Writing Is A Journey, Not A Destination?

Well, I thought the old "writers meant to say THIS and only THIS" line of thinking was long tossed away in literature. Literature always means something different to people, so a "correct interpretation" of a text is never possible nor desirable, since it tends to limit the text and shove it inside a little box. And, at least IMHO, what makes literature such a beautiful thing is that it is alive. A book is always going to mean different things and have a different impact, even on the same reader, because the reader is always changing. You're a different person than you were 3 years ago, so the same book is not going to affect you in the same way.

So I don't think it's that much what the writer meant, but what the writer got across because the message recieved is more important than the message sent.

I've had this discussion with my father, who is not a writer but a reader. His opinion differs from mine.

I don't know what the hell I'm on about when I'm writing. I have this emotion in my chest, this feeling I want to express, to explore, to understand. It involves character and the situations they get themselves into. I also like really cool settings and strange ideas and things that can't happen in real life but can happen in a story about real life.

"Messages," for me, are not intentional. But they happen.

For instance, right now I'm writing a story that takes place on Death Row. This is not a for/against the death penalty story, it's about a guy on Death Row and what happens to him and the people he loves. Some people are going to say my story is slanted, but that's only because it's from the prisoner's POV. I try to make it as unbiased as possible, but I also truly want to describe Death Row and all its issues as honestly as possible. Some really horrible people are executed in America. Some decent people are as well. Guilty and innocent. Everyone is a little of both.

Is that my message? That everyone is a little guilty, a little innocent? I dunno. Some people could say that. I'm just telling a story about a guy and a feeling I get when thinking about him. Everything else just goes along with that.

I think most fiction is a metaphor, so any messages people glean from books...are all part of the metaphor.

Many readers have found interesting themes through out my book that I only enhanced in the the last few edits- Stephen King talks about going through a later draft looking for deeper meanings- Like all art there is something that speaks to the watcher and that they incorporate into the work themselves.

Y'know, some writers actually did mean to make points, to write with themes, and such. Some didn't. But the biggest thing to remember when reading is that the stories, no matter how hard the writer tries, reflects something about the time period the writer a part of. The writer has to actively fight that tendancy if they want to have something that doesn't reveal their culture.

It's very post-modern (or post-colonial--I get all the post's confused) to go with the whole "interpret it how you want to", and I don't necessarily agree with that issue, either. I'm a firm believer in context as well as personal reaction. While courtly poetry often speaks to the romantic, understanding courtly love is also important to understand what kind of love the writer was speaking about, etc. and so on.

I definitely keep themes and issues in mind while I'm writing, and I plan for them. But many writers don't. It's definitely each to their own.

This is my first post off of the newbie forum. So first off hello.

In response to the idea of literature being an organism that lives breathes and grows on it's own; I completely agree. However, I believe it is the writer's responsability to have a completely matured 'being', if you will, by the time the story begins conception. For the Author to discover what was not intended originally in his work is like finding keys to a car you never owned, but suddenly it is there, and it is yours. It's plurely unrealistic, and if a writer is finding little "goodies" in his or her story that he or she did not intend, i would assuredly not call them "goodies" but rather holes. They would undoubtedly be gaps that were not filled in, and the gaps would thus alluded to something noted in the story that correlated to something else and sudenly big-banged all over your preconceived "organism"... I frankly do not believe that is how things are created.

I agree with the statement that was said about letting anyone interpret literature and define it themselves. If there was no original purpose in writing the gelatinous tower of self-proclaimed art, I am convinced that the piece itself is nothing more than another attempt at modern poetry.
Our "post-colonial" culture does illuminate with a dimness that disregards the beauty of classic works such as Moby Dick, or The Jungle. For some reason, we're stuck reading pages of trash labled "great new up and coming author" for the sake of a feeling of progress in literature.

The question lastly is this: Is it a story before or after you write it?

Frankly, this is an issue that bothers me. Literature without a purpose is all together trash.

This opinion is brought to you by: Z.W. Van Kleeck

I enjoy talking to bookclubs because of this. They often see undercurrents in my book that I didn't realize at the time and couldn't help but put it-- exactly as GerriB says.

Nope Van Kleet - I don't agree at all. That's not how art works. So much of it is subtle and in many cases unintentional but that doesn't make it somehow less...

