Unabashedly Bookish

[#1]

One of the most annoying pieces of advice I've gotten in my effort to write fiction was to make everything more explicit.  I was in a writers' group a few years ago, and I was often told to clarify all the physical details in my short stories (What clothes are the characters wearing?  Where exactly are we standing in the kitchen?).

That pressure for clarity felt confining--as if my only job in fiction writing was supposed to be producing a highly-detailed physical picture that everyone could interpret the same.  We'd know what shoes someone liked, and all of his back story.

I've been thinking more about hyper-clarity in fiction recently.  Now, it doesn't just feel confining but like a sign that the communication doesn't have enough ambition and trust.  What I mean is that good relationships (I'm thinking of the relationship between novelist and reader) thrive on what's unsaid but is implied in potent ways.  When you tell someone, as a character did in Pulp Fiction, "I'ma get medieval on your ass," it has a musical connotation that "I'm going to fight you" doesn't.  And that musical connotation leaves a gap that the listener has to actively think about in order to decode.

A good relationship can be exciting because of the promises it makes; and promises are often made by what's unsaid.  Indeed, in all talk there is some gap between what one person means and another person understands.  It seems to me that in the most trustworthy relationships, that gap is allowed to swell to a pregnant girth.  In those relationships, if something is not spelled out, there are still ample clues that the communication will eventually pay off.  In contrast, it's when we're anxious about relationships that we need a litany of details, as if our conversation partners are going to abandon us before we get their messages. 

I'm thinking about communicative gaps right now because I've been reading an amazing book, The Hamilton Case, by Michelle de Kretser, which does beautiful things with ambiguous language, with words that are rich because of all they stand for.  I've finished lots of de Kretser's sentences amazed at how the sentence itself was a puzzle: one word conveys multiple ideas. 

For example, at one point in her book, the Ceylonese narrator, who is both in thrall with and resentful of Western domination, is staring at a line of suriya trees planted centuries ago by Dutch colonists.  He thinks, "As they built their forts and counted their gold they must have gazed at those tulip-shaped, greenish-yellow flowers and wondered if they could bear it any longer: the scent of cinnamon, the approximations." 

What does that word "approximations" stand for?  For me it evokes dozens of ideas, like the sound of a bird leaving a tree does.  Maybe the settlers are unspeakably excited by how much the leaves themselves look like gold coins, as if now that they've conquered a country, they'll always be safe.  Maybe it's just the smell of cinnamon that's exciting: how nature can be as delicious as food on the table.  Maybe they're excited by how close they are to totally dominating other people; or maybe they're disturbed by how similar and dissimilar they themselves are from the Ceylonese they've conquered.  De Kretser doesn't need to tell us what one thing "approximations" stands for.  She's found a word that's terribly precise but can also shift between multiple meanings.  For me, that's terrific writing: There's possibility there, not just the clear picture of a suriya tree.

[#2]

Explicit doesn't always work.  Steig Larsson is very explicit in his writing - you know what his characters are wearing right down to the label, provenance, and price tag - but it works very well because it's presented in such a straighforward way.  Other times, explicit just seems like too many words on the page; Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale was wonderfully ambiguous because she was deliberately trying to avoid giving the novel a specific place in time.

[#3]

There is a difference between Explicit and Descriptive. Lack of enough descriptive language turns writing into fluffy nothingness. Too much use of explicit details hampers the imagination.

It's balance not silences that are needed.

[#4]

TB, I find what you say as true, it's definitely the balance that matters, but there seems to be more to this. 

Last night, I was reading two different books, alternating, to see which one was suiting my mood...actually, neither was, because all I wanted to do was write a poem, but the words weren't coming to me.  I closed these books, turned out the lights, and fell asleep.  I woke at 3 a.m. with words striking the inside of thoughts, faster than I could think.

One word asking a question of another word, each one illuminating the next, until scenes started to form, finding the right word that fit that scene that flashed within my mind.  I let them flash.  I didn't get up to write them down, I didn't move until they stopped.  I made coffee.  I made something to eat.  I let the scenes go.  I read.  I fell back to sleep.  I woke with a poem.  I wrote it down. 

I just gave you every detail of what was going on in my mind.  Was it necessary for what I'm about to write? 

