A Writer's Notebook, Day Six-Hundred-And-Ninety-Four
I have been considering, for some time now, how to explain certain concepts and approaches I have in terms of my writing. Now, these are not always my concerns, and not everything I write is obsessed with these ideas, but they are concepts that I find very much worth exploring, and which I believe are often not discussed or considered by most writers. Yet, what I want to speak about is a layer of experience for the reader as they interact with the work, and is one that is also one that is outside the normal awareness of readers and impacts upon it can reach outside the text in a way that is not typical. It is a dimension of experience that is not looked at in most discussions of craft, beyond a single basic approach and intent.
I'm certain that some who read that will think I am attempting to sell something, and I am sure, as well, that when I explain what I am discussing, it will cause a some to think I am silly or mad, or perhaps that this is just misguided, but I want to discuss the reading experience as an aspect of the text. I mean, by reading experience, the manipulation of the reader by altering how the text is read, how it is processed, what the sentence structure is intended to do.
Sentences can be misleading, or easy, or can be designed so that as you parse them, they seem to have changed meaning in ways that you do not quite understand. It is possible to construct language so it guides the reader to pause because they need to reread, to change the pace of comprehension, to create language that is easy to read, seems to be reasonable, but falls apart upon further reflection, or that is musical enough to guide the reader to just hear it without noticing all that it means, or even just to get them to read the language without interpreting the meaning in their conscious mind.
I know I have had that experience many times where I will be reading a passage and keep reading it, but my mind will just be hearing the words, not listening to the meaning of them, and then stopping to go back and reread that section. Now, the thing is, those things do not happen only by accident. Certainly, they can be the result of a mental state that is random to the book, but the truth is, that we have the ability to vary the texture of our words, the pace of our language, the fluidity of the construction, all sorts of aspects of what is on the page in visual, auditory, along with how our shifting of content can impact these experiences. If one moves into a specific image in concrete detail, for example, from a more disembodied passage, this shifts the reader's experience, and if that shift is associated with other changes in the text, it can be used to create a mood shift that is not in the content but is still experienced. It is the reader's own authentic interaction with the text, how they responded to that moment, and not seen as a result of the words themselves, but it is a calculated moment, in the way that a savvy theater director may send a light perfume out over the audience at certain moments to enhance a show beyond the normal dimensions, and that are outside normal awareness.
One thing to consider, for example, is word length. When words are small, it is easy to read fast, but as the language expands to include more words of greater and greater length, the processing time changes. It is a small difference, but done in association with a rhythmic shift, or over a longer period in a work, that small change can create a shift the reader will feel, even if they do not perceive what has changed. That is a small and more obvious example, but as a poet, I often think of this with meter, a tool that is not often noticed, in particular it is dismissed in prose, but it is also good to know the iambic meter is common in our language. Most of what we speak will fall into iambic pentameter ,just as a natural function of how we use language and construct sentences. To play with this is easy, and it is not noticed by most readers. Build a metrical pattern and the reader will feel it, will move with it. That it self is a good tool, and can have value alone, to create points when you wish to move the flow of the language in a certain way, to speed up or slow down the reading of the work. Depending on the meter, how it is applied in relation to the syntax and structure of the sentence, their are many ways this can be deployed. A steady meter that contrasts with the natural rhythm of a sentence, for example, is not so easily interpreted by a reader as when the two are harmonious. A passage can have a steady meter and still vary other qualities in ways that change the impact of that meter, or meter can be used to create change itself. These are tools poets have used, but they are not seen by most writer`s today as opportunities to alter the actual reading experience, to change what is happening for a reader as they interact with the text, but consider how it may be useful to make a reader feel a certain shift when a specific character enters the scene, even though you will not reveal that they are the villain until later, or how a character might speak a throwaway line that is really a clue for the reader, a thing you want them to keep in mind but do not wish to draw attention to within the text. There is a dimension of experience outside the texts content, and I think it is worth exploring as it allows a whole new aspect of communication to exist outside the experience of the reader.
I'm certain that some who read that will think I am attempting to sell something, and I am sure, as well, that when I explain what I am discussing, it will cause a some to think I am silly or mad, or perhaps that this is just misguided, but I want to discuss the reading experience as an aspect of the text. I mean, by reading experience, the manipulation of the reader by altering how the text is read, how it is processed, what the sentence structure is intended to do.
Sentences can be misleading, or easy, or can be designed so that as you parse them, they seem to have changed meaning in ways that you do not quite understand. It is possible to construct language so it guides the reader to pause because they need to reread, to change the pace of comprehension, to create language that is easy to read, seems to be reasonable, but falls apart upon further reflection, or that is musical enough to guide the reader to just hear it without noticing all that it means, or even just to get them to read the language without interpreting the meaning in their conscious mind.
I know I have had that experience many times where I will be reading a passage and keep reading it, but my mind will just be hearing the words, not listening to the meaning of them, and then stopping to go back and reread that section. Now, the thing is, those things do not happen only by accident. Certainly, they can be the result of a mental state that is random to the book, but the truth is, that we have the ability to vary the texture of our words, the pace of our language, the fluidity of the construction, all sorts of aspects of what is on the page in visual, auditory, along with how our shifting of content can impact these experiences. If one moves into a specific image in concrete detail, for example, from a more disembodied passage, this shifts the reader's experience, and if that shift is associated with other changes in the text, it can be used to create a mood shift that is not in the content but is still experienced. It is the reader's own authentic interaction with the text, how they responded to that moment, and not seen as a result of the words themselves, but it is a calculated moment, in the way that a savvy theater director may send a light perfume out over the audience at certain moments to enhance a show beyond the normal dimensions, and that are outside normal awareness.
One thing to consider, for example, is word length. When words are small, it is easy to read fast, but as the language expands to include more words of greater and greater length, the processing time changes. It is a small difference, but done in association with a rhythmic shift, or over a longer period in a work, that small change can create a shift the reader will feel, even if they do not perceive what has changed. That is a small and more obvious example, but as a poet, I often think of this with meter, a tool that is not often noticed, in particular it is dismissed in prose, but it is also good to know the iambic meter is common in our language. Most of what we speak will fall into iambic pentameter ,just as a natural function of how we use language and construct sentences. To play with this is easy, and it is not noticed by most readers. Build a metrical pattern and the reader will feel it, will move with it. That it self is a good tool, and can have value alone, to create points when you wish to move the flow of the language in a certain way, to speed up or slow down the reading of the work. Depending on the meter, how it is applied in relation to the syntax and structure of the sentence, their are many ways this can be deployed. A steady meter that contrasts with the natural rhythm of a sentence, for example, is not so easily interpreted by a reader as when the two are harmonious. A passage can have a steady meter and still vary other qualities in ways that change the impact of that meter, or meter can be used to create change itself. These are tools poets have used, but they are not seen by most writer`s today as opportunities to alter the actual reading experience, to change what is happening for a reader as they interact with the text, but consider how it may be useful to make a reader feel a certain shift when a specific character enters the scene, even though you will not reveal that they are the villain until later, or how a character might speak a throwaway line that is really a clue for the reader, a thing you want them to keep in mind but do not wish to draw attention to within the text. There is a dimension of experience outside the texts content, and I think it is worth exploring as it allows a whole new aspect of communication to exist outside the experience of the reader.
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