« The word narrative means « to know. » The reader enters the narrative to know. The character enters the narrative to know. The writers enters the narrative to know. The pressure of not knowing and wanting to know is the pressure to write, to proceed to knowledge; but it is also the pressure to read, and as well the pressure to live and breathe as a character on the page. The shared experience among writer, reader, and character is that process of discovery. If any of the participants in the process has already discovered whatever there is to be discovered, then why bother? […]
Readers suspend disbelief and writers suspend disbelief because writing and reading are acts of faith along the path to knowledge, not just one particular knowledge but any knowledge that is part of the essential truths lurking to be shared by the reader and the writer and all those people in that story, that are coming not to just once conclusions but many conclusions, that follow not one path but many paths, because the writing and the story are not just about one thing but many things, and in this essential multifarious way writing is an embrace of all the complexity of not knowing and wanting to know and getting to know and all the contradictions that reside therein, and that has been our task, on these paths, all of us – writer, reader, character – to embrace those contradictions. »
Fred G. Leebron, from the essay Not Knowing in The Eleventh Draft, Craft and the Writing Life From The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, edited bt Frank Conroy.
Awesome. That excerpt summarizes my *need* to read. (Seriously, when I feel like crap, I only want to read and it’s the only thing that’ll make me feel better!) And how it ties in with my *need* to learn. All the time, about almost anything!
(It also reflects how I (used to) write fiction, and partly why I want to get back to it.)
So… is the whole book worth it?
The book brings together a group of essays from former students and teachers of the Iowa Workshop who were simply asked to talk about the writing life. I bought it years ago but I’m only getting to it now… when I happen to need it! ;)
I’m only half way through it and not all the essays are as compelling as this one. I particularly enjoyed this one because it came from a writer who used to structure and plan the HELL out of everything he wrote but was never getting anything satisfying (to him or even to other readers) until he allowed himself to « not know » what was going to happen and trusted the writing and the process a bit more.
In screenwriting, we are used to planning the hell out of everything we do, especially in television where we have to turn in a synopsis and a detailed outline (scène à scène) before we can actually write the script. While I understand the production need to proceed this way (a lot of people have to approve what you write and you also need to move fast when you are shooting) and while I’m really big on structure, I find the process somewhat sterilizing (for lack of a better word). It doesn’t take into account all the discoveries that happen while you actually write. It’s when I get the characters to start talking and put together scenes on the fly that I get my best ideas for what should come next. I need to « feel » both the character and the story before I can figure out where they are going.
I’m dying to work on a novel or short stories right now just so that I can let it flow and see what happens. Of course, there’s A LOT of rewriting involved when you proceed that way and you often have to get rid of most of what you initially wrote, but hey, it keeps the muscles warm and it allows you to make some interesting discoveries!
I’m not sure I answered your question. You can borrow the book when I’m done with it!
Cool!
It’s been my experience that structure does « sterilize » my creativity. (But it’s a very personal thing!) When I set out to write my novel way back (feels like another lifetime, but was only another… decade!), I knew where I was going. I had ten chapters, notes on all the characters, I knew what would happen when–at every step. Then I tried to write and it proved absolutely impossible for me! The framework I’d given myself was stifling my abilities. I ended up taking a few pages I’d written in a fit of unrelated rage, and finding them good enough… to turn those into a novel, 180 degrees from the one I’d planned on writing!
(No rewrites for the publisher I had, but then again, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to use the same! Ever, under no circumstances!)