From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #366 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Wednesday, June 20 2001 Volume 01 : Number 366 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 21:18:21 -0700 From: "Jeff Savage" Subject: Re: [AML] Manipulative Endings > > And if this is what you are > > saying, would that mean that a book like "Where the Red Fern Grows," that I > > always cry at the ending of, is manipulative because I am feeling the pain > > of a young boy about the loss of his dogs, and everybody loves kids and > > dogs? > > Yes. > > Comedy is another thing that has similar extremes. An old lady trips and > falls on a banana peel. We laugh. Is that excellent comedy or are we > laughing at something else? The suddenness of the action? The fact > that it's an old lady and we don't normally expect old lady's to go > flying through the air, bloomers flying? > OK then, given your examples, I am going to disagree. I think that you are taking two very extreme examples to prove a point that is less clear cut. Unless we are dealing with 10 year old girls, who in my experience will cry at almost anything, and ten year old boys who will laugh at almost anything, as a writer you have to earn both tears and laughs. I have read many books with scenes that were intended to move the reader, but left me cold. Why? A baby died or a dog gave his life for his master. By your definition, that should have moved me. It didn't though, because the writer did not write well enough to make the character real for me. I did not feel the character's pain as my own. In the same vein, I should be laughing uproariously at everything Jim Carrey does, he seems to always be falling over something. But much of his humor is way too over the top to me. And Heaven forbid, an old lady should trip on a banana peal and then die. Do I laugh, cry, or both? The Nazi political machine wrote lots of literature that made people have strong feelings for Hitler. But that wasn't necessarily good writing, it was propaganda, one of the worst emotional manipulations of all time. I think that what we are really discussing is the talent required to make a reader or audience believe in your characters. It is what differentiates the sad scenes in "God's Army" from the sad scene in "The Mail Box." Remember that movie? I didn't think I would ever see a girl that obnoxiously happy until I saw the girl on the Welch's grape juice commercials. It is the same reason that many artists give for saying that realistic paintings are lowbrow. "Anyone can paint what something looks like, but I paint what the viewer doesn't see." Sometimes I really like interpretive paintings and sometimes I like realistic paintings. I feel the same way about pretty much all forms of art. But I don't like either variety if their are done poorly. I don't think that manipulative writing is limited to "good" or "bad" characters, but good or bad characterization. OK Thom. Fire back. I'm ready . . . I think. Jeff Savage - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 21:52:42 -0600 From: "Sharlee Glenn" Subject: Re: [AML] GAs in Church Pubs > At 03:50 PM 6/18/01, John Perry wrote: > > >This past week I saw a letter that my mom received from one of the editors of > >the Friend, stating that the church magazines will no longer be publishing > >fiction and have been instructed to put in more articles from general > >authorities and true stories. > > So is anyone here planning to jump in and grab this opportunity to start an > independent magazine to publish the kind of fiction the Church magazines > used to publish? > > -- Ronn! :) Despite Ronn!'s perpetual smiley face (which always makes me question the seriousness of his comments), I think this is a great idea! In fact I've already put out my feelers in an attempt to ascertain interest in an independent literary magazine aimed at younger readers. This magazine would not compete with the Friend (which apparently will now be an exclusively "nonfiction" enterprise), but would, instead, publish quality fiction and poetry for children. I'm thinking here of something along the lines of an LDS _Cricket_ magazine. Am I nuts? Do you think there would be a market for this kind of thing? A couple of the people I have talked to have indicated that this might be more feasible as an on-line project. I don't know though. There's just something about glossy paper and the smell of fresh ink . . . Sharlee Glenn glennsj@inet-1.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 18:42:43 -0700 From: "Jeff Needle" Subject: Re: [AML] Book-Free Zones, 6/14/2001 You know, I don't remeber if that's Chuck Colson or not. As you may know, he's now an evangelical Christian, engaged in prison ministries. As skeptical as I am of such conversions, his seems to be genuine. I've read several of his books, and for their genre, they are outstanding. He's a very credible person. [Jeff] - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 02:30:36 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: [AML] Re: Movie Happy/Manipulative Endings (was: Play the New Game) Scott and Marny Parkin wrote: > What constitutes a happy ending? It's always possible to play rhetorical word games and defend some hypothesis that is stated as a universal. Like the claim that all human behavior is self-serving and there is no such thing as altruism. You see, when someone does an "altruistic" act, they are really selfishly going for that feeling of being good and righteous and maybe even superior to other people. Well, such word games are a waste of time. We all know what we mean by concepts, and trying to stretch a concept thin to fit a universal assertion accomplishes nothing useful. Happy endings are not unhappy endings that we somehow can interpret a positive moral