(To anyone who is confused: No, this is not my final.)
It is a given that most people, at some point in their lives, develop some kind of philosophy which guides their actions to some degree. Some people do this by borrowing their philosophy from others and never really changing it; this is often considered to display a lack of imagination, particularly if they parrot the ideas without understanding them. Some people start by borrowing a philosophy, but they then move bits around and add and delete things until they have their own set of values; this is pretty much what I've done, as do many adolescents, using their parents as a starting point. It is my opinion that the best kind of philosophy is one which has a basis in an existing idea, which you understand thoroughly, and which has been altered by your own changing perceptions.
Everyone starts out following their parents' line of thinking, like it or not. If your parents believe something, positive or negative, they are going to raise you on that belief because they are convinced that it is the right one. And, at least to begin with, you are going to share their conviction. This is something we know. Young children are impressionable, and the very foundation of their lives is the certainty that their parents know all. No matter how hard we try to teach free thought--whatever it may be--we have to accept that a five-year-old is not going to start formulating her own opinions about nuclear weapons or what have you. She is going to believe what her parents tell her. It's a survival-instinct-type thing which remains solid as long as the child is mainly in contact with her parents.
When school starts, things begin to change. The hypothetical child is exposed to the influence of many others and may be forced to question what her parents have said. During elementary school this is a gradual buildup of sorts. She starts out defending her parents' ideas at all costs, at least as soon as these things begin to matter; third grade is usually the dividing line in more than one sense. As time passes, two things can happen: the child can become ever more certain of what she has been taught, refusing to accept other viewpoints (I regret to say that this happened to me for a while); or her ideas will begin to change under the influence of her peers. Yes, peer pressure is often a cause of changing philosophies. A child's ideas do not change because she is a fierce individualist and refuses to conform, at least to begin with; they change because her peers show her that there are some merits to other points of view.
Next we have middle school, which is either hellish or fantastic by turns, and sometimes both. Obviously there are multiple ways the philosophy can go, because of the two directions the child's ideas may take in earlier years. Let's take as an example the one who has an iron certainty that her parents are right, since I have more experience in this. Our hypothetical preteen will now take her initial philosophy to extremes: I know what's right. Nobody understands. Now, I don't mean to discourage free thought--I approve of it in most forms--but being overzealously individual is just as bad as unquestioning conformity. A person cannot be successful if she automatically rejects anything she thinks is "too mainstream" or "a symbol of conformity". Oh, did she like these clothes or that band? Too bad; she can't accept them because--gasp--"normals" also like them. No, she must be unique in every possible way! Obviously, this does not work. At all. Ever. Not to over-emphasize the point or anything. The massively individualist philosophy rarely gets anyone anywhere.
The other option for middle school works best if you have already been opened up to others' ideas. Your philosophy will continue to grow and change, in some ways very much like a living creature. The acceptance of additions to your beliefs, however, is not necessarily entirely positive. It will allow you to develop yourself, true. The thing is, everyone has specific people whose ideas they listen to. If all your influences are racist, well. Pretty obvious where that'll go. If all your influences want to live in peace and harmony with nature (which is really, really difficult, by the way), then you're going to latch on to those same ideas. This continues the development of your personal philosophy, based on what your parents initially taught you and altered by your friends and your own changing views of the world. You're well on your way to having a fixed philosophy, one that works for you.
The final stage of the developing philosophy is when it solidifies into something definite. This can happen at any time, assuming the necessary preliminaries (detailed above) have been met. You may not know when it happens; all that is certain is that your values are no longer in flux. You know what philosophy you will live your life by. Some adolescents have already reached this point; some adults still haven't. There is no judgment to be passed on someone who takes a while to put their philosophy together; they might just be putting more thought into it than you did. Or they're indecisive. It doesn't matter. They will come to a decision eventually.
I don't know that my personal philosophy is settled, but this is what I've figured out so far: Everyone is free to their own opinions, as long as their opinions do not stifle those of others. Have your defining philosophy. It's okay if it's different from mine. Discuss it with me, whatever. But don't try to force me to agree with you; don't shout that everyone who disagrees is wrong. Reasoned debate is fine. I will not tolerate a war of opinions where one tries to subdue the other. That is not respect for society, and it does not help anyone.