This all is purely a discussion of opinions. I by no means am trying to convince you that my ideas are any more found out than your own.

That said,

You, Orion, say that art does not work as something planned. I do not understand this point of view. I've always thought of art as being spawned from a concept followed by an action toward making that concept real via an art form. To me it sounds like you go about it backwards in some cases, saying that you begin with the art form, play with it, and discover the concept and name it art. To me that is very postmodern.

I hope I am not misunderstanding. I can see that a group of readers reading something might think they picked up on something the author had not intended. However, I would not encourage this as an alternate information source that reveals the key plot. That is why I refered to this as a gap, not a goodie.

I do believe that if it is unintentional, it is less than what was intended. In all honesty, it would be an accident. Despite the possible fact that a particular accident may happened to work out better in the end of a series of developements, it does should not equate to the intended plot. It is like stealing from yourself. Sure it may look good, but i'd feel slightly guilty at not noticing it was there all a long.

But theme is so very different from plot, isn't it?

For my part the plot is planned to a degree, I may even have a theme I'm writing about too, but it's the characters I'm interested in. And I don't know exactly what they are going to do or say until I've finished at least the first draft. And only then can I see whether there is any theme, or if it is the same as the one I started with. If there is ( and there always is tbh) it has come out subconsiously. But when I read through to look for it, it's there and in the revision I expand it ( or not). It grows, and with each growing becomes better.

Whether intended or not makes no difference to the quality of the writing imo, that depends on the writer.

I'd agree there. When i was speaking before, i was talking to the idea that sounded like you start with no intentions what so ever, and end up with a story. To me that sounds more like a writing excersize than a valid way to write a story. I can think of excelent ways to develope characters in a framework like that, but to write an entire story with no original pupose. confuses me to no end.

You dont think the Plot and theme should be conceived all at once? I've always felt they were spoused.

Personally? No. Not all stories even have a theme, or have such a basic one it's invisible.

I took it that the OP wasn't talking about plot or character development, but the underlying 'statement' as it were, if there is one. For instance Stranger in a Strange Land has a fairly obvious theme that is related to the plot in many ways. Same goes for Phillip Pullman, who has said he intended the bash against organised religion right from the off.

Other themes are far more subtle, and may only have come to the writer in the act of writing out the plot ( as someone posted above, Stephen King regularly goes through his work tryig to find themes he didn't know were there). Does that make them less worthy books? Not in my view.

Still more books have no theme beyond the very simple, or even no theme at all. For instance most Whodunnit's themes would be 'Murder is bad m'kay?' at the very most. A thriller can be thrilling without saying anything more than 'Hey spies are cool!'

As I've said, I may or may not have a theme in mind when I start to write - I may just have a story. There isn't always a dark thread running through it! Sometimes a story is just that, a story, an entertainment about what happened when these people did that.

In my opinion, themes in good literature need to be something that people can relate to. Like GerriB said, knowing the cultural context helps provide a deeper understanding of the work, but I don't think it should be necessary. A good author will include a lot of that anyway. Do you have to be intimately familiar with the Victorian era to appreciate and even relate to Dickens? No, but you might appreciate it more if you were. The thing about literature that survives is that its author has explored complex questions, emotions, social problems, things that we can almost universally relate to and that are relevant in the context of our own society decades or centuries later.

Upton Sinclair said about The Jungle: "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." That may have been true at the time, but if Sinclair's original focus had been the unsanitary practices of the turn-of-the-century meat-packing industry, he wouldn't still be in print.

But unless an author stands up and says "This is the message of my book," I think it's pretty silly to attempt to authoritatively pronounce what it is (as literature classes frequently do).

When I write something, I don't sit down and say "Okay, today I'm going to write a story that is actually a detailed indictment of organized religion and I'm going to include these particular things as metaphors for X, Y, and Z and I'm going to load up the meaningful symbolism in these areas." I write a story that stems from the world as I see it. If I see organized religion or socialism or premarital sex in a certain way, I think that comes through without me having to do it on purpose. It comes through in the plot and in the setting and in how characters react to things and from whose point-of-view I choose to portray the events.