lesson from, no matter how tenuous the connection. The human mind can always contort the meaning of a piece of art into whatever he wants, just like people can read the New Testament and come away saying Jesus and the apostles were gay. A happy ending is where the protagonists are happy at the end, and the villain (if there is one) gets his just desserts, period. Anything else is not a happy ending. So instead of wasting time trying to pretend all endings are happy, we'd be better served by discussing why endings other than happy endings are valid, fruitful, and satisfying. > And at what point does that happy > ending intersect with the dreaded manipulative ending? That's purely a personal choice. The movie critic who has essentially "seen it all" will feel manipulated much more often than the occasional movie goer. This is easy to account for. All fiction stories are manipulative because they're not real, so there is an author behind every one of them carefully crafting his story to evoke certain reactions from his audience. It's all manipulative. The problem is assuming that "manipulative" is always a bad thing. What we call "manipulative" is really a story that handles the manipulation poorly so we are conscious of it and resent it. The occasional movie goer will have experienced manipulation techniques less often than the movie critic, so will find fewer occasions to notice the manipulation. The movie critic has had lots of experience with the techniques of manipulation in fiction, so it's harder for him to let the experience remain subconscious. Greater manipulative skill is required to succeed with the knowledgeable, experienced movie viewer. Therefore it's not possible to draw a line and say, "This is manipulative, and this is not." That line is different for every member of the audience. Universal jugdments of manipulation or lack thereof are possible only when extremes are achieved--either very bad manipulation that works for no one, or very good manipulation that works for everyone. Even in these cases, "no one" and "everyone" are general terms, because there's always somebody... > For the most > part, our religion teaches that positive resolution is always > possible (with a very short list of exceptional cases). Does that not > suggest that Mormons are almost required to tell stories of hope, or > at least leave hope open as a real possible resolution beyond the > bounds of the story? Nope. Our religion teaches it's always _possible_, but never guaranteed. Our fiction only needs one thing to be true to the Gospel, that the option for redemption and happiness be available to the characters. After that, it's entirely up to the characters to make the right choices. If they don't, the author is under no obligation from our religion to let them be happy at the end. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 04:21:09 -0600 From: Scott and Marny Parkin Subject: Re: [AML] Missionary Stories (pt 1 of 2) Tom Johnson wrote: ...a bunch of stuff that clarifies something for me. It looks to me like we're having two completely different conversations, and arguing points that neither one of us appears to have made. To a very real degree, I think we're each re-arguing prior discussions with other people where we're not sure our prior points got across. I never said that the author's opinion of the meaning of a story was any more valid than any other reader's; but I also don't believe it's any less valid. I believe that once the story is offered to the public, the author becomes just another reader when discussions of meaning come along. But we often seem to be impatient with an author's attempt to explain his own intent, and I find that troubling since it's one of the many things I like in discussions of literature. I like to hear the author talk about their own works--both as creator and as interpreter. But I've also heard an awful lot of rhetoric that seems to diminish the value of the author as having done anything at all of value (no, you didn't say the author was valueless, but I reacted off of something you said to pursue this old argument; so your point is somewhat well taken that the author's intent was irrelevant to the story that blossomed in my own head; I accept--and always have accepted--that point). It seems to me that the author's intent or craft is often completely dismissed as having any value, and that rankles me as both a reader and writer. I don't hold to either extreme. All views--including the author's--have value to me in helping me to interpret the stories I read or view, be the discussion about craft, intent, or meaning. That's all I really intended to say in those mounds of (apparently ineffective) words. >If you can find two dozen plausible readings, markedly different, you'd win >me over to the reader response crowd. I'm convinced that in any given >cultural system, there are only so many meanings possible in a given text. >There are many cultural systems, sure, but not an infinite amount. Kubla >Kahn has about ten markedly different interpretations, but not ten thousand. Okay. I'm guilty of exaggeration and/or hyperbole. I do that as a way of relieving argumentative tension in the middle of a discussion and don't intend that one interpret some of my comments literally. But the core point still stands: one can read Mitchell's or anyone else's text and come up with multiple, conflicting interpretations about the text, any and all of which can be supported by the text. And if I understand correctly, all of which can also be "correct" interpretations (whatever correct means). That was kind of my point about the tax seminar--there are only about ten actual tax rates that one can apply, but there are 7*6*5*4*3*2*1 (or 5040) different ways of getting to one of those ten applicable tax