So how's your philosophy coming along? And will it be helpful in the long run?
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
How Not to Write Vignettes
Over the time that I’ve been posting on this blog, I’ve mostly put up writing which was, if not stupendous, then at least not horrendous. Recently my posts have been mostly those which are given as assignments. Several of the assigned posts could be improved somewhat, but the most poorly-written (in my opinion) is the vignette post.
The instructions for this post were to write four to six vignettes, not necessarily about real events, as part of our in-class reading of The House On Mango Street. I am stunningly pathetic when it comes to writing about real life, or so I have often thought, so I proceeded to conjure up a character by the name of Madison and write about her instead. I enjoy medieval-ish settings because I read many, many fantasy novels, so that was the environment I devised. The imagined country was called Alnia, and was provided with a cast of a few characters who were not interesting enough to allow their absence of actual character. Don’t believe me? Read this: “[...] Addie said politely, because she's more worried about offending people than anyone should be.” This is all the characterization this character gets, and she’s the protagonist’s sister. Madison herself doesn’t get much to individualize her either, and she’s the first-person narrator. If you’ve read my blog recently, you know that I consider the mark of a good first-person writer to be characterizing narration; reading the vignette post will tell you that I am most definitely not a good first-person writer. I mean, look at this:
The three vignettes following Madison’s complaint about castles have been given the eponymous titles of “Backwards Quellen”, “The Vest of Feliciano Montgard”, and “Jester’s Mule”. Each of these, as you may have guessed, centers around the titular character (the jester, in the case of the last, since the mule is just a mule) and Madison’s experience of them. This might not seem like a bad thing; it’s characterizing to see how a character reacts to others, isn’t it? Well, yes--but only if you know what you’re doing. I clearly do not, because Madison is as flat in these encounters as she is everywhere else. I focused much too much on developing the other characters (and how well I did there is up for debate), which meant that I wasn’t paying too much attention to making the narration interesting or at least connected to the character’s personality. Obviously this is a problem that needs solving if I ever hope to be a successful first-person writer--which I don’t, but for the sake of explanation we’ll pretend I do--so what’s the source of the problem? Once again, it can be traced to Madison’s character: she’s so flat and boring that even I’m not interested in writing her.
In order to be able to write from a character’s point of view, whether in first or third person, the writer must find the character interesting. For me, this is usually not a problem, because it’s hard for me to even come up with a character who bores me to death. In the vignettes, though, I seem to have managed it. “Castles”, which consists of Madison whining about how much she hates the titular buildings, was the first thing I wrote from her point of view. I disliked the piece from the beginning, both because it could probably be written better and because the character came off as an ungrateful teenager with no other defining character traits:
The thing is, I was still hesitant to write about my actual experiences, because I’ve had such failures with that in the past and because I can’t think of interesting memories on demand--I envy those of you who can. I didn’t want to have to come up with another character, because I was afraid that the new character would be just as thoroughly uninteresting as Madison. I suppose I could have used an existing character, but the one I was focused on at the time would have been difficult: I had only written about him third-person from the point of view of others, so I wasn’t far enough inside his head to write in the first person. I have a plethora of other characters at my command, but by the time I realized how hideously dull Madison was, it was too late to try to come up with life histories for them. That takes time, you know, and most of them were already involved in a plot, so I couldn’t just drop them in new settings at their current stage of development and watch what happened. In the end, I ended up writing about Madison because I couldn’t think of anything else to do; in other words, because I lack foresight.
Fortunately, it’s easy to learn from a mistake as monstrous as this one. Never again will I write first-person from the point of view of a character I don’t like. If I do ever choose to write first-person, I’ll pay a lot more attention to what I’m doing. In the meantime, “Daughter of Alnia” will stand as a testament to the need for proper characterization.
