Careful consideration must be taken when writing to create compelling art because most compelling art inspires a contradictory feeling. The contradiction begins as the free, independent voice of an author bends to the limits of his audience. Brilliance is a hard enough object to come to freely, let alone adding restrictions. Most authors attempt to reach that sublime thought by divulging themselves in grueling hours of independent research to achieve anonymity between their idea and audience. Even if that sensation of brilliance occurs, communicating with a nonexistent or unknown reader could see the brilliance go to waste. Hell, even Moby Dick was ignored until the 1920’s. I believe great writing maneuvers around the inability to telepathically and effortlessly connect with one another by searching for the perfect connection that forces awe. It never happens, but along the way humanity has been lucky enough to find new foundations to try.
The invigorating excitation of story can be focused into a determined genre after gulping down pride and accepting not everyone is going to enjoy what you write. Creative fiction is also at the mercy of these laws of rhetoric and applies them to high concept ideas— good fiction anyways. High concept ideas are the interesting and invested stories involving an on going issue surrounding the development of characters, usually separated into a five act dramatic structure. You know… the beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion. It is very annoying, though sometimes admittedly refreshing, to see begin with no exposition and expect a reader to be entertained just because they agreed to read the first few pages. Likewise, a story with a great beginning and unsatisfactory ending may cause a reader to fling the book skyward off a bridge into a sewage run off.
Above all, creative writing must be brutally simple. There can be no drudge work to be done by the reader to achieve an author’s vision. Healthy interpretation is fine if it helps broaden a lesson into multiple reactions, but it must be controlled and deliberate. Attention, tedium, and sacrifice make great fiction. It may be brutal to face that fact, but it’s a lot simpler than math.
David J. Darner
David -
ReplyDeleteYou've touched on some really interesting ideas here. First, I was wondering if you could expand/explain the second-to-last sentence in the first paragraph. It left me intrigued, but a bit confused. Also, I really like how you've mentioned the idea of exposition here (particularly stories that don't bore us with those expository details up front. We'll be talking about creative ways to work in essential information over the course of the class, so I'm thrilled you're already considering it!
- Jessica
I disagree with the thought that creative writing must be simple. Writing that is simple is writing that is easily understood, or common. Having a book challenge the way I read and think is the primary reason I continue reading books past page four. If I read something and determine that I could have just as easily come up with the concept with little to no effort, I toss the book. In my opinion, simple is boring.
ReplyDeleteD. Ryan
I tend to agree that creative writing should be simple, but brutally so? Maybe not so much...yet simplistic enough that the reader can understand it. If I'm reading something and I come away reeling rather than wondering and experiencing that "what comes next" feeling, then the writer has lost me, probably permanently.
ReplyDeleteCindy Davis
You talk about writing well. Define what well means, You mentioned a reader reading a book with a great begining, but a terrible ending and the reader being terribly dissatisfied. Would you say that writing well is the ability to keep a reader's attention for the entire piece?
ReplyDelete-Phillip Cobey
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ReplyDeleteYour post caught my attention from some to the words you chose such as compelling art and Brilliance. Some authors say that the best ideas for creative writing are taken from the author's life. This may be proven otherwise unless they just have an amazing imagination. Personally, If you as the writer just use metaphors for exaggerated events of life for the foundations of your writing would it be worth it? It would also depend on who you ask and what their original intentions for writing were.
ReplyDeleteC. Joseph Fontenot