rates, each of which requires a unique response to seven specific questions. No, there are not an infinite number of routes through Mitchell's story. But I think there can be a whole bunch of them. That was my only point. (And I have no idea what the "reader response crowd" is saying. It appears that I'm using terms that may have more meaning than I intended. That's what happens when you argue with the uneducated; our terms betray us.) >And I wasn't advancing the idea that there couldn't be 7 or 5,000 >different readings of Mitchell's text, only that an infinite amount >was not possible. Not possible because I have established--by your >agreement--that an elephantine reading of the text would be >implausible. If that reading is not possible, and that reading >exists somewhere within the infinite possibilities of readings, then >the number of readings of the text is not infinite. I can't help it--I have to pick this nit even though it's not productive to the conversation, and I've already conceded that my attempt at absurd overstatement failed. Mathematically, infinity plus or minus one is still infinite. In fact, until you attempt to subtract infinity from itself (not as simple an equation as you might think--you have to define a lot of terms and assumptions to even set up the problem), the answer will still tend to be infinite. (It's irrelevant to the discussion, but I knew that my wife the mathematician would never forgive me if I didn't point out that infinity is more a concept than a number, and simple mathematics breaks down real fast as we approach it.) >I said that in interpreting a text, the author's criticisms are tainted >by his own experience of writing the text, and those experiences distort his >reading. Sure an author's perspective is useful in terms of understanding >what he was aiming for, how he did what he did, what his technique was, but >when it comes to interpreting what is actually on the page, the meaning that >is there, one needs an outsider point of view. As I said earlier, we appear to just disagree on this one and I don't think we can each convert the other on this issue. Every reader distorts the text. I think we tend to agree on that more than we disagree. I just don't think the author's distortions are less valid or reliable than anyone else's. Once the text is offered to readers, the author is merely one more voice in the crowd in defining a meaning for that text. But I also don't believe that the author's closeness to the text diminishes the importance of his comment on that text. At that point, the author is only one more critic--but he should also be given the same weight as any other critic with respect to that text. In my opinion. (Which is not to be confused with saying that I think an author's attempts to defend a text or to force a particular interpretation are good or even worthwhile. I generally believe that the author should stay out of discussions of meaning except to clarify his own intent. It's up to the reader to decide how much value the author's intent should have in their own interpretive reading. I don't believe in *a* comprehensive statement of meaning for any text. There is often room for a great deal of reasonable disagreement, regardless of the author's intentions.) In my case, the question went back to whether Mitchell intended _Angel of the Danube_ to be a universal interpretation of the missionary experience. I postulate that he didn't, but that the genre and the culture tend to cause such stories to be read as attempts at the universal. I think knowing the author's intent on that point is instructive, and would end that particular discussion very quickly. But this horse is waaaay dead now, so I'll stop. >It's like traveling. When you >visit a foreign place for the first time, you can often see it with greater >clarity than those who have lived their all their lives. See *what* with greater clarity? Again, we just seem to disagree. I don't accept that the first-time visitor has greater clarity, only a different perspective from the locals. In this case, it depends on who your audience is--an audience of insiders will tend to perceive the insider's view as clear, whereas an audience of visitors will tend to find a visitor's perspective to be more instructive in answering their questions. Who is right? It depends on who the audience for the work is, and whether there is only one "true" audience or many audiences. Like the pig and the nutritionist, it depends on what the question is to decide whose perspective carries more weight. I think you and I are asking different questions, and thus our answers are tending to be different--as they should be. >I'm not saying that the author need have no intentions at all, only >that the realization of those intentions does not produce the art. Then we violently agree. Partly. I don't think art is always unintended, and I resist definitions that say that art is always or exclusively the unintended elements of creative expression. I think much of what we define as art is very specifically under the intentional control of the artist. At the same time, I accept that much of the evocative power of art lies above (or below) the author's intent, and that the author is incapable of controlling every nuance or expression. Those who try often produce overworked, sterile texts that allow little room for individual interpretation and that have little extended value. So if we define art as that which supports or enables differing interpretations, I can hang with that. If we define art as that which transcends a particular time and place, I can hang with that. If we claim that art is represented in deep symbols or concepts that the author cannot have consciously intended, I tend to agree heartily; this is what I mean by "honest" presentation. If