The instructions for this post were to write four to six vignettes, not necessarily about real events, as part of our in-class reading of The House On Mango Street. I am stunningly pathetic when it comes to writing about real life, or so I have often thought, so I proceeded to conjure up a character by the name of Madison and write about her instead. I enjoy medieval-ish settings because I read many, many fantasy novels, so that was the environment I devised. The imagined country was called Alnia, and was provided with a cast of a few characters who were not interesting enough to allow their absence of actual character. Don’t believe me? Read this: “[...] Addie said politely, because she's more worried about offending people than anyone should be.” This is all the characterization this character gets, and she’s the protagonist’s sister. Madison herself doesn’t get much to individualize her either, and she’s the first-person narrator. If you’ve read my blog recently, you know that I consider the mark of a good first-person writer to be characterizing narration; reading the vignette post will tell you that I am most definitely not a good first-person writer. I mean, look at this:
The thing about castles is that they do have secret passages, even if there aren't enough of them. Ours has three, and I know exactly where each of them is and where it goes and how to get the bricks out so you can see what's going on. I like all of them, of course, and I use them frequently, but my favourite is the twisty one that goes under the northeast tower and coils like a snake once or twice before slithering off to the stables.Apart from the use of simile, which is contrived at best, what does this tell you about Madison? She likes secret passages, okay, but you know that because she just told you. What does the style of narration tell you about her? Absolutely nothing. Well, maybe it tells you she’s very precise, but that’s a trait which isn’t at all consistent in the narration. She uses simile, which could be an indication of character, if you were to look at it in the right light. Apart from that, not much. The same notable absence of character is everywhere in the vignettes, and I think I’ve figured out why: all of the vignettes, except the first one, are about other characters.
The three vignettes following Madison’s complaint about castles have been given the eponymous titles of “Backwards Quellen”, “The Vest of Feliciano Montgard”, and “Jester’s Mule”. Each of these, as you may have guessed, centers around the titular character (the jester, in the case of the last, since the mule is just a mule) and Madison’s experience of them. This might not seem like a bad thing; it’s characterizing to see how a character reacts to others, isn’t it? Well, yes--but only if you know what you’re doing. I clearly do not, because Madison is as flat in these encounters as she is everywhere else. I focused much too much on developing the other characters (and how well I did there is up for debate), which meant that I wasn’t paying too much attention to making the narration interesting or at least connected to the character’s personality. Obviously this is a problem that needs solving if I ever hope to be a successful first-person writer--which I don’t, but for the sake of explanation we’ll pretend I do--so what’s the source of the problem? Once again, it can be traced to Madison’s character: she’s so flat and boring that even I’m not interested in writing her.
In order to be able to write from a character’s point of view, whether in first or third person, the writer must find the character interesting. For me, this is usually not a problem, because it’s hard for me to even come up with a character who bores me to death. In the vignettes, though, I seem to have managed it. “Castles”, which consists of Madison whining about how much she hates the titular buildings, was the first thing I wrote from her point of view. I disliked the piece from the beginning, both because it could probably be written better and because the character came off as an ungrateful teenager with no other defining character traits:
The one we're in is a horrible thing, musty and full of old tapestry and without enough secret passages, which are the only good reason for living in a castle anyway. But we have to stay because it's ancestral, just like all that furniture in the southwest tower that we're not allowed to sit on, and if we moved out it would go to some cousin in the north. I tell my parents he can have it if he wants it, I don't care, but they never listen.Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why write four vignettes about a character you can’t stand? The short answer: Because I lack foresight. But I suppose you’ll want a longer explanation than that.
The thing is, I was still hesitant to write about my actual experiences, because I’ve had such failures with that in the past and because I can’t think of interesting memories on demand--I envy those of you who can. I didn’t want to have to come up with another character, because I was afraid that the new character would be just as thoroughly uninteresting as Madison. I suppose I could have used an existing character, but the one I was focused on at the time would have been difficult: I had only written about him third-person from the point of view of others, so I wasn’t far enough inside his head to write in the first person. I have a plethora of other characters at my command, but by the time I realized how hideously dull Madison was, it was too late to try to come up with life histories for them. That takes time, you know, and most of them were already involved in a plot, so I couldn’t just drop them in new settings at their current stage of development and watch what happened. In the end, I ended up writing about Madison because I couldn’t think of anything else to do; in other words, because I lack foresight.
