A discussion question for you: ideas, story or language?

[De Batz 10]

Every time I pick up a new book, I get a different sense of myself as a writer, principally because I am (still?) in the habit of thieving elements of other people's styles. I mean, if you will, that reading someone like Dumas (Musketeers) or George MacDonald Fraser (Flashman), I gravitate towards the story as the point, the raison d'etre of the writing. When I read Borges, it's the ideas. The stories themselves are ciphers for sometimes esoteric philosophy, unimportant except as a vehicle for the transmission of a thought that isn't the same thing as the story. Occasionally you read something where the writing itself is the point. Joyce is supposedly the culmination of this (in prose, at least). I find this the hardest to reproduce in my own writing, probably because I am a limited student of literature!

 

When you're writing, do you write with a particular point in mind? My novel - such as it is - is an attempt to capture the purest story-only writing. My competition entries and short stories tend to fall into the second category. (I ought to do the joke at this point that my SF posts fall into the third category.)

 

And as a corollary question, do you know of any writers or writing that successfully combine all three? The only things I can think of are things like John Fowles' The Magus, or perhaps Iris Murdoch. It is more difficult to figure out with literature in translation - hence I don't actually know if Borges falls into the third category, as his language is passed to me via inevitably inferior translators.

 

I suppose the thought is equivalent to the idea that music falls into a similar set of three categories. The first is purest popular music, the second is music on a theme, and the third is, basically, experimental jazz. Unlistenable in a lot of cases but technically exceptional.

[Allo1010 10]

Well, I think personally for me it's more of the story.

 

I'm an avid fantasy fan, though sometimes when I read fantasy books I always want a sense of realism. Which in some cases is often over-looked, particularly in the Harry Potter series. when I read that a villain is so evil that people refuse to speak his very name, he should be. I don't believe for a second that Voldemort would have lost against Harry Potter if he was the villain Rowling made him out to be. He was smart, cold, calculating and ruthless. How did he lose to a teenage boy?

 

So when I write my books I always remember these things; Everyone is out to win, a character should always stay true to their personality and the good people don't always win.

 

But I made my good guy a smart one so he should win. I think...

[Guest]

... He was smart, cold, calculating and ruthless. How did he lose to a teenage boy? ...

At the core of a big bad villain is the blind spot that makes him vulnerable. It's that vital bit of knowledge about the world cut off to, or dismissed by, them due to what's at the core of most villainy: egocentric arrogance.

 

Voldemort dismissed the power of self-sacrifice and love which, in Rowling's world, beat smartness and cunning every time.

[KittiPaws 10]

As to whether I write with a particular point in mind: When I have an inspiration, my first thought is just to get the idea down on paper. I love mystery/suspense and YA, so my stories usually just naturally come out in one of those two genres.

 

The one constant that I always have is relationships between people - and I'm not talking about romantic relationships. Everyone has ways they relate to other people, and many are more complex than they seem. Very few people are totally evil or totally loving. When I create a character, I often write pages of backstory that never make it into the actual story. This gives me a history for my character, and helps me to understand him or her so that I know where they're going and what their reactions should be. Of course, the downside is that the characters often take over and lead my story into a different direction than I originally intended. But this has never been a bad thing, IMO.

 

For me, S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" captures everything I want from a piece of writing. It was the novel that made me once-and-for-all serious about being a writer.

[De Batz 10]

Now then.

 

As I write more short fiction, principally because I'm too lazy for the precision required for novel writing, I realise that my short works are laced with characters. In some sense, all of my short fiction is about the revelation - or not - of some aspect of a character. I don't have any villains in my character bank, but I suppose some of the stories focus on a villainous act of one of these people.

 

Annoyingly, I'm too tired and have too little time to concentrate much on writing at the moment. Hopefully that will change soon and perhaps I'll have another answer to my own question when I'm working on my novel again.

 

Andy

[Ron Blanco 10]

I've not felt much inspiration lately, but when it does come, I think it can take various forms:

 

The expression of an Idea. I was pondering recently whether it could be possible that if someone understands too much about the world could it kill them? This led to a short story.

 

An interesting theme. I'm often mystified (and amused) by the nature of relationships, particularly between men and women. Religion is another good one, and a story is an opportunity to explore the theme or illustrate a particular viewpoint.

 

The exploration of a character. For example, I like PG Wodehouse's character Psmith, and once tried to imitate him. Sometimes a character in real life becomes the inspiration, such as a friend of mine for whom 'giving' is a compulsion rather than a choice - this inspired a story about someone who 'loves' in a selfish way.

 

A style of writing. After reading Mrs Dalloway I thought I'd have a pop at the stream of consciousness approach. Similarly, after reading a story written in the second person, I thought I'd have a go.

 

Just some thoughts there, DB.

[Ian Rivedon 10]

As a fledgeling writer, I tend to write whatever I imagine. My Imagination is my greatest asset, but unfortunately, my writing is no match for it. I sometimes find, after a writing frenzy following a burst of imagination, that what I have written is not what I imagined. That's whenI start to revise, and when the problems occur. My university study is helping, but it's a slow process. In the meantime, much of my imagination is unrecorded. Fortunately, there's a lot more to come!

 

IR

[De Batz 10]

Interesting, this. I wonder, Ian, whether when you indulge your imagination, what comes out is stories, characters or ideas?

I agree that the hardest part is translating what you imagine into writing, and that this is actually the difficulty for me. I'm like you in this regard - I don't have a problem having stuff to write, just actually writing it! I suspect that if my writing style were to be analysed, what would come out of it would be that I over-rely on dialogue because it's easier (for me) to let the story develop that way than to use action or description. I don't have this problem so much in writing short fiction, interestingly.