we define art as that which happens despite the artist and exclusive of him, I start to have a problem because I believe that assumption eliminates all value from the artist himself, thus making the text (a vehicle of the author's intent) itself irrelevant. Which makes the art a construction of the critic's mind and fully independent of the text, not an interaction between the text and the reader. If there ain't no text, there ain't no art. Which makes the artist (author) an important part of the process. That's all I'm trying to say. I'm saying absolutely nothing about whether the author, the critic, or the average reader is the fount of the most correct interpretation. I think it's a dialogue among all of those people, with each taking greater or lessor active roles at different points along the line. > > And if your narrative goal is to justify why criticism is more > > important than the work being criticized, then I think you have to > > take that with a grain of salt as well. > >How can you separate the two if the text exists only in the minds of the >readers? I don't think you can or ought to separate the two. Which makes the critic neither more or less important than the text. That was my only point. >But the question is not, "what's it like being a pig?" The question is, >"what is the nutritional value of pork?" And who's to say that the pig doesn't know as much as the nutritionist about the nutritional value of pork? Pig-ness does not necessarily imply lack of nutritionist-ness. Frankly, I wouldn't trust either alone as an authoritative source--I've known too many nutritionists who disagree at important fundamental levels. I would seek the opinions of many people that I thought qualified to comment to the issue. But if the pig is qualified, why must I ignore his voice? That's my squawk. >When Udall says that Edgar Mint does not resemble David Copperfield in any >other aspect than being an orphan, do you believe him? I thought the whole >narrative style of _Mint_ was dripping with Charles Dickens. Do you think >Udall would have a motive for not wanting Mint to be derivative? Knowing that Udall didn't intentionally mimic Dickens does inform my reading of his story. It doesn't in any way discount the observations that his voice is evidently reminiscent of Dickens, but it does give me a new way to look at his text, and a new game to play while reading it. But I get very uncomfortable with the assumption that the author was somehow working an ulterior motive when he says that he didn't intend any such stylistic imitation. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. I hope the author will honestly tell his intent when asked. But I don't like the assumption that denying intent somehow implies either dishonesty or incompetence. Udall can't argue that the voice wasn't Dickens-esque with any more authority that I can, but he can argue that it wasn't intentional with a great deal of authority. Having made that statement, however, in no way inhibits further debate, discussion, or analysis. And for his own good, Udall ought to sit back and let the critical dialogue continue on its own path. It will do so regardless of his input, so why make yourself angry over something you can't change? >My overall point >is this: just because an author says something about his or her text doesn't >mean that such a thing exists in the text. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. >I take your point to be something different, that authorial intention has >some value. Fine, I agree with that. But it little interpretive value. Couldn't have said it better myself. Nice summary of our non-disagreement. >Once he finishes the car, if it's a Yugo instead of a Ferrari, of course he >should sell it as a Yugo. But as much as the author wants the car to be a >Ferrari, if it's a Yugo it's a Yugo it's a Yugo. Whatever the author >intended the car to be is irrelevant in the interpretation of the text's >meaning. We're arguing a nuance here that probably isn't useful, and you're nicely stating most of my own remaining viewpoint on the matter. I tend to believe that art is both intentional and unintentional, and that little that was not intended as art succeeds as art (though the inverse is decidedly not true, IMO). (Boy, how was that for obtuse? Let me try again...authors who do not try to create art rarely succeed at creating art, in my opinion. Many who try to create art fail in the attempt, but I think the intentional attempt is a near universal prerequisite to success.) This is actually a fair criticism that's been levelled at a class of Mormon morality tale. Some authors have come out with statements about how they were inspired to write this book or develop that character. Many such authors are attempting to head off criticism of their work by claiming divine source, thus saying that rejection of any portion of their work is also rejection of the god that inspired it. I think those authors tend to misunderstand both the nature of inspiration and the necessity of craft as both a prerequisite to art and a divine requirement for success in their calling as would-be prophets. It would be unfair to make any more sweeping statements about their spiritual fitness. So yes, I absolutely agree that the author's intent is irrelevant to whether they succeeded (with the small conceptual caveat listed above). >You can stretch any metaphor to its breaking point. Yup. But taking a metaphor to that breaking point can also be quite instructive in trying to understand the related concepts. It's where we tend to find other (often unintended) meanings in texts. >Suppose Mitchell were to confess that he intended something much different >in his book, that he didn't intend Barry to fall in love with Magdalena at >all, that's just the path the