Was listening to the CBC today driving in between meetings and caught a snippet of what must have been Writers and Company. On it, Eleanor Wachtel was interviewing Carlos Fuentes who related a story about seeing Thomas Mann in a café in Zurich. When Eleanor asked Carlos what he had learned from Mann, he said that there isn’t such thing a “reality” in fiction — it’s all made up.
“The reality of literature is language and imagination,” he said.
What a nice sentiment! It’s very freeing. Literally anything can happen, if you let it. Makes me want to push my own “reality” a bit further out.
(I think I’m doing that somewhat, but I have that nagging feeling that I’m playing it too safe. Is that normal, do you think, for writers to fear that they are writing too normal, too boring? And if I don’t push it far enough now, with there be room to do it once I start getting some feedback? Will I even get feedback if it’s too boring to slog through, even as a favour to me?)
~Graham
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My view is that you can write anything you like in the first draft because it doesn’t have to end up in the final version that everyone else sees. I think sometimes we let our internal editor get in the way (I know I do) instead of just letting our imagination free reign.
By the way, relating to your quote from Mann, have you come across the idea from Derrida that ‘there is nothing outside of the text’, which I take to mean that all of reality ultimately is a construct of our imaginations – the’ text’ being our internal narrative we apply to it in order for it to make any sense.
I wonder is fashion is something you have to worry about more than Derrida, imagination, language or reality. Is fashion in literature decided by authorities – writers, literary critics, professors, and fans of literature? If you haven’t already made a name for yourself, and you want to join in the big literary world, being in fashion (with the current styles/ideologies of literature might be important. However, also rejecting fashion could be important. So basically, fuck it. Write what you want, write it well, tell me something I don’t already know about the world I’m living in (have some insight to human affairs – our current reality, and reflect), but do it with humour – and make me sad, angry, happy, and eager to turn the page – make it suspenseful. I’ll read your book because you’re my friend, but while reading I want to forget that you wrote it.
Hell, I thought it was “normal” for novelists to suffer near-crippling angst about pretty much every aspect of their work.
“Am I playing it too safe?”
“Are my characters interesting?”
“Does this typeface make my hips look big?”
Honestly, I don’t know how you guys get anything done. Still, I’m willing to read it when you finish…
TC/Writer Underground’s most recent blog post: Working Writers: Paul Lagasse
@Martin — No, I hadn’t heard of that either. That’s an interesting way to look at it too. And maybe a hint at how we should write: imagine we’re writing the narrative about our own, real lives. What do we still need to know? (e.g. — what should I do today?). What can’t we know that may affect our lives? (e.g. — what are the people in my life — the characters — thinking?) What makes us suspenseful (i.e. — what drives us to distraction because we need to know the answer like the ultrasound or the job interview, etc.?) That could be a template for the narrative — or at least a template for how to unfold a story…
@Duncan — I know what you mean about reading people you know. You certainly look at them a different way. (Strangely, this happens a lot in the creative world — I’ve “known” in the cyber sense people who have written certain TV commercials, and it colours your view of them, for good or bad.) As for fashion — I’ll admit that I’m writing to hit the “popular” market. Not necessarily for the money, though if I become wildly, wildly rich, I won’t mind. But (and maybe it’s the marketing writer in me talking) I believe that writers should writer for the readers, not be cool and edgy and hip by decidedly not writing for the readers. Writing is a form of communicating with other people, and if you don’t want to communicate to your readers, don’t write. Or at least don’t publish.
@Tom — Ha, I guess I having angst over my angst. I feel so existential right now. (By the way, I actually thought this typeface was quite slimming, until you brought it up…)