Sequel to Hidden Stars
- Thread starter Pyar
- Start date
-
- Tags
- teresa edgerton
Teresa Edgerton said:
Ya I guess it would be hard to remember if you are repeating something if you are writing a 500 page book. I know exactly what you mean about the story in your head, sometimes I can picture the exact point i want to make when i am writing but it is so hard to put it into words, and it just comes out meaning something different than what you intended.
I was wondering another thing. I am taking AP Literature and Composition in school right now and we are discussing syntax and rhetoric. My teacher says that every author specifically chooses the syntax and structure of every sentence to convey a meaning. And that authors use different literary devices such as symbolism, tone, foreshadow, etc. to create meaning that can be interpreted by the reader. She also took it to the next level and said that the author's life, and the historical time period in which the book was written has an impact on the book. Is this true? Do authors really think about the way they are going to order each sentence and if a coordinating conjuction should go in this place or that place? Do you think, "OMG that is the perfect expositional sentence"?
I never pay attention to this stuff when I am reading a book for fun, but when I am reading a book for class I see tons of this stuff. I'm like "thats personification, there is an allusion, wow that is obviously a foreshadow, look at the structure of that sentence.. it is so weird", etc. That would be so funny if my teacher is wrong =P, but maybe the author is doing all this stuff unconciously. idk, any insight would be cool
j d worthington
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 9, 2006
- Messages
- 13,889
Pyar, while I assume your question was for Teresa, I'll add a bit too... No, I don't think a writer does that on a conscious level when doing the initial writing (at least, writers who do are extremely rare, and prone to mental constipation, frankly); it's in the revision process that you do the tinkering to enhance these qualities. However, any writer who is any good has tended to read a lot, and these things are picked up subconsciously and reprocessed through each writer's mental makeup, so that the particular version of them is unique to each writer and, further, to each story, for each story does, in a sense, demand its own dialect and idiom. For example: If I were writing a Victorian or Edwardian ghost story, I'd tend to use much more restraint and a more erudite vocabulary not because I was trying to show off, but because that would be the tone such a story demands to feel authentic. A prose-poem also requires much more subtle use of language, and considerably stronger use of conscious metaphor and symbolism. A contemporary tale of street life would be much more prone to slang, colloquialism, a strong peppering of telegraphic sentences, misdirection in the language, etc. These aren't (generally speaking) things a writer thinks of when writing the story ... they just "feel" right for that particular story, and it's what comes to mind. But in revising, you would eliminate any anachronisms, polish these techniques, notice where more foreshadowing might strengthen the effect; transpose sentences or words, etc., for greater impact, and so on. So I'd say they are very much there, but, as Lovecraft noted, the subconscious element in any story is really quite considerable.
Possibly very, very literary writers who expect their work to be taken apart by academics, word by word, and sentence by sentence, are that self-conscious ...
I certainly do weigh my words very carefully, and style is very, very important to me, but I go more by instinct than I do by analysis. Analysis is something I apply when something is wrong and I need to know why, in order to fix it. But I often study the writing of other authors that I particularly admire. Really, there are very few hours in the day when I'm not thinking about writing to some extent.
There is, certainly, a complicated unconscious process going on, and I think that the more writing you do the more this is true. You could say that this is where inspiration comes in. Some of the best parts in my books just come out without my thinking about them at all. (Although a lot of thought goes into deciding whether to keep them after I've got them.)
Foreshadowing, symbolism, metaphor, and all the other literary devices; I prefer to let those arise naturally, rather than as a matter of conscious artistry. Because they do come in, whether I ask them to or not, and I think they fit better than any I would put in artificially.
But I agree that the time and place an author lives and writes in does influence his or her work heavily. Even for someone like me, who is not writng about the contemporary scene, and who is drawn to a more old-fashioned style of writing. The era we live in just plays too large a part in shaping our thought processes and our world view.
However, it's not always so easy to see these influences soon after the book is first written. Ordinary readers and academics alike will take the same outside influences for granted, so that they will be essentially invisible.
Ten or twenty years later, those parts may be glaringly obvious.
I certainly do weigh my words very carefully, and style is very, very important to me, but I go more by instinct than I do by analysis. Analysis is something I apply when something is wrong and I need to know why, in order to fix it. But I often study the writing of other authors that I particularly admire. Really, there are very few hours in the day when I'm not thinking about writing to some extent.
There is, certainly, a complicated unconscious process going on, and I think that the more writing you do the more this is true. You could say that this is where inspiration comes in. Some of the best parts in my books just come out without my thinking about them at all. (Although a lot of thought goes into deciding whether to keep them after I've got them.)