book took. Does that make him an inferior >artist, because the text pulled him in a way he didn't originally intend to >go? That's what you're saying. No it isn't. I don't really accept that the author can lose that kind of control over his text, and I talk more about that in another post. One's intentions can change radically from concept to delivery, but that's not a loss of artistic control, it's just a change in intent, and is part of the craft of developing a text. If his fingers typed words against his will then I think he needs the help of a trained professional and a long-term lease of a room with very, very soft walls and a lock on the outside. More to point, if Mitchell had stated that his intent was to illustrate the importance of wooly mountain goats in the economy of ancient Rome, I would say that he failed in his intent. Would that make him an inferior artist? Maybe. It depends on how you define art. But it would certainly make him a failure as a craftsman. And since that's a huge part of why I as an individual read stories--to enjoy and analyze craft--I would consider that work to be a failure as a study in how to realize your key narrative intent. It may still be a raging success as a study in how to create a sense of nostalgia for a past time and place. It depends on what the question is. One answer does not transfer to all questions. I think a discussion of artistic success is not specifically related to a discussion of successful craft. This appears to be a place where you and I are discussing entirely different things. I thought the mechanic metaphor was one of craft, not art, so that's what I addressed. You appear to be talking about art. Different discussions. >I'm talking about textual meaning, and you're talking about textual >construction. Yup. Looks like we don't disagree after all. >If you have to >explain to me how you constructed your cat story in order for me to >appreciate its meaning, doesn't that make it a weak story? I shouldn't have >to learn about how the text was constructed in order to understand the >text's meaning. Learning about its construction will of course alter the >meaning I see in it. Exactly. That's what I was trying to get at. And your point is well taken that a deeper understanding of a story's construction should enhance the meaning, not create it. I agree completely. That's part of why I like to read what good writers have to say about their craft--it gives me more reasons to ponder the text in a new or expanded context. Scott Parkin - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 08:34:44 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Infinite Readings (was: Missionary Stories) Tom Johnson wrote: >And I wasn't >advancing the idea that there couldn't be 7 or 5,000 different readings of >Mitchell's text, only that an infinite amount was not possible. Not possible >because I have established--by your agreement--that an elephantine reading >of the text would be implausible. If that reading is not possible, and that >reading exists somewhere within the infinite possibilities of readings, then >the number of readings of the text is not infinite. I mentioned this question to my wife Laurel, who is a mathematician and tends to have an interest when us humanities-types start using mathematical language in our arguments... Jonathan Hi, This is Jonathan's wife, the mathematician (I know...ew). So this is the problem: what is infinity? Infinity is how you describe a collection that is so large that it cannot be counted in a finite amount of time (assuming a fixed rate of counting). So, for instance there are infinitely many counting numbers, but there are also infinitely many even numbers (just because a lot of numbers are not even doesn't mean that there aren't infinitely many left). So, just because you exclude one reading (or a lot of readings, or even an infinite number of readings), doesn't mean there aren't infinitely many left. If you start out with an infinite number, it's awfully hard to be sure that you have gotten back down to under an infinite number. If you really want to say that there are only finitely many readings (which is hard to do--how different do two readings have to be to be counted as different? There are also infinitely many fractions between 0 and 1), you need to make some strange argument that works very well for math, but probably not very well for readings, so you say something like: There are only finitely many (say 200 or so) interpretations for every word, and any given sentence has at most 200 to the power of n readings, where n is the number of words in the sentence, etc. Which gives you a very very large, but still finite number of readings (probably not more than a googol for a 1-page essay, though I haven't checked it). Anyway, it's pretty clearly down to a matter of interpretations and opinions... Laurel And here's another one she came up with later (by the way, she was grinning when she wrote it...) 1. A reading exists only in the mind of the reader 2. Only readers of a text have reading of it 3. A given person has no more than, say 86400 readings of a text per day (one a minute, on average) This makes the number of possible readings of a text only 86400times the number of days since it was written times the number of people in the world. A much smaller finite number than the last one. Back to Jonathan again. I personally am agnostic on the question of whether there are infinitely many plausible readings for any given text--I suspect that the specific number of reasonable readings is socially and culturally constrained. But I also think that when we start using arguments from other disciplines (such as mathematics), it's important to get them right. Call it the editor in me... Jonathan Langford Speaking for myself (and, perhaps, for mathematicians), but not in this case for the List jlangfor@pressenter.