Fortunately, it’s easy to learn from a mistake as monstrous as this one. Never again will I write first-person from the point of view of a character I don’t like. If I do ever choose to write first-person, I’ll pay a lot more attention to what I’m doing. In the meantime, “Daughter of Alnia” will stand as a testament to the need for proper characterization.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A Study in Mediocrity
My most recent literary conquest--well, as it relates to school--is the novel I Am The Messenger, by Markus Zusak. Messenger begins with Ed Kennedy, underage cab driver and a study in mediocrity, and his explanation of his life so far. Well, actually it begins with a bank robbery, which he thwarts completely by accident, but after that it goes straight to his normal life. It's written in the first person, and from the start Ed makes it clear that he is not someone interesting things happen to, apart from this bank robbery business. That is, nothing interesting happens to him until soon afterward, when he receives the first ace in the mail. On it there are three addresses. At each of them, he has a task to perform.
Now, I've previously mentioned one of the things I love about this book: the characterization present in the narration. Obviously some character is going to seep through, because it's a first-person novel, but there are plenty of authors who barely make it that far. Many either write in their own voice, or choose similar narrators in all of their books so they don't have to adapt too much. Zusak is different; the way the book is narrated is directly tied to Ed's perception of the world. Short paragraphs. Generally limited physical descriptions. Occasional dips into more descriptive language, but only if it's something Ed really cares about, like his dog, or Audrey (who is not his girlfriend, although this is not a fact he enjoys). I might not have noticed this if it had been the first book of Zusak's I had read, but this is not the case; I have also read and enjoyed The Book Thief, which takes place in Nazi Germany and tells of Liesel Meminger's life on Himmel Street (and, as you may have guessed, literary thievery). This book is also written in the first person, but not from the point of view of the protagonist, at least partly because she is a child at the time and can't make certain judgements which are necessary. The narrator is, instead, Death, who is weary of his job and tells the story of the book thief mostly because she interests him.
Death's narration is very different from Ed's. He provides much longer paragraphs, more description. He is very reflective, understandably a bit morbid, and he tends to read more into things than Ed does. As an example, let's take Messenger's description of its protagonist--that is, Ed's physical description of himself:
There's another detail that I suppose counts as a difference, which is really quite fantastic if you like that sort of thing. Throughout the story Ed's work to fulfill the aces is generally aided by others, some of whom are a bit surly about it, who tell him somebody else gave them instructions to do what they're doing--and they don't know who's giving them the instructions. Of course, Ed doesn't know where his instructions are coming from either, and he notices the parallel. But where this really gets interesting is toward the end. Ed comes home to find a stranger sitting on his couch. The stranger is described briefly: "He has fairly short brown hair, stands a bit smaller than medium height, and wears a shirt, black jeans, and blue athletic shoes." (352)
In case you can't already see where this is going, I present you with a picture of Markus Zusak (click for a link to its source):
The stranger then gives Ed the following speech:
Unless...
One more thing. After telling Ed why all this stuff has happened, the stranger gives Ed a folder. In it, written down, is everything that's happened so far in the book. Including the exact conversation that they're currently having.
There are a couple of other indicators, after what I've told you, but I think I've already given away enough. Read I Am the Messenger yourself--it's definitely worth reading--if you want to know exactly how this all plays out.
It's marvelous.
