Discussion topic: Does "God" Exist?
17 May 2009 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leethetBecause this always gets unwieldy in comms so I think I should rightly rant/discuss here where it won't get in others' way.
This is a writing discussion/question, not a religious one, and it should go without saying that it's my position, not anyone else's.
"When I write, I am God playing Humans." This is true. For all that, in fanfic, we are using someone else's characters, in my stories, for the length of the tale, they're mine. I "created" them (that is, these fannish versions of them). I know what they ate for breakfast (which I didn't put in the story). I know their parentage (which I didn't put in the story). I know their fears (the ones they'll admit and the ones they won't).
And I know their sexual orientation, even if I don't explicitly state it in the story. When I write gen, it's gen. NS and IK are heterosexual men who love one another as brothers and would never, in that particular universe, ever want to have sex with each other. When I write slash, NS and IK are bisexual or homosexual men who have a physical attraction to one another in addition to their love.
The question/discussion part is here: Writers - do you know your characters and your writing (whether you've articulated it or written it down or plan to include it in the story or not)? Do you sometimes not know your character(s) insides, their motivations, their history, their sexuality, whatever, as you're writing or even when you're done with the story? This is not an accusation or an "if so you're wrong" question. I'm asking in genuine curiosity because I know everyone's process differs. I freely admit (like it's a secret) that I'm offended by readers telling me "yes you did!" after I state explicitly that I did not. I am God in my story universe; the reader is a viewer, looking in from the outside. I am as much a reader as a writer - I fully believe in, and defend, a reader's right to see a story in any way they like, and discuss it and argue it as their interpretation. I do not believe a reader's interpretation is fact (although I actually do also believe that a reader has the total right to believe their interpretation is fact). A reader can argue "This story reads like X" all they want. But if I say "It's Y," although they have the absolute right to say "Shit, still reads like X to me, man. To me, it'll always be X," they do not have the right to tell me, the creator, "You're wrong. You don't know what you wrote, but I do." This distinction, to me, matters (probably because it's happened to me and it's offensive). Because of this, I'm curious - have you had readers contradict you - not interpret a scene differently from the way you'd intended, not point out something you hadn't been consciously aware of, not be puzzled or missed your story point - actually contradict your statement of fact regarding your story by saying "No you didn't"?
Now, it seems that there are writers out there who aren't sure what they're putting in, and I'm interested in hearing examples of discussions they've had with readers regarding interpretation. Do their comments open a window to subconscious things you're doing in a story? Are you resistant to readers' interpretations, even when you yourself aren't certain about them? Or do you deliberately (as it were) write in such a way that all (or at least many) interpretations are equally possible and viable for the characters (that is, the characters remain a bit of a blank, or partly blank, slate)?
As ever, all sorts of comments, including disagreement or anon comments, are welcome here.
This is a writing discussion/question, not a religious one, and it should go without saying that it's my position, not anyone else's.
"When I write, I am God playing Humans." This is true. For all that, in fanfic, we are using someone else's characters, in my stories, for the length of the tale, they're mine. I "created" them (that is, these fannish versions of them). I know what they ate for breakfast (which I didn't put in the story). I know their parentage (which I didn't put in the story). I know their fears (the ones they'll admit and the ones they won't).
And I know their sexual orientation, even if I don't explicitly state it in the story. When I write gen, it's gen. NS and IK are heterosexual men who love one another as brothers and would never, in that particular universe, ever want to have sex with each other. When I write slash, NS and IK are bisexual or homosexual men who have a physical attraction to one another in addition to their love.
The question/discussion part is here: Writers - do you know your characters and your writing (whether you've articulated it or written it down or plan to include it in the story or not)? Do you sometimes not know your character(s) insides, their motivations, their history, their sexuality, whatever, as you're writing or even when you're done with the story? This is not an accusation or an "if so you're wrong" question. I'm asking in genuine curiosity because I know everyone's process differs. I freely admit (like it's a secret) that I'm offended by readers telling me "yes you did!" after I state explicitly that I did not. I am God in my story universe; the reader is a viewer, looking in from the outside. I am as much a reader as a writer - I fully believe in, and defend, a reader's right to see a story in any way they like, and discuss it and argue it as their interpretation. I do not believe a reader's interpretation is fact (although I actually do also believe that a reader has the total right to believe their interpretation is fact). A reader can argue "This story reads like X" all they want. But if I say "It's Y," although they have the absolute right to say "Shit, still reads like X to me, man. To me, it'll always be X," they do not have the right to tell me, the creator, "You're wrong. You don't know what you wrote, but I do." This distinction, to me, matters (probably because it's happened to me and it's offensive). Because of this, I'm curious - have you had readers contradict you - not interpret a scene differently from the way you'd intended, not point out something you hadn't been consciously aware of, not be puzzled or missed your story point - actually contradict your statement of fact regarding your story by saying "No you didn't"?
