variables and pestering the writer to include those too.

Before you know it, you have arachnid-like creatures who are masquerading as clowns infesting sewers, zombie beavers, giant lizards and apes terrorizing major cities, and killer cockroaches from outer space landing in Wyoming. I know you’re thinking, but that’s not real. It is to the writer and, more importantly, it is to his readers.

I call it the shared multiverse psychosis syndrome. It afflicts readers who buy into the writer’s invisible worlds to such a degree they see it too. I became convinced this syndrome existed when I began getting emails from readers concerned with Ed Landry’s love life or lack thereof. As a psych nurse, I wasn’t allowed to encourage patients’ delusions. As a writer, I have no such prohibition and no inhibitions about engaging in that behavior.

If the truth is stranger than fiction, it may be because universes break in on each other. What writers do may simply be a compulsion to record what they see when that occurs. I can’t count the number of writers who have told me that they must write just as they must breathe. What if that’s not a coincidence.

Jack LaFountain