A Writer's Notebook, Day Four-Hundred-And-Four

I have been attempting to get myself to do work that is not related to Ulysses, and it is a bit hard, but it is starting to happen.  In that vein, I want to push myself to consider some of the questions I had been thinking about before he passed.  Specifically, I want to posit a question about stories that is in my head much of the time, and which I am not able to answer, yet, but which I think is worth considering.

The question is this: what is necessary to communicate a story.  I mean this in a sense of not only what is needed as the elements of a complete story, but more inclusive of the question of what is it that makes it possible to extrapolate a story from elements.  If we consider it, often we are piecing stories from small clues, this is true in life as much as in literature.  Many times, details can be implied by a writer, or inferred from context.  I am curious to discover just how much does a person need in order for them to extrapolate a particular story from those clues. 

As I have said, I am not certain of the answer, but I think it is not something that has a single answer, but rather an array of potentials.  Being interested in experimental modes of fiction, I am interested in what can be removed to create a new experience for the reader.  In this case, I wonder about creating work that has an impressionistic quality, in that it does not describe all of the story, but implies it in a way that leads the reader to understand what has happened indirectly.  It is a very strange idea, I know, but it keeps coming up as an idea for me, and I have a certain belief that this recurrence itself is a signal from part of my own mind that this is worth exploring.  That may mean I discover ways to do things in this vein, or it might mean that I find something else entirely, but I am sure that it is a question I'll return to again, hopefully with more of an idea how to consider the question in terms of technique and other practical aspects, though at the moment I don't even seem to have a real theory as of yet.  Anyhow, it is good to think about this right now, a bit distracting if nothing else...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Fifty

Each of the three pieces I wrote today was a bit of a struggle to get going, if I am honest.  That happens, as I have mentioned, and my answer is generally to just wait it out, and the results vary.  A lot of the time, if I am really stuck, I might try to force something out, often it winds up being a bit meta, with me writing about being stuck without much in terms of inspiration, and it feels a bit like I am working scales in a way.  All the aesthetic decisions are there, they just don't always have a lot of purpose behind them, and that is fine in that context.  Essentially, I am just forcing myself to do the work, and getting it done, and I am showing myself that I can and will do it even if inspiration never strikes.  This can often take pressure off, and that lack of pressure opens up creative thinking and inspiration. Now, that is a fine thing for me to do, and I am likely to use that approach again many times in the future, but today I felt that I wanted to make myself do
Read more

Le Guin, Steering The Craft, Chapter Five: Adjectives and Adverbs (Exercise Five, Chastity)

A note of apology for my lateness with this.  I had expected to have time earlier in the day, but it was not to be, alas.  Anyhow, I am still a bit nervous about this exercise, though it is clearly of significant import to Le Guin, as she points out that it is the only exercise that she has given to all of her workshops.  That, of course, does not alter my feelings about it, excepting that I am aware of it as something valuable and worth doing, so the fact that it is a bit daunting might well be seen, through that light, as a promise of reward, perhaps.  The more difficult the task, the more one has to gain, at least by some logic... Exercise Five: Chastity Mr. Torino was in charge.  He had his way.  It was the way.  Desktops are clean.  Nothing but work.  No pictures: not your kids; not your girl or wife; not (as Allen recounted) your car.   None of that.  No plants.  No cartoons.  That is for home, this is work.  Every desk had a calendar, the calendar.  No character to it, just
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, Two-Thousand-And-Fifty-Nine

I have been thinking about how I can discuss certain aspects of my poetry and the choices I make as a writer.  In particular, I tend to write without as much reliance on sensory details and descriptions, instead choosing more abstract depictions.  This is something that I know many writers would call an odd choice, as specificity seems inherently to demand the application of detail, but I tend to be a bit hesitant about relying on depictions that utilize the senses, as I find that approach somewhat problematic.  For one thing, sensory description is always going to be less than universal, and not only because of the reality that there are individuals who lack one or more sense.  In many ways, for me, the deeper problem is one related to language itself.  Our use of language creates our experiences in a very real way, though I can't necessarily offer a full explanation of what I mean by that right here, but using a word for an object bestows qualities on it.  If I call something a s
Read more