One of the most interesting things about writing is seeing how people discover themes in my work that resonate with them; how they pick up a minor facet that for me is more background or character development than anything else and for them, that's really what the story is about.

OverTheHills&FarAway said "I have this emotion in my chest, this feeling I want to express, to explore, to understand." I think that is pretty accurate for me, too. When I write something, it's an exploration. Of feelings, of ideas, of my world. If I do it well, it's an exploration for the reader too.

Writing is a voyage.

Attempting to get writing published is the ship hitting an iceberg.

caw

Haphazard said:

As a student, I get my fair share of having to interpret literature. So often, the teacher asks, "What did the writer mean by this?"

Now, I can't read the great's minds, but I know a lot of writers who don't think specifically line-for-line, as to what their writing 'means'. But there's one thing I find curious, and it's that it all seems to go under the assumption that the writer had planned out whatever message they got across from the beginning, and that whatever the interpretation is is what the writer's really trying to say.

I personally know that when I write, I write to explore and play rather than to say something in particular. I want to see what certain people will do in certain situations in certain settings. It's a lot of fun. It's almost more like playing a game than anything else, and what the story ends up 'saying' about life is just what the end result of the simulation was.

Does anybody else have thoughts on this?

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I was always the one who argued with the teacher and said, "No. That's not what they meant." The teacher would invariably get absolutely hostile when I would not leave a thing alone. I think it's asinine what some teachers say about meanings in novels. I was a student who could not keep his mouth shut. Many students refuse to think for themselves. They will take what the teacher is saying as gospel. I had one English teacher who loved 'discussing' literature with me because I wouldn't back down...I gave my opinion and did not accept everything he said about a certain piece and its meaning as the absolute truth. I believe that the writer doesn't always know what is in the text of their novel. Sure, some will plan from word one to the last word...making sure they are meaning everything they say and saying everything they mean...but I'm positive they're not all like that. Unless I heard it from the horse's mouth, I took all the meaning crap from my teachers as conjecture. They didn't always like that about me...but if they didn't write the piece and they do not have an essay from the author in front of them describing what they meant when they wrote what...it's all conjecture. I know that some of my betas have told me about my meanings in my work and when they did I would think, "Hmmmm. Wow. I did that?!" Each reader will grab something else out of the text. The writer doesn't always plant that something into his/her work. Sometimes it just appears through the words.

Z. W. Van Kleeck said:

Frankly, this is an issue that bothers me. Literature without a purpose is all together trash.

This opinion is brought to you by: Z.W. Van Kleeck

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Hello, Zach. Welcome!

And now I'm going to respectfully disagree. Just as you stated, this is only my opinion...

I've never seen anything wrong with writing purely for the sake of entertainment. Sometimes, the only purpose a writer has is to tell a good story (I know that's my purpose when I write), and I don't think it's trash just because I didn't intentionally include a theme.

None of us truly knows whether Shakespeare or Melville or Hemingway meant to include the themes we've interpreted from their work. I tend to believe that the best themes emerge from a writer's experiences and worldview, rather than a serious attempt to incorporate a message. In some cases, there seems to be clear evidence of an intentional theme wrapped in a plot (1984, Brave New World, etc.).

However, those apparently clear intentions could just as easily have come from the writer's original "what if" scenario (e.g., what if they really were watching you all the time...).

It's true that the ways of the "classic" writer - using literature as a vehicle to convey ideals and/or social commentary - seems to have fallen by the wayside when you're looking at modern fiction. But the times have changed as well, and literature will always reflect current culture. If the themes of "today's up and coming writers" do not seem immediately apparent, it may be because modern writers have learned the best ways to communicate with modern readers, and it isn't through blatant introduction and reinforcement of perceived themes.

There is deeper meaning in most modern fiction, believe it or not. Often, there is the surface level of "exciting, fast-moving story", and beneath is the subtlety of theme. Because of the greater complexity modern writers seem to have developed, fiction can be appreciated by a wider audience - those who are just seeking entertainment, and those who want a little more substance.

If you'd like an example of a modern writer who incorporates great themes (intentionally or unintentionally, I'm not sure, since I haven't asked him) and conveys stories with general appeal using some of the best prose I've read in both classic and modern fiction, check out Dean Koontz' Odd Thomas trilogy. There are some true prose gems there, even if you're not particularly interested in the plot.

