Understanding and Explanation in Literature, (Coming Soon)
Over a decade ago (2001), I decided it was finally time to commit to writing a novel and began my journey in earnest. I had harboured the ambition for my entire adult life and after about a year the first draft of 'Digital Wax' was completed. Over subsequent drafts, I learned a great deal about writing. My desire slowly made me work towards the ability I needed and I returned to make changes often over the years.
I am happy to announce that, following one final draft, 'Digital Wax' will be released in just a couple of weeks.
Expect cyber-criminality, broken virtual worlds and a big slap upside the head for reality
So, now my advert's over and my intentions are on record, I want to talk a bit about understanding and explanation in literature.
In essence, a writer wants to captivate the reader with a many levelled, and subtle, explanation of an imagined, or real, happening. In doing this we have a friend and ally called the thesaurus but an author needs to be weary about when they call upon its help. Words are each neat, little, concepts and sentences are the stream of their flow. Put them all together and the magic starts happening but if you try to throw complicated sounding words at people then they often stop reading.
A problem here is that sometimes unfamiliar words need to be used but other times you just end up confusing things. As an example, consciousness is a central theme to much of my work. Self-awareness is a suitable, perhaps more straight forward, way of saying it but if the reader doesn't grasp this concept, then there is nothing I can do ...unless anyone wants to hire me for a seminar? ;-)
On the other hand, if I decided to describe someone in a scene as 'masticating' their food and nobody understood me, then its my fault and there's plenty I can do. I can change the word 'masticating' to 'chewing' and let everyone slap me for trying to sound clever.
Remember that understanding isn't a polar state but a brief respite in a storm of knowledge. Everybody's understanding exists within a frame of reference which is relative, and unique, to them. All understanding is related to all other understanding and so, in a way, we only ever know the limits of what we can absorb.
When I explore something which is abstract, I hope that the reader flows with the psychedelic poetry of my words. An understanding can then be built out of a sense of what is being said through its tone, even when a literal explanation fails. One advantage an author has when conveying their message is what I call; The Power of Relative Descriptives. Here, an author uses a vague reference to an emotion which the reader fills with their own feelings. I think this is why many readers end up with an unfavourable view of a film adaptation of their favourite book. In the written word, they scaled all of the emotional content around their own experiences and a more visual medium doesn't allow this. I think this is a real strength writing has over other creative media, which has to be more defined.
Digital Wax is coming soon and I'm gone.
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Want more? Go here --->
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7076475.Loron_Jon_Stokes/blog