 

Whatever I write - and I don't know whether this is symptomatic of my rather underdeveloped relationship with literature - I don't concentrate on the actual writing, except as a means to an end. I think, with some reference to your poem, for example, that (modern) poetry has the opposite point. The writing is the key, and the ideas are the medium...

 

Andy

[Ian Rivedon 10]

Among new writers, a lack of confidence probably leads to over-revision in the pursuit of perfection. I think many good new writers underestimate their work and therefore revise it into turgidity. I know I do!

 

I'm experimenting at the moment in committing my imagination to 'paper', and then adopting the mantra, 'publish and be damned'. One of the regular exercises at university is what my tutor calls 'free writing', the committing to paper of current thoughts whatever they might be. This is then read and discussed openly. Reservations soon diminish when it becomes apparent that every participant is equally embarrassed. The result is incredibly interesting and gestational. The tutor then asks us to exchange pieces and to try to re-write the 'partner's' piece to 'improve' it. I put inverted commas around improve because no improvement is ever made. The idea itself might occasionally be extended, but usually, the result is the inability of the revisor to advance the original.

 

There are various benefits of this exercise, but the significant one, for me, is the realisation that an idea is relatively exclusive. Imagination is exclusive, and it is very difficult for others to attune themselves to another's thought process. It is relatively easy to re-write someone else's original idea, but very difficult to imagine like someone else, especially if they happen to have a vivid imagination.

 

Like you, my writing to date has relied heavily upon dialogue, but too much dialogue doesn't work. Though humanity relies upon dialogue, in addition to talking we humans also see, hear, and think. Creative and fictional writing needs to reflect these other faculties, and that is what I am currently attempting to achieve. Even in writing this post I have resisted as much as possible ( except for spelling and obvious bad grammar) the urge to revise what I have written down initially.

 

Revision is necessary, and I have written about this in my blog. However, it can also ruin good, original writing, and I think that it is better to write, and then let others criticise, before beginning the revision process.

 

In conclusion, I agree, that the writing is the key, and that the idea might be the medium. However, without the idea, there can be no writing. Writing skill can be taught, but imagination cannot. I often ponder upon what famous historical figures, Hannibal for instance, might have become in different circumstances. One can only imagine what an original mind like his might have produced had he been able to devote it literarature.

 

IR

[De Batz 10]

You'll be interested to hear that I have been trying this free writing almost as an accident. Sometimes the internal pressure - (almost) literal as well as metaphorical - of having too many ideas requires the rapid and sometimes incoherent removal of some of those ideas into another, more permanent form. It was actually inspired for me by something that happened to my wife since the baby was born, which is that she now cannot hold ideas in her head next to each other without discussing them. I appreciate this. I find my imagination doing its best work before I go to sleep, which often leads to resolution of plot points and new thoughts on character traits as I roll things around.

 

I would say that I find the compartmentalised fiction of the flash or short story a good deal easier to handle. I've got a novel on the go - the first three chapters are on here somewhere - and its up to about 80000 words, but nowhere near finished in both senses. This is harder because of the difficulty of keeping the characters and plots in my head as I go. But I find myself relatively happy with what I've written, having chosen to follow the lead of the great storyteller Dumas and think about stage drama as the origin of the novel and therefore that plot should be and generally is carried by dialogue. It's not great, but I have enjoyed reading it back in chunks. It needs revision in two senses. One is that the scenes in many places lack an anchor in terms of visual or other sensory references - something which requires a reread to engineer a rewrite - and the other being that the early chapters can be tweaked to give a better lead into the later ones. But these are technical rather than imaginative challenges for me - I don't have a problem with coming up with ideas to write about for this novel - and my technical skills are underdeveloped but growing. I also have the good fortune to be good at spotting solecisms and barbarisms, which I tend to edit out in the process of writing rather than revising.

 

In terms of writing, I think that at my level of skill, I'm concentrating on writing a good story first, and if it turns out to be written well, so much the better. I can concentrate on becoming a good writer after I've unloaded the hundred or so planned chapters I've got on the go!

 

Andy

 

PS: I rarely revise what I write before I save it and post it, generally only a few weeks or months later and then only a little... And I'm not sure what that says about me!

PPS: Literarature? Symptomatic of a tired man posting after ten, or someone listening to a 'learn French while you post on the internet' tape?

[Ian Rivedon 10]

Blimey, that was a quick response! But it shows how sincere you are, and yes, 'literarature' is symptomatic of just one glass of Pinot Grigio too many.

 

I started writing when I just got the urge when working at home one day three years ago. I looked out of the window, saw something that stirred my imagination, and started to write. That was it!

 

That writing became a 300,000 word novel, which I submitted it to an agent in London, but she rejected it. I can see now why she did. I haven't worked on the novel since the rejection, but since the vacation commenced last week I have cut 55,000 words out of the existing draft. I removed a whole section that I realised was total 'vanity', and which made the novel unpublishable. I'm currently spending each day re-writing the remainder. I am still on chapter 1.

 

I want to finish the novel just to have a completed major work, but I am continuing with it in the acceptance that it will undoubtedly never be published. My goal is to complete the re-write within the current vacation, and then to clear my mind for the tasks ahead. University is helping me to identify where my strengths lie, so my future writing will be exclusively short stories, converting my bursts of imagination, hopefully, into good, readable prose. I think the skill in creating a successful piece of work, whether a short story or a novel, is in creating a good beginning and end. In particular, the first chapter, first paragraph, even first sentence are absolutely critical.I know that the term 'practise makes perfect' is a valid one, and I want to concentrate upon what I find most difficult. I want to be able to write an opening sentence like George Orwell's in 1984, or Jane Austen's in Pride and Prejudice.

 

IR

[Allo1010 10]

Ian, do you by any chance take the creative writing course offered by Sheffield Hallam?