Now, it seems that there are writers out there who aren't sure what they're putting in, and I'm interested in hearing examples of discussions they've had with readers regarding interpretation. Do their comments open a window to subconscious things you're doing in a story? Are you resistant to readers' interpretations, even when you yourself aren't certain about them? Or do you deliberately (as it were) write in such a way that all (or at least many) interpretations are equally possible and viable for the characters (that is, the characters remain a bit of a blank, or partly blank, slate)?
As ever, all sorts of comments, including disagreement or anon comments, are welcome here.
no subject
Date: 17 May 2009 09:02 pm (UTC)RE: the Writer is God.
I've often used this analogy myself. Like God, I can step back and know everything that has happened/is happening/will happen to my characters. I exist outside of their time line. I can look down on it and see everything from beginning to end and beyond. I know stuff they don't know.
That said, I don't believe that God or a god is all powerful. Acc to Scripture, remember, God endowed us with free will. He didn't want puppets (what fun is that?)
So, my characters have free will too. Sometimes, they don't necessarily do what's good for them. I know this because I know the consequences of their actions when they don't. Sometimes, they surprise me. Sometimes, I let them do what they will. Sometimes, I intervene to serve the story.
Do I know everything about them? No. I would imagine if you know every single thing about a character, then they would bore you. I might know the parameters of a scene, chapter or plotline, but what happens within those parameters often surprise me. I don't know everything that will be done or said. And while I may know how things are likely to transpire, it doesn't mean they always do as I expect. I may know a destination but not precisely how we all will get there.
There is even far more serendipity or chance involved when I write interactively, which I have done with four separate individuals. Then, I am a collaborative deity, not an all-powerful one. I do not/cannot control everything and this process, while less certain and controlled, is far more addicting.
RE: readers and writer's interpretations. I am a constructionist philosophically, and in writing I don't believe in ultimate truth, only many truths. What something 'means' is up to debate and I'm not willing to take as solid and strident a position as you do. I don't always know everything that's going on in a story although I am very good with plot.
Case in point: there's a drug-induced dream sequence in The Sleeping Beauty Affair in which Solo sees Allyson as a little girl but then she begins to bleed and her dress is eventually saturated with blood. When I wrote it, I assumed this was symbolic of Solo's fear that he had put his daughter in danger. However, others have pointed out that it might be symbolic of menstuation and that he may also fear her growing up.
That interpretation did not occur to me at the time but I think it's certainly valid and very possibly something Solo *may* fear even though I didn't see it myself. So, I'm not going to say the reader was wrong. Indeed, they are probably right. But I'm not 'wrong' either. What the absolute truth is, I don't know. Probably a combination with multiple answers. Someday, someone else may come along with yet another interpretation and that may be just as valid.
Sometimes, folks have asked me questions about why a character did something or if he knew something or whether something was deliberate and I often respond, "I don't know." Because I don't. It's up to interpretation and sometimes, the truth is multiple.
On the other hand, I have heard interpretations of other stories and situations I've written that I think are way off base, but it may be that both the reader and I are interpreting within our own cultural and psychological frameworks.
I do agree that it's annoying and even bullying to be told what you as the writer were thinking when you wrote something. What *you* meant ---no, thank you, I know what I meant.
But that's different from interpretation which, I believe, is something that is negotiated and exists outside of the individual writer and readers ---it's not something embedded within a text but something that occurs in the encounter between writer, reader and text.
no subject
Date: 22 May 2009 09:21 pm (UTC)And oh yes, your example of the dream Napoleon has about his daughter - that's a wonderful example of a reader taking a scene and adding their own interpretation in a way that somehow enriches the story! That's always very interesting when that happens, and I enjoy a dialogue with readers who have a view of a scene that I never imagined for a moment - but that, once they mention it, I go "That makes total sense!"
So absolutely, I agree with you - interpretation is a very different thing from telling the writer what he/she is or was thinking or intending, and I totally defend, as you do, a reader's right to pull out of any story of mine whatever makes sense to that reader - and it would be an entirely valid view, even if it was the absolute opposite of what I intended. We can't possibly inflict our interpretation of our work on readers, and ... I don't think I'd want to if I could. As a reader, I love interacting with a text; I assume all engaged readers enjoy that too. It's not passive by any means, and I feel like it shouldn't be passive. If I could enforce my interpretation and view regarding my stories on readers ... it's almost as if there's no reason for them to read it then, you know?
So yes - I absolutely see where you're coming from and I agree. There is never a "wrong" interpretation from a reader, any more than it can be wrong for a diner to like, not like, or be indifferent to green beans. It says nothing about the green beans, really, and everything about the interaction between the diner and the food in question - and there are no wrong answers there.