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I got into a discussion with a friend that led to my making a comment about writing. It might have been misconstrued - I don't know, really, but it's sort of giving me cause to think about the way I regard my own fiction.
Because I don't think I write deep stories. I like the themes that come out of my work, but I don't actually put them in there. If I write a story about someone who thinks themselves an outcast it's only because that's the type of person I'm familiar with. Only later it may come to me that they might be dealing with alienation - at the time I largely think in terms of "what would happen next with this character given their mindset?"
I don't think I'll ever support myself with writing - that's not my goal. I don't think what I write will ever be high literature, though to be honest I doubt Dickens ever thought of himself that way, either. I write because I have stories to tell and characters to tell them with. I write to entertain myself, and my friends, and anyone else who'd care to read.
I want it to be a good story - I want to make it as entertaining as possible without sacrificing the things that gave it form. But at the same time, I never aim to hold up a mirror to my psyche or anyone else's. I just don't think in those terms.
It's something I was dealing with in high school - we were reading The Scarlet Letter and Great Gatsby and talking about the elements (the three lights in Gatsby, three town squares in Scarlet Letter), and I made the comment that I honestly didn't believe an author sat down to write and said to himself "I'll put a simile in here, a metaphor here...." I still don't. I think I've learned that there is certainly a framework in an author's mind, and you might build on it when such events appear in your own prose, but when you write you're just trying to put thoughts down on paper in a way that make sense for the story you're trying to tell. When you edit you try to find these things and bring them out.
At The Witching Hour last fall, Patricia McKillip made the comment that when she was first published she was vastly disappointed, as an English major, that her work was not the next Faulkner. That has stuck with me since I heard it because, quite honestly, she's not in a position to evaluate herself that way. History and critics will bear out whether she's the next Faulkner or not (though for my part, I'd agree with her, but in the sense that she is, in ways, better) - Faulkner certainly wasn't able to tell that he was the first Faulkner (well, other than the name). Shakespeare wrote to entertain - he had no idea that one day his words would be synonymous with the height language could conquer. He tried to tell stories, some good, some bad, in a way that appealed to the people who paid him.
I don't even know if I'm making any sense at this point. My point was supposed to be that I concentrate on telling the story it is within me to tell, and let the rest take care of itself.
Because I don't think I write deep stories. I like the themes that come out of my work, but I don't actually put them in there. If I write a story about someone who thinks themselves an outcast it's only because that's the type of person I'm familiar with. Only later it may come to me that they might be dealing with alienation - at the time I largely think in terms of "what would happen next with this character given their mindset?"
I don't think I'll ever support myself with writing - that's not my goal. I don't think what I write will ever be high literature, though to be honest I doubt Dickens ever thought of himself that way, either. I write because I have stories to tell and characters to tell them with. I write to entertain myself, and my friends, and anyone else who'd care to read.
I want it to be a good story - I want to make it as entertaining as possible without sacrificing the things that gave it form. But at the same time, I never aim to hold up a mirror to my psyche or anyone else's. I just don't think in those terms.
It's something I was dealing with in high school - we were reading The Scarlet Letter and Great Gatsby and talking about the elements (the three lights in Gatsby, three town squares in Scarlet Letter), and I made the comment that I honestly didn't believe an author sat down to write and said to himself "I'll put a simile in here, a metaphor here...." I still don't. I think I've learned that there is certainly a framework in an author's mind, and you might build on it when such events appear in your own prose, but when you write you're just trying to put thoughts down on paper in a way that make sense for the story you're trying to tell. When you edit you try to find these things and bring them out.
At The Witching Hour last fall, Patricia McKillip made the comment that when she was first published she was vastly disappointed, as an English major, that her work was not the next Faulkner. That has stuck with me since I heard it because, quite honestly, she's not in a position to evaluate herself that way. History and critics will bear out whether she's the next Faulkner or not (though for my part, I'd agree with her, but in the sense that she is, in ways, better) - Faulkner certainly wasn't able to tell that he was the first Faulkner (well, other than the name). Shakespeare wrote to entertain - he had no idea that one day his words would be synonymous with the height language could conquer. He tried to tell stories, some good, some bad, in a way that appealed to the people who paid him.
I don't even know if I'm making any sense at this point. My point was supposed to be that I concentrate on telling the story it is within me to tell, and let the rest take care of itself.
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I do think you ought to try your hand at original stuff, too.
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I always bite off more than I can chew.