Learn from this what you will...
Mar. 2nd, 2006 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranInspired by a post by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
llygoden, in which she describes an exercise from Donald Maass's book Writing the Breakout Novel...
I think there's an important distinction between a book that carries a message and a book that carries the author's message. The books and stories I like best are the ones where the author essentially says "here is what happens, learn from this what you will", rather than the ones where the author says "learn is what happens, learn *this* from it.
The best stories, I think, and I guess I'm talking about Stories with a capital 'S' here, are the ones which are not so much about messages as situations. There may be plenty of messages in them, but the reader is left to find them for themselves, and in many cases, different readers will draw different lessons from them, just as we do with real life experiences.
Shakespeare is a good example. His better works transcend simple morality plays because they aren't just based around simple answers or morals. They invite debate and interpretation. What should the characters have done in that situation? What would you have done?
It's something that I'm starting to recognize now as a sign of "good" writing (ie. writing that I like). You could write a story about a man who trains throughout his youth to be a knight and then is killed by an arrow within seconds of his first battle. You could write to it be "about" the need for embracing technological change in the field of armour plate, or about the futility of war, or the folly of hubris, or cruelty of broken promises. But, it would be a much better story if it was about all of these things and none of them. If you leave the reader to draw they can from it from different angles, including some you've never thought of it.
I think, in some ways, this is what makes a good situation. Something that provokes thought, instead of supplying an answer.
I'm trying now, in my writing, to think of the story less in terms of action and outcome and more in terms of situation. Instead of man learns lesson, it's more of a case of man faces problem, and the solution to be found may just be one of many.
llygoden, in which she describes an exercise from Donald Maass's book Writing the Breakout Novel...I think there's an important distinction between a book that carries a message and a book that carries the author's message. The books and stories I like best are the ones where the author essentially says "here is what happens, learn from this what you will", rather than the ones where the author says "learn is what happens, learn *this* from it.
The best stories, I think, and I guess I'm talking about Stories with a capital 'S' here, are the ones which are not so much about messages as situations. There may be plenty of messages in them, but the reader is left to find them for themselves, and in many cases, different readers will draw different lessons from them, just as we do with real life experiences.
Shakespeare is a good example. His better works transcend simple morality plays because they aren't just based around simple answers or morals. They invite debate and interpretation. What should the characters have done in that situation? What would you have done?
It's something that I'm starting to recognize now as a sign of "good" writing (ie. writing that I like). You could write a story about a man who trains throughout his youth to be a knight and then is killed by an arrow within seconds of his first battle. You could write to it be "about" the need for embracing technological change in the field of armour plate, or about the futility of war, or the folly of hubris, or cruelty of broken promises. But, it would be a much better story if it was about all of these things and none of them. If you leave the reader to draw they can from it from different angles, including some you've never thought of it.
I think, in some ways, this is what makes a good situation. Something that provokes thought, instead of supplying an answer.
I'm trying now, in my writing, to think of the story less in terms of action and outcome and more in terms of situation. Instead of man learns lesson, it's more of a case of man faces problem, and the solution to be found may just be one of many.
