I haven't written yesterday or today and I probably won't tomorrow or Sunday. The reasons are family related, but it doesn't keep me from analyzing the writing process. So here goes my...
Random Writing Observation of the Week
The Meeting Metaphor
I am walking down a calm residential street in Bangkok. The weather is cooling as the winds from Russia slowly overtake the hot humidity that is normal around these parts. Walking with a friend, we talk about work. He tells me how he was confronted with two options of how to run a meeting. One option was to follow a strict set of rules, which would force participants to frame their opinions and thoughts into a ten minute segment, after which they would move to the next. Another option was to allow the participants to choose what was relevant to them and allow them to expand in a more open frame of discussion. The specifics are not of importance here. What is however is that one option was supported by the manager who ran the meeting, while the other was opted by the subject expert - my friend. There was a third party involved, who basically funded the whole meeting and wanted to score points with his company. The manager, a wise lady, agreed my friends option was better and told him they would play a game. She would present her (now undesirable) option first, after which my friend would voice his objections and suggest the second option (and in reality desired by both). The fundraiser/third party would most likely side with the expert (my friend) and choose his option, thus empowering the fundraiser himself in front of the audience and later his own company. Mission accomplished. Everyone was satisfied: the fundraiser got to carry the glory of 'having made the right decision', the manager did what she was supposed to do: manage the expert and meeting, and my friend got the results he wanted with his option.
The Writing Reality
We kept walking and something bubbled up within me. Writing and reading is just like that meeting. It's a game of empowerment and projection. A writer develops a multi-dimensional world, inhabited with interesting characters, locations and events. He wants to convey his experience to the reader. How to do so best?
- One option is to tell the reader the facts. Push your view upon the reader by having your characters pulled around by events from one location to another. The equivalent in the meeting metaphor above would be for the manager to push her rigid option onto the audience. No one comes away happy. In this case the readers would not, claiming that the characters are artificial, the events contrived and the story as a whole wooden.
- A better option might be to let your characters dominate events and locations, making it all about them, which is okay, but does not make a story epic. The equivalent in the meeting metaphor above would be that my friend immediately suggested his idea, leaving no room for the fundraiser to feel empowered. The readers may have a good time, but will forget about the book after a while, because they did get to feel involved.
The Illusion Option
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| Who is manipulating who? Marvel Comics - art by Chris Bachalo. |
Now, by playing a little shadow play the writer can achieve the best possible involvement of an audience, which approximates the vision of the writer and connects the two. The trick is to have a beautifully connected and constructed world and mythology (location), which inevitable draws tensions that lead to epic drama and conflict (events) all moved along by its characters. The leads, supportive cast and extras in the story are real, motivated and conflicted people, with flaws, dreams, motives and desires. This is no secret. At least not if you know how to write good characters. But like a great magician who draws your attention with one hand, only to do the actual trick with the other, the writer can have the characters make the events and locations their own. The writer erases himself from the equation. It's the person in the story who did it! Empower the hero by having her be a hero (and instigating an event in the story at the same time). Move the villain to greatness by having him move the event (to a location you need the story to be). In essence make the characters control and own the events and locations. This way the reader is empowered through the character and feels that he/she controlled the story.
(there is a little bit about keeping the controlled aspects (i.e. event and location) detailed and intense and the controlling aspect (i.e. the characters) ambiguous and bland - this contrast is made in order to have the reader become the character. But this is a topic for another blog entry)
End Credits
My friend - The characters
The manager - The events & locations
The fundraiser/third party - The reader
This is not to suggest that the reader has walked away in glorious vanity. Or to brag about having owned the story experience of the book. I am not suggesting this at all. I have just told you... by having suggested it. Get it? It's like suggesting to you NOT to think of the Eiffel Tower. What did you just do? The magic of a story well told is by not being there as the storyteller (noticed there was no writer 'role' in the end credits?). The creator was not there when the story was read. Only the characters were and they were the lens through which the reader created the story in his/her own way. In a very real way.
...in the way you (as a writer) wanted to have your story told.
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