Friday, May 11, 2012
The
Art of Writing No. 35
Jacques Derrida and others of the
postmodern literary circus, formulated a theory that it was impossible to
produce unequivocal, unambiguous prose. Whatever you do as a writer, no matter
how much of a Hemingway or Beckett you might want to be in the Spartan
simplicity of your text, it will be read equivocally and ambiguously. Other
meaning, said Derrida, leaks out. Reception Theory suggests that every reader
reads with a unique interpretation. Fifty readers, fifty different books. Now I have said
earlier that one of the ways we might attribute value to writing is to ask if a
book lends itself to multiple interpretations. While acknowledging that even
simple prose can produce wildly differing understanding (think about
instructions to build a wardrobe), more complex expression extends it to
infinity.
But the point to be made is this, the
ambiguities of great literature are rich and lead to a far greater depth of
discourse because the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts, the words.
The very use of language, its poetry, its apparent verisimilitude, its
authentic dialogue, its factual accuracy, its labyrinthine plots, its realistic
and complex characters, all and much more, conspire to beguile the reader. And the closer you are to achieving
such quality, the more you must be diligent over key turning points in your
narrative. For example, if you are writing a crime novel, you will lay down,
you hope unobtrusively, clues that will later prove to be threads in the rope
of the plot. For this to work, each character must be in the proper place at
the proper time, every motive and relationship must be credible. Look through
your narrative and decide where the key junctures are – and then go over what
you have written at these points and make sure you have refined them as much as humanly
possible. There is nothing worse than finding yourself (as I have mentioned
before) in the position of Raymond
Chandler, caught out by film makers who discovered his plot did not stack up.
As I have suggested, people will still interpret and believe they have read
something that was not there, as a consequence, but on revisiting the vital
section, they will grudgingly concede that you couldn’t have done more to
inform them. Indeed, good writing leads the reader to acknowledge your arts in
deceiving him or her, long enough to get a good tale told.
When I was writing Azimuth I became very befuddled because I was dealing with an
extraordinary long time line and children were being born and growing up,
events were happening that changed the course of later history, people said and
did things which bent the fate lines. I had to create a flow chart at the end
and check whether my time line actually worked over generations. I made
alterations. I located passages that seemed to me to be main springs to the
health of the book and worked on them again.
It is very difficult to get everything in a
300 page novel absolutely perfect but manage the key scenes for the plot to
work and you will evade much criticism. Reading for most people, most of the
time, involves unconscious editing as they go. They miss bits out of your writing
without knowing it. They are not doing a Masters course in literary criticism
so it does not matter to them. Key
scenes are their stepping stones across the river of the life of the novel. Don’t let your readership get
swept away because you have not made the footholds solid and supportive.
Azimuth trilogy paperback by Jack Sanger available at www.azimuthtrilogy.com
Azimuth by Jack Sanger in 3 separate ebooks
at Kindle (Amazon)
Labels: Writing: key plot turns
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