Why Write?

Why do we write? We write to create. To make something out of nothing (well, not out of nothing, but regardless). I spoke about legacy last week.

When I write, I create meaning, and that is perhaps a very important thing to note. Meaning is the point behind the whole affair. You’ve probably heard people say that you shouldn’t write something because of what sells, but rather write something that you want to write. Okay, this is mainly because by the time you finished your vampire book, vampires will be out of fashion, replaced by something else. But I think it’s worth looking at from another perspective.

Firstly, I read somewhere (more than one place actually; I think it was Justine Musk and David Baboulene) that stories originated as mediums from which to learn. Say if caveman A ran away from a sabretooth tiger and then told caveman B what happened, i.e. how he got away, he is essentially told B a story while teaching him something. Next time B sees a sabretooth tiger, he’ll know what to do. When you look at age-old stories and whatnot, you will see the same pattern. For example, the boy who cried wolf. There, at the end of the story, you grasp the moral of the story, therefore learning a lesson in a fun way (this makes it more accessible to kids). You can even say that the theme of the boy who cried wolf is that if you lie all the time, people will not believe you when you tell the truth. Most stories these days do not have such explicit messages or morals to share (since people these days really hate being preached to) but each contains something.

If you write a vampire story with a tried-and-trusted plot line, you are not creating meaning (this is not necessarily true – it’s about your motivation and whatnot, but you get what I mean), you are simply putting words together because you know people like to read that.

If you remember my post on structure, this is a good example. If you use only structure, you aren’t crafting meaning. If you deform your story using structure, you’re deforming meaning.

My point is this: When you write something, you should be putting down words that mean something to you (and thus to others). There doesn’t have to be a lesson. It can be a story that represents something that you experienced. Even simpler, it can take a look at how a difficult decision could be made. Holly Lisle mentioned somewhere that when you start a story, find something that matters to you and write about it. Writing a story can answer a question that you are wondering about. When you let characters make MEANINGFUL decisions, you are in fact testing out scenarios of different approaches to the decision and (if you get other people to read it) showing other people how they could (or should) react in such a situation.

Meaning is what makes stories interesting. When your characters make no-brainer decisions, it does not become interesting. It is only when a character faces a difficult decision that the readers will sit forward in their seats (as if eager to learn from your hero) to see how he will react.

In the end, a story has to matter, in some form or another. If it means something to you and no one else gets it, that fine too (though it is pretty much guaranteed that someone out there will agree with you and see what you put inside). As long as it matters to someone (preferably, you should be one of these).

Should there be meaning in fiction? Or is meaning simply a subjective take on a story?

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Story and Structure

A while back, I read David Baboulene’s book, The Story Book. What I found fascinating about it was that it wasn’t about how to write a novel or how to write a screenplay. It was about how to make up a story. The book deals with a whole lot of things that are interesting and easy to understand. However, I want to talk about another thing that I started realising.

I’ve always gone about the process of writing by thinking of a novel, then writing it. This, as I see it now, was the wrong way. Instead, I should have been starting with a story, and only after I’ve completed that step, should I have moved on to the process of turning that story into a novel/short story.

While the two ways do seem to be much the same, it can make quite a difference. See, maybe this is just for me, but I tend to think of structure before I think of the rest. Baboulene says in the book that structure should never come first. When you think about it, he’s absolutely right.

I’m a very structure-seeking person. I tend to want things to line up and have them provide feedback as they go along. I need facts instead of feeling. Say, I’m cooking something, I would want to know things like, simmer for exactly 5 minutes and then add exactly this amount of some or other ingredient. That way, each step can be confirmed and evaluated. Therefore, if something goes wrong in step 1, I don’t needlessly do steps 2 to 10.

By doing this, also in writing, I am limiting my creation. I put a structure out there and then stick my story inside it, instead of putting my story out there and finding a structure that fits around it. Say I hear that a beginning should introduce the main characters and establish place and time, but my story does not work with such a beginning (e.g. the story gets moving with an event that does not involve the main characters at the time). If I were to bend my story around so that I can insert such a beginning, my story would suffer for the sake of structure. Rather find another structure or bend the structure.

I’m not saying structure is a bad thing. Structure gives you guidance and support when you don’t know where you’re going or when something goes wrong. But if you start off with structure, you can never reach your story, because you’re too busy relying on the crutch to carry you through it.

Use structure when you need it. The rest of the time, the story should dominate.

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