Again, welcome to the boards - stick around a while! We float down here. We all float.

was that a modest mouse quote? haha.


I appreciate the attitude of the disagreement. and like i said in my welcome to the forum on the newbie page; I know little more than a few fantasy reads that i cherish good television science fiction, and a number of classics my parents read to me when i was little and in turn reread when i was old enough to really understand them.

I have my preconceptions of what i want to see. It's just hard to find it. That's honestly what motivates me. I want to write a book that I would want to read. One that is intentional.

Thus far in my writing 'career', if i can call it that, I've organized my stories beginning with a theme that is married closely to the plot. like a thread consisting of two strings. with that thread i sew together characters and scenery, however, the characters and scenery are backdrops for what is really being delivered. I feel that it is good that way. If i am mistaken please let me know, because i am devoted to three different novels at this time that are well on their way to being through with initial drafts.

Z. W. Van Kleeck said:

was that a modest mouse quote? haha.


I appreciate the attitude of the disagreement. and like i said in my welcome to the forum on the newbie page; I know little more than a few fantasy reads that i cherish good television science fiction, and a number of classics my parents read to me when i was little and in turn reread when i was old enough to really understand them.

I have my preconceptions of what i want to see. It's just hard to find it. That's honestly what motivates me. I want to write a book that I would want to read. One that is intentional.

Thus far in my writing 'career', if i can call it that, I've organized my stories beginning with a theme that is married closely to the plot. like a thread consisting of two strings. with that thread i sew together characters and scenery, however, the characters and scenery are backdrops for what is really being delivered. I feel that it is good that way. If i am mistaken please let me know, because i am devoted to three different novels at this time that are well on their way to being through with initial drafts.

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Oh, no! I don't think you're mistaken in your approach. I just disagree with the idea that any work of fiction without a theme/purpose is trash.

As I said, there are quite a few classic, and even modern, works that seem to have been written with theme in mind. This approach has merit - I just believe that the "purposeless" approach is just as sufficient to convey a story. They're both valid methods. I enjoy a good themed novel, as long as I don't feel the writer is bashing me with a theme-hammer.

I think the majority of writers are working on books that they'd want to read. It's difficult to produce something that others will enjoy, if you don't enjoy it yourself. Carry on!

(LOL the quote is Stephen King... )

The only thing I would suggest is that if you do get the opportunity, read widely. Reading is an excellent training ground for any writer - you can learn what to do, and what not to do, by taking in a variety of fiction.

If i am mistaken please let me know, because i am devoted to three different novels at this time that are well on their way to being through with initial drafts.

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If it works for you, go for it. Every writer works differently, and that's your way. There is no right and wrong as long as the end result is good.

i should start a forum that has people define "good"

oh the vague abyse of linguistic boundry. - Izaahk Malachi

random thoughts..

This is an interesting thread! I wonder to what extent our thoughts on the matter are caused by how we approach writing? My thoughts on this have changed a lot based on how I write, I think...

Z. W. Van Kleeck said:

I'd agree there. When i was speaking before, i was talking to the idea that sounded like you start with no intentions what so ever, and end up with a story.

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I've done this. Normally it's just a game but sometimes it turns into a real story and I go "Huh, that's what I've been worried about/thinking about without really letting myself know."

Most human thought is unconscious, so I guess my feeling on the matter is -- why not use that too?

Z. W. Van Kleeck said:

I do believe that if it is unintentional, it is less than what was intended. In all honesty, it would be an accident. .

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I guess I'd disagree because even if something's unintentional, it's not random. It might be total coincidence but I think it's more probably something the author had in the back of their mind. Again, I don't really see why we should limit ourselves to the thoughts we know we have.

I was redrafting a story a few months ago and noticed that some of my imagery could have a sexual reading. It made sense, because the character was coming of age etc, so I went hey, why not, and made it a little stronger and more coherent. It's unintentional, but it was more than what I knew I intended while I was writing.

Of course, this might be different for different people. I wouldn't be surprised if some people are smarter than I am, and can do lots of layers consciously. I can't.