Now, I've previously mentioned one of the things I love about this book: the characterization present in the narration. Obviously some character is going to seep through, because it's a first-person novel, but there are plenty of authors who barely make it that far. Many either write in their own voice, or choose similar narrators in all of their books so they don't have to adapt too much. Zusak is different; the way the book is narrated is directly tied to Ed's perception of the world. Short paragraphs. Generally limited physical descriptions. Occasional dips into more descriptive language, but only if it's something Ed really cares about, like his dog, or Audrey (who is not his girlfriend, although this is not a fact he enjoys). I might not have noticed this if it had been the first book of Zusak's I had read, but this is not the case; I have also read and enjoyed The Book Thief, which takes place in Nazi Germany and tells of Liesel Meminger's life on Himmel Street (and, as you may have guessed, literary thievery). This book is also written in the first person, but not from the point of view of the protagonist, at least partly because she is a child at the time and can't make certain judgements which are necessary. The narrator is, instead, Death, who is weary of his job and tells the story of the book thief mostly because she interests him.
Death's narration is very different from Ed's. He provides much longer paragraphs, more description. He is very reflective, understandably a bit morbid, and he tends to read more into things than Ed does. As an example, let's take Messenger's description of its protagonist--that is, Ed's physical description of himself:
"I have dark hair, half-tanned skin, coffee brown eyes. My muscles are hugely normal. I should stand straighter, but I don't. I stand with my hands in my pockets. My boots are falling apart, but I still wear them because I love and cherish them." (20)And The Book Thief's protagonist:
"Upon her arrival, you could still see the bite marks of snow on her hands and the frosty blood on her fingers. Everything about her was undernourished. Wirelike shins. Coat hanger arms. She did not produce it easily, but when it came, she had a starving smile.Quite a contrast, is it not? Another interesting observation: The Book Thief's narration continues in the same style, because Death, having existed for millenia, is a static character. Messenger's narration develops somewhat over the course of the novel. It's all still in Ed's voice, of course, but his perception of the world is changing, and it shows. He goes into a bit more detail about some tings; not a lot, but enough. He also begins to make observations about his and his friends' attitude toward life. At one point, he says, "[...] we don't give it a lot more thought. I guess we don't give many things a lot of thought." (217) Ed realizes that he's become complacent; he doesn't really want to be a mediocre underage cab driver for the rest of his life, but he's not ambitious enough to change it, and he sees that his friends are much the same way. This last observation becomes even more important when the last ace arrives...but that would be telling.
Her hair was a close enough brand of German blond, but she had dangerous eyes. Dark brown. You didn't really want brown eyes in Germany around that time. Perhaps she received them from her father, but she had no way of knowing, as she couldn't remember him." (31)
There's another detail that I suppose counts as a difference, which is really quite fantastic if you like that sort of thing. Throughout the story Ed's work to fulfill the aces is generally aided by others, some of whom are a bit surly about it, who tell him somebody else gave them instructions to do what they're doing--and they don't know who's giving them the instructions. Of course, Ed doesn't know where his instructions are coming from either, and he notices the parallel. But where this really gets interesting is toward the end. Ed comes home to find a stranger sitting on his couch. The stranger is described briefly: "He has fairly short brown hair, stands a bit smaller than medium height, and wears a shirt, black jeans, and blue athletic shoes." (352)
In case you can't already see where this is going, I present you with a picture of Markus Zusak (click for a link to its source):
"I killed your father, Ed. I organized the bungled bank robbery for a time when you were there. I instructed that man to brutalize his wife [...] I did it all to you. I made you a less-than-competent taxi driver and got you to do all those things you thought you couldn't." (353)Fine and dandy, you say. This guy's put Ed through a lot of crap, but so what? Well, first of all, there's the thing about making Ed what he is. It's implied that the guy is pretty young, but in order to have influenced Ed's life that much, he would have had to be an adult when Ed was a kid, or possibly even when he was born. Most striking, however, is the statement that he killed Ed's father. Pretty early in the book (page 19), Ed states that his father essentially drank himself to death; he died when his liver gave out. So the statement that this man killed Ed's father makes no sense.
Unless...
One more thing. After telling Ed why all this stuff has happened, the stranger gives Ed a folder. In it, written down, is everything that's happened so far in the book. Including the exact conversation that they're currently having.
There are a couple of other indicators, after what I've told you, but I think I've already given away enough. Read I Am the Messenger yourself--it's definitely worth reading--if you want to know exactly how this all plays out.
It's marvelous.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)