Foreshadowing, symbolism, metaphor, and all the other literary devices; I prefer to let those arise naturally, rather than as a matter of conscious artistry. Because they do come in, whether I ask them to or not, and I think they fit better than any I would put in artificially.
But I agree that the time and place an author lives and writes in does influence his or her work heavily. Even for someone like me, who is not writng about the contemporary scene, and who is drawn to a more old-fashioned style of writing. The era we live in just plays too large a part in shaping our thought processes and our world view.
However, it's not always so easy to see these influences soon after the book is first written. Ordinary readers and academics alike will take the same outside influences for granted, so that they will be essentially invisible.
Ten or twenty years later, those parts may be glaringly obvious.
Thanks! That was a great read from both of you
I'd have to agree with you that most of this stuff must come naturally for writers. I guess your subconcious plays a huge part in writing. I wrote a ten page paper about the effect of parenting on Mary Shelly on her life and her works. It is insance how much of an impact her life had on here books. Most people know her most famous book, Frankenstein, was about a scientist creating this monster that kills people. What they don't know that central to her novel was parenting and the lack of it for the monster and the the lack of "fathering" on behalf of Dr. Frankenstein. This was all caused by the lack of proper parenting in her own life, her mother had died giving birth to her and her father did not care; her stepmother didn't care for her either. Her disfunctional childhood impacted every aspect of her life, including the raising of her own children. Anyway, that is just one example of the underlying subconcious effect of an author on their writing.
But some syntatical choices made by authors are on purpose, for example The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, I'm sure all of you realized that there was a blatant lack of articles in the whole book. I haven't read other Heinlein books so I don't know if he does that in all his books but he must have chosen to write the book like that.
I'd have to agree with you that most of this stuff must come naturally for writers. I guess your subconcious plays a huge part in writing. I wrote a ten page paper about the effect of parenting on Mary Shelly on her life and her works. It is insance how much of an impact her life had on here books. Most people know her most famous book, Frankenstein, was about a scientist creating this monster that kills people. What they don't know that central to her novel was parenting and the lack of it for the monster and the the lack of "fathering" on behalf of Dr. Frankenstein. This was all caused by the lack of proper parenting in her own life, her mother had died giving birth to her and her father did not care; her stepmother didn't care for her either. Her disfunctional childhood impacted every aspect of her life, including the raising of her own children. Anyway, that is just one example of the underlying subconcious effect of an author on their writing.
But some syntatical choices made by authors are on purpose, for example The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, I'm sure all of you realized that there was a blatant lack of articles in the whole book. I haven't read other Heinlein books so I don't know if he does that in all his books but he must have chosen to write the book like that.
Exactly. Without knowing that about Mary Shelly, it would be easy to miss that very important theme (many people do). And yet in all her writings on the subject, I don't think she ever pointed it out. Probably, she was unaware of it herself.
When I look back on the my first three books, I can see a lot of unconcious influences from my own life, that I never noticed at the time. And few of the metaphors and symbols were intentional to begin with -- although when I recognized them, several years and several drafts later, I did continue to make use of them.
Even now, when someone asks me a question about those books, something will click and I will see a pattern or a connection I never (consciously) recognized before.
For which reason, I am rather looking forward to looking back on the present series, five or ten years from now, and finding out what was really on my mind when I was writing them. This has been a particularly difficult time in my life, and I'm sure that the contrast with my previous writing is going to be rather marked.
When I look back on the my first three books, I can see a lot of unconcious influences from my own life, that I never noticed at the time. And few of the metaphors and symbols were intentional to begin with -- although when I recognized them, several years and several drafts later, I did continue to make use of them.
Even now, when someone asks me a question about those books, something will click and I will see a pattern or a connection I never (consciously) recognized before.
For which reason, I am rather looking forward to looking back on the present series, five or ten years from now, and finding out what was really on my mind when I was writing them. This has been a particularly difficult time in my life, and I'm sure that the contrast with my previous writing is going to be rather marked.
Well, naturally, I like them all, so I may not be the best person to ask. If you are in the mood for something more in the medieval high fantasy mode, then you might want to start with the Green Lion Trilogy, beginning with Child of Saturn. If you are looking for something a little bit Steampunkish, then perhaps Goblin Moon.
Gladestrider
Literary Lurker
- Joined
- May 4, 2006
- Messages
- 36
I recently read Goblin Moon and The Gnomes Engine and would strongly recommend reading both (in order of course). You'll have to find them used however. My favorite source for used books is http://www.abebooks.com/.
Jeff
Jeff
Similar threads
-
-
Thoughts on the 2018 Film Meg And it Upcoming Sequel , Meg 2 The Trench
- Started by BAYLOR
- Replies: 8
-
-
-
Writing Prequels, Sequels, and the Main Thing Itself- Started by WatermelonPink
- Replies: 4