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 04:21:09 -0600 From: Scott and Marny Parkin Subject: [AML] Authorial Intent vs Narrative Control Tom Johnson wrote: >I was just reading over that Brady Udall interview, and I was struck by how >much Udall felt like the story was writing itself rather than he was writing >the story. Here are two excerpts: > > "I [originally] imagined him as a little more noble," says Udall, who >expects some readers might balk at Edgar's behavior and at the cruelty >inflicted upon him. "I never imagined I'd write a book in which I'd >brutalize a small child for 500 pages." > > "I knew it would get ugly. I just wasn't prepared for how ugly," says >Udall of the novel's grim Willie Sherman chapters . . . ." > >How much is the author in control of the text? Plante's definition of art, >"something that happens between points A and B that is not intended," seems >to harmonize here with Udall's construction of Mint. Udall originally >intended Edgar to be more noble, but something unintended happened with >that--he ended up brutalizing him. He didn't intent for the Shermann >chapters to get so ugly, they just did. I don't really buy the idea that the author is not in control of the foreground elements of his text, such as violent scenes, character dialog, etc. Sure, the story evolves as the author writes, and original intentions are often changed to meet revised goals. But that's not the same thing as losing control over the text. Some authors promote a sort of mysticism about writing. "Oh, the story sprang fully formed from the mystic (or spiritual) realm and all I did was act as the conduit for the words." Maybe. In my own experience (I've written about 125 short stories to date) I can talk about stories that seemed to flow easily, that developed without a lot of explicit effort to construct them. I fairly regularly have spates where I'll sit down and write a complete novelette (about forty manuscript pages) in a single sitting. Such things usually happen on a story I've been thinking about for a while. I'll be thinking about something else when two ideas collide and the passive effort turns into an active one. The first story I sold to a national market is a short that I wrote in 45 minutes after finishing a novelette that I'd spent weeks slaving over. It just popped out. Does that mean I had no control over it? I don't think so. The idea was one I had played with for several months, but had pushed to the back burner while I completed this other story. I had explicitly considered most of the plot elements that went into it before I sat down to write. I already knew the broad structure and intent of the narrative. In other words, I had put in a lot of both active and passive thought time on it. So when I say it popped out fully formed, I'm only telling part of the story. It popped out after many hours of both structured and unstructured consideration. I think the same thing is true of Udall's experience. He'd been working on that story for a very long time--half of his life, apparently. He'd learned an awful lot in the time since he first conceptualized the story and the time he sat down to write. Yes, he was driven by that original intent from his high school days. But once you began to write, a different process takes over. You write scenes as you feel they need to be written, and your original intent is challenged as you actually begin to realize the scenes and settings and situations. If you're even a competent craftsman you'll probably do a lot of things differently than you originally intended, because the words you've now written create a new context for your story and force you to rethink how and what your own scenes mean to you, and how that changes the story you want to tell. You create a feedback loop with your own text and have a sort of active creative dialog with yourself. This is not the same thing as hearing voices or disconnecting your brain. It's not mystical, though it can be deeply spiritual. But that doesn't mean that the author is not in control of the words he writes. When Udall says he didn't intend to brutalize Edgar so much, that he wanted to retain more nobility, I accept that as a statement of his original intent. I also accept that he chose to modify that intent at some point, and to craft scenes as they ended up being presented. Maybe it's just a semantic difference, but the author's intent in starting a story is not the necessarily the same thing as his intent on completing it, and his intent in crafting parts is not necessarily the same as his intent in crafting the whole. When Udall wrote those brutal scenes, he intended to accomplish something with that brutality, even though he hadn't meant to be that dark at the start. I don't see a loss of control there. I see an evolving story and an author smart enough to follow the change and see where it ends up. Different people write stories different ways, and a single author can write using many different methods. I usually start with an opening image and a general thematic direction (with its implied general resolution). Then I sit down and write as quickly as I can, creating scenes and resolving plot points on the fly. I usually feel an accelerating push toward the end and often make decisions literally as I'm typing the words. At other times I've outlined heavily. At others I've done plot mapping. Others have started with a scene and I researched my way into plot development. Some start with characters, others with situations. But I always analyze my own text as a reader before doing heavy rewrites. ===== BEGIN LENGTHY DIGRESSION ===== (A couple of years ago I did that with a 60-page novella I was writing. I was writing it with a