At the risk of sounding vague (or overly polite) I had the chance to
read/hear a few writers describe the mechanics of their work recently.
To clarify, by writers I mean “fiction writers,” and by mechanics, I
mean how the story happens (character, plot, narrative, conflict,
development) rather than things about process (how writing happens) or
business (how to live/publish). This was, as you might imagine, kind of
awkward because the people who write the stories aren’t the best judges
of what actually happens.
There are lots of reasons for this: readers are complex and contextually
constrained (as are authours), and creators are too close to the story
and the characters to really see have a productive perspective on what
we’re writing. We can talk about what we meant to write, how we
intended for a story to work, but while short measures of this kind of
analysis aren’t harmful, longer amounts of this kind of talking is
pretty unproductive because it detracts from the reader’s freedom and
the ability of the text to stand on its own.
This isn’t to say that I’m opposed to writers talking about their
work, but I think there are some kinds of discussion that work better.
The first is your critical focus: it’s great when people talk about the
ideas that linger in their minds when they’re writing the story. These
are the big issues that your characters represent/grapple with, but
stated in more concrete terms in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars books,
this would include nationalism, interstellar colonization, the
challenges of a massively overgrown population, the problem of survival
on a different world. In Cory Doctorow’s latest (Little Brother) the
list of critical issues includes: political action, post-9/11 police
powers, law enforcement statistics, youth identity. There’s lots of
stuff to talk about, without talking about the character or plot
development process.
The second kind of conversation is about process. Fiction writers
aren’t the only people who write, and are certainly not the only kind
of information workers in the contemporary world. As a result how we
work, how we are able to summon creativity, how we manage both creation
and business are all things that have a broad appeal, and a lot of my
writing about productivity and process here falls into this layout.
While there’s such thing as too much process talk, there’s a way to
write about work and process that empowers and encourages lots of other
people who do similar work. Where as talking about critical issues
provides the opportunity to engage the content of the story, talking
about process gives you the chance to communicate your experience of
telling the story, without needing to offer analysis' of the text
itself.
Maybe my response is my way of dealing with both “being a writer,” and
believing in idea that “the author is dead.” Maybe this is sound
advice, just because: I’m not sure.
Interestingly these two areas also represent the areas that writers
often find work talking about/writing columns about. The best
non-fiction writing that I’ve read from fiction writers are often
essays that they write about what they interested in (and also write
fiction about,) and while I don’t have experience at fiction writing
workshops process of one sort or another is a big part of what happens
at workshops, I’d expect.
I think part of the issue is that the mechanics of stories, is something
that we both know a lot about intellectually, and something that we have
to do very instinctively. I know what makes characters work, what
holds plots together, I can talk a lot about how to make stories and
characters better, but when I’m “creating,” it’s all gut instinct
and I have to go back and edit (even outlines) into shape. My current
goal, is not to “learn more about writing,” but “hone my instincts”
(or “feel better”) about writing. Maybe the instinctive writing
approach means that (at least of our own writing) our ability to explain
what’s happening becomes a bit…
I’m not sure. All very interesting. Onward and Upward!