I find that words can mean something very different to different readers, and authors.  Some may feel they have to tell a detailed account of what they want the reader to know.  Some would rather speak in metaphor, and leave the reader to wonder, and think, and it matters little to the author how the reader interprets their words, just as long as the reader thinks, puts their mind to work on their words, drawing out every detail and conclusion that they find necessary to fit the scene.

I'm a reader who sees and feels ambiguities from authors.  I like to hear and feel words, and apply these words to make scenes in my head.  I weigh them, balance them, and apply them.  Of course there are times when specifics are needed to get you to that point of meaning.  The author has to be aware of word interpretation by readers, but I think it all comes down to awareness of what you, the writer, wants to say, and if those words are not there in your mind, missing in some description of clarity, confusing the reader, than you must think back on why that happens.  You can't mislead a reader, either.  You mislead yourself in the process.

The thoughts of reading and writing poems, can leave a lot of, or a little, ambiguity. To wonder.

Crisp wind down leaves fall

Tumble softly naked ground

Sounds of Silence heard

[#5]

Thanks for the good input. 

Kathy, I really like your line: "I think it all comes down to awareness of what you, the writer, wants to say, and if those words are not there in your mind, missing in some description of clarity, confusing the reader, than you must think back on why that happens."  I really agree: I think that a successful piece of vague writing is only successful because the writer thought a lot about precision, and offered a precisely vague word.  Like "approximations" in that quote from The Hamilton Case. 

[#6]

For some reason, today I'm thinking of the word separateness, instead of silences...how lack of the right words create that silence, but also create that separateness between reader and writer...if not given the right words.  I wrote this out in Word, if it looks a bit different in font.  At least it's readable!

As I was reading Virginia Woolf’s Moments of Being, in her prose, I’m wondering if I see words of separateness to leave one to search their meaning.  I read on and thought about other writings of hers.  It seems as though there is always a feeling of her own separateness, within her writing.  I think she realized this, and aware of how her writing would speak to others.

In this segment of Moments of Being, she had just described her relationship with her father, after her mother’s death and the relationship of Stella, the oldest [VW’s stepsister], to VW’s father, and Virginia’s views of her own relationship with Stella.

This is the separateness I found, which Virginia saw and wrote about.  She uses words, and the order of her words, in a way I probably wouldn’t.  I’m not English for one thing, and I didn’t live in that period of time.  But, the words she uses can fill my head with many descriptive visions. And with these words, she creates an understanding between reader and writer.  I hope this all makes sense.

VW says:  It was exhilarating at times to peer above our immature world, and fancy that the actual conflict of recognized human beings had already begun for us.  In truth the change which declared itself when we were once more settled in London and gone about our tasks, was partly invigorating; for we tried to prove ourselves equal companions for Stella and our lives were much quickened by the chivalrous devotion she roused in us.  It was chivalrous because she was too remote for real companionship, so that there was always a kind of chance in one’s offering; perhaps she would not perceive it; perhaps she would kindle rapture by a sudden recognition; her distance made such close moments exquisitely sweet.  But alas, no such humble friendship however romantic, could give her the sense that we completely shared her thoughts; the nature of them made it hard for anyone to understand; and her sorrow was very lonely.  Perhaps one would come into a room unexpectedly, and surprise her in tears, and, to one’s miserable confusion, she would hide them instantly, and speak ordinary words, as though she did not imagine that one could understand her suffering.

[#7]

Thanks for such an appropriate Woolf quote, Kathy.  You're right--she thought that people inevitably kept a distance from one another.  I also think you're right that her position was influenced by his Victorian upbringing.  Her mother's death when she was 13 also left her with a sense that the people close to you live far away.

[#8]

Thinking about writers, today.  What really attracts, or pulls us towards a certain few?  I think the only one I quote is VW.  I seem to depend on her.  She's reliable for me.  She says what I want to say, when I'm ready.

I know everyone talks about what author is suiting their moods, at different times - but what draws us back to those special ones?  That relationship that is talked about?  I do think it's more than in our everyday "real" relationships. 

Those many different books we read, those in-between books [those casual friends] I wonder if those are the gaps that exist, between the ones that sit waiting on our selves, knowing we'll come back to them;  knowing and depending on them to be there when we are ready, again, to find that comfort, knowing; or that "approximation".  I wonder?

[#9]

World Myth building.

If there is any book I go back to, it because of really hard fantastic world myth building skills the author has. Does no matter how fantastic a place the book has, does it feel real to me? An heaven help you if it's not fiction and yet it still doesn't seam real.