Z. W. Van Kleeck said:

Thus far in my writing 'career', if i can call it that, I've organized my stories beginning with a theme that is married closely to the plot. like a thread consisting of two strings. with that thread i sew together characters and scenery, however, the characters and scenery are backdrops for what is really being delivered. I feel that it is good that way. If i am mistaken please let me know, because i am devoted to three different novels at this time that are well on their way to being through with initial drafts.

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Hm. I have no opinion on this but Ursula Le Guin seems to think it's a bad idea.
Take that for what it's worth, I guess? It's not exactly what you're talking about, I think, and even if it was, it's still just one opinion.

Haphazard said:

As a student, I get my fair share of having to interpret literature. So often, the teacher asks, "What did the writer mean by this?"

Now, I can't read the great's minds, but I know a lot of writers who don't think specifically line-for-line, as to what their writing 'means'. But there's one thing I find curious, and it's that it all seems to go under the assumption that the writer had planned out whatever message they got across from the beginning, and that whatever the interpretation is is what the writer's really trying to say.

I personally know that when I write, I write to explore and play rather than to say something in particular. I want to see what certain people will do in certain situations in certain settings. It's a lot of fun. It's almost more like playing a game than anything else, and what the story ends up 'saying' about life is just what the end result of the simulation was.

Does anybody else have thoughts on this?

Click to expand...

I don't think that the vast majority of writers try to put meaning in their work on a line-by-line level, but I do think pretty much all of us put some meaning in the story as a whole. Whether you call it theme or whatever, we all have a purpose in writing what we write. There's something we want to explore, or play with, or expound upon, or whatever it is we want to do with it--we have opinions on topics (personal and cultural) and those come out in the values of our characters and the worlds we write about. That authorial agenda and set of opinions are the "meaning" within the books.

As someone mentioned previously, Stephen King advises going through the first draft, finding what slipped in there when you were eyebrow-deep in creating the story and deal with it. I think that's good advice, particularly for those writers who don't consciously know what agenda/opinions are motivating the telling of this story. Much better to be aware of what your story is saying and in some control of what people can take away from it.

Those writers that impressed me the most did have a rather strong worldview. Tolkien had many. C.S Lewis likewise was influenced by his worldview.

Most fables had a moral of the story, as does much of mythology.


How does a tyrant become a tyrant? How does a society unravel? What makes us who we are? If you are familiar with Tolkien's Silmarillion, Feanor was an Eldar (Elves) of great power and intellect. However, he became very self-destructive and bitter. This leads to sorrows for all who associated with him. And so there is also a moral of hastily made vows and the foolishness of associating with self-destructive people.

However, nothing happened in a bubble. His mother abandoned him, and then died. His father went into a depression, but also spoiled Feanor. Tolkien wasn't a psychologist, but there are so many clues on the formation of people and socieites. Some, like me, love those added dimensions.

People who don't think about these things won't include such things, but people that do, will incorportate those thoughts into their novels. With that said, the story has to stand alone with all the thought provoking elements removed.

Nateskate makes a killer point.

I have always enjoyed the simplicity of Tolkien's stories when boiled down to their 'family fued'.

the story itself must stand alone.

I am thoroughly convinced that the depth of tolkiens psychological themes in the Lord of the Rings were not discovered, but rather preconceived. something that simple, however candid in heavy shrouds of fantasy lore, cannot be an accident. I refuse to think that it was. I beleive that is what makes Tolkeins work so successful. The stories adhere to subconscious, however, I believe the themes were not created by the subconscious and later discovered by the conscious.

Theme? Sometimes they're intentional, sometimes not. Oftentimes, it's just the author's own thoughts coming through subconsciously. I don't know. I don't think about mine.

It's the deeper symbolism and meaning and all that crap that pisses me off when people try to convince me the author intended it. Some of them do plan stuff like that out, but this just about always makes for a bad, shallow, predictable book. This topic keeps coming back every once in a while. Most good writers don't intentionally place symbolism in their books. They just create an environment where symbols are likely to form on their own. And whatever any English professor says, the only right ones are the ones who will admit there are no "right" interpretations.

I'll take it ever farther than KTC. I don't even care if an author comes out and says "This is the correct interpretation of my novel; this is what I meant." If any author ever had the audacity to do that, I'd go right up to him and say "No. That's one interpretation of your novel, of many."