particular editor in mind whose editorial policy tended toward dark and hopeless stories. I find his tastes suspect, so I sat down to write a story that was so dark and hopeless that it would prove to this editor how poor dark and hopeless stories were. The problem is that I don't believe in hopeless stories--even my darkest stuff contains hope. So as I was typing madly away to meet a writing group deadline it occurred to me that I couldn't follow through on my original intent; I had to allow for hope at the end of the story. So as I'm sitting at the kitchen table typing the last page of the story I look up at my wife and say, "I can't believe it. I'm going to pull this thing out! It's going to end positively." Was that against my control? I don't think so. It was part of who I am, and for me to tell an honest story I had to end it differently than I intended. At that point I felt that the ending was supported by the other 60 pages of manuscript, so I went for it. Later on I would do several massive rewrites to bring some themes in earlier and to craft a story that met my specific narrative and artistic goals more effectively. But the fundamental structure stayed the same, and the key plot points remained exactly as I had originally written them. My intent changed from start to end, but that's okay; it happened with my permission, and by my specific effort.) ===== END OF DIGRESSION ===== My first drafts are usually an exercise in free-associative, organic plot development, where I create the story elements as I write. I'm not a big outliner--at least not on the first draft. When I finish the first draft I put the story away for a couple of weeks and work on something completely different. Then I pull the story out and read it as though I were reading someone else's story. I critique the story and write notes on the story I wish the author had told instead of the one I have in hand. I interpret the story as a reader. Then I rewrite. Often that means tossing the whole manuscript in the trash and rewriting the the story from scratch. Usually it means rewriting the existing text and saving a few sentences here and there while massively rehandling the rest. Two or three rewrite/reread cycles later, I tend to find a story that is radically different from what I started with, and that I think is a much better story. I don't claim to be a particularly good writer, but I think I am a pretty decent rewriter. So for me, original intent and final intent are almost always different. I don't think that means a failure of art, but rather a success of craft. If there's art to be found in the story, I trust that it will either survive my tinkering, or else be enhanced by it. >Surely when you wrote your cat >story, it pulled you in directions you perhaps did not initially intend to >go. Plante is saying that those unintended directions are crucial--they are >the backbone of the art. No argument about that. But being pulled in different directions during the writing process is not the same as losing control over your text. It just means that you follow the ideas that are already in your head, and that your own concepts can evolve as you apply more creative energy to telling a story. My little cat story is unlikely to ever be confused with art. It's a small, genre short story that Thom Duncan would probably decry as manipulative since I kill a furry creature (the POV cat) and expect the reader to feel sad at that loss. I can't really argue except to say that the story is true to my own concept, hope, and belief, and was told the way it needed to be told to satisfy my own narrative intent. I don't feel manipulative, but I accept that many will feel that I did manipulate. But it did change quite a bit from initial concept to final draft. A friend recently read it and commented, "Wow, you really sledge-hammered that Christ metaphor, didn't you?" Now I thought I'd been reasonably subtle with it (except for the cat's final living words which were pretty obvious, even to me). But after hearing that comment I reread my own story and discovered that the text had, in fact, at least a half-dozen clear references. I guess I did sledgehammer it. I'd claim that it was unintentional except that I had intended a Christ metaphor all along. What I hadn't intended was that certain structural elements should reinforce that metaphor the way they did. But I can't argue with the text--they're in there, specifically intended or not. If I understand your definition of art correctly, that suggests that the elements I discovered after the fact represent art more fully that the ones that served the same purpose but were intentionally placed. Is that correct? I know that from my own viewpoint they're both indicative of my artistic intent as well as my narrative intent, and I take at least a little pride in discovering my own subconscious use of those symbols. Those things still came out of my psyche, so I feel like I can take some credit for their appearance in the text. Of course I also have to accept that my art was apparently quite ham-handed, which suggests that I'm not a very good artist--at least by my own definitions. I admit to being guilty as charged. Maybe my failure comes from trying to go back and intentionally refine elements that I unintentionally included in the first place. How much in control is the author? A lot more than most people think, in my opinion. I won't claim that every element is intentional, but I do think the author intends some broad concepts that are sometimes reinforced or contrasted in unintended ways. And the successful artist is the author who trusts his own creative process and instincts, thus facilitating the hidden elements. Scott Parkin - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #366 ******************************