Providing food for thought

satyesu · Mar 17, 2020

I'm hella interested in consciousness and "the self."I have been for a decade and a half. I want to write stuff that gets people interested in asking the Big Questions about it, to point out things that make me go "Huh, why is that? What does that mean? How is that possible?" And to throw out some crazy hypotheticals.

The thing is, I can't come to a real conclusion. Not one I can back up. If I could, I'd have solved one of the biggest mysteries of human existence. How do I write stories about questions I can't provide the answer to? This might be a stupid question. It might have a simple answer. If it does, I'd love to hear it, because I'm having a problem with the "metaconception" of what I want the biggest part of my writing to be about.

Kjbartolotta · Mar 17, 2020

I struggle with this too. But is writing more about reaching a conclusion, or simply opening a door to further possibilities?

indianroads · Mar 17, 2020

IMO, the point of writing about issues or philosophical subjects in NOT to instruct or shove your views at them, instead it’s to ask people to look at the issue with different eyes. In other words, don’t pontificate. Write neutrally about a subject, and allow your readers to reach their own conclusions.

The Black Prince · Mar 17, 2020

What indianroads said. These are the questions that everyone asks themselves sooner or later and every journey is unique. You can pose questions for people but you can never answer them.

My advice would be to find interesting questions and provide some sort of a gloss - the rest is up to the readers.

Kjbartolotta · Mar 17, 2020

Here's the quote from Ursula Le Guin I was thinking of when I read this post.

“My job is not to arrive at a final answer and just deliver it. I see my job as holding doors open, or opening windows. But who comes in and out the doors, what you see out the window—how do I know?”

Ichabod · Mar 17, 2020

I recently finished a non-fiction book. Frequencies of Mankind and one of the chapters covered the vibe or chemistry we have with another person. I too struggled with putting my thoughts out there. I posed most of it in question and theorem. I also used quotes from others that had studied the effects. Also, I used scenarios to show the interaction that would demonstrate the cause and effect.

satyesu · Mar 18, 2020

Thank you, all, but I meant to ask more about the execution than the intent. How does one write a plot about something that doesn't get resolved? How did Blade Runner tell a story that made us think about the nature of consciousness without telling us how the replicants were conscious and what consciousness is?

The Black Prince · Mar 18, 2020

Okaaay...I'd assumed you were talking non-fiction (ie self help/new age etc).But the same rules apply for fiction - someone in the story is interested in (or required to be interested in) certain large questions which also propel the plot.I personally think it's one of the worst books ever written, but you could look at The Celestine Prophecy as an example of how to take a ham fisted approach to the big questions - which mainly failed through trying to answer them.

Lakey · Mar 18, 2020

I read something very thought-provoking about themes, probably here on AW, a couple of years ago, and it’s stuck with me. I had thought of themes as broad abstract nouns: desire, death, insanity, etc. But what I read about themes asserted that a proper theme is a complete sentence. Some examples:

Duty toward one’s family is more important than personal fulfillment.
Anyone can become a murderer.
Artificial consciousness is indistinguishable from human consciousness, and therefore deserves all the same rights.

One way to provoke thought around a theme is to create a situation that challenges the theme. You can have one character who believes the theme sentence is true, and another character who believes it’s false, and then create a situation that puts them in opposition. I don’t remember Blade Runner all that well, but I think it takes this approach with something like my third example above.

That’s also what’s done in Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train. She takes my second example and puts it—explicitly—in the mouth of the antagonist toward the beginning of the book. I like this example because the theme is stated completely verbatim, and the protagonist stands in for the reader in denying what seems like an obviously faulty and disturbing thing to say. Yet the rest of the book is all about proving to the protagonist—and hence to us—that there is truth in this chilling statement. That’s a great way to be thought provoking, inviting your readers to question something they think is true by creating a story that makes its opposite very plausible.

Here’s another approach. The novel I have been working on takes something like my first example above, and presents two main characters, one who thinks that the statement is true, and the other who is inclined to believe that the reverse is true. As the story progresses, the things that they experience and do cause them to swap places, so that at the end each has come to conclude the opposite of what she believed in the beginning. If I can accomplish that progression in a natural and believable way, readers will sympathize with both characters and think that each one has made the right decisions for herself. That is one way to present an unresolvable question, and explore a theme that might be both true and not true.

:e2coffee:

satyesu · Mar 18, 2020

Thanks, you two! Also, Lakey: that switcheroo sounds like a master move

Ichabod · Mar 18, 2020

I recently watched the series 'human' and they dealt with that very subject. Check it out and see what you think. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010O44BSS/?tag=absowrit-20

indianroads · Mar 18, 2020

Lakey said:
I read something very thought-provoking about themes, probably here on AW, a couple of years ago, and it’s stuck with me. I had thought of themes as broad abstract nouns: desire, death, insanity, etc. But what I read about themes asserted that a proper theme is a complete sentence. Some examples:

[...]

Anyone can become a murderer.

Artificial consciousness is indistinguishable from human consciousness, and therefore deserves all the same rights.

[...]

You can also switch the perspective to an affected character.

Anyone can become a murderer:
What if someone killed or brutalized someone you loved? What if when they were caught and tried, they were let off with a minor sentence? What if you encountered that person, and they smirked at you, enjoying the fact that they got away with it?
If you write from that person's perspective you could approach it as, sometimes murder is justified.

Artificial consciousness and human rights:
That's the theme of my recently published book 'Damnation'. The POV character is an AI (android), and in terms of morality he is what humans pretend to be.

My first novel was an autobiography, written around the time that people were protesting children of illegal emigrants being taken from their parents. The truth is, that this has been going on for a long time. Back in the late 60's my parents were arrested (cops kicked in our front door, killed my dog, and rousted me out of bed at gun point). I had no extended family that would take me, so I was put into Juvie and run through the 'system'. I never mentioned the issue at the border, but instead just told the story - letting the reader make whatever associations they chose to and come to their own conclusions.

IMO we need to be careful with theme, because if handed wrongly we come across as preaching.

Providing food for thought

satyesu

Kjbartolotta

Potentially has/is dog

indianroads

Wherever I go, there I am.

The Black Prince

Kjbartolotta

Potentially has/is dog

Ichabod

satyesu

The Black Prince

Lakey

professional dilettante

satyesu

Ichabod

indianroads

Wherever I go, there I am.