After having an extended debate with Graham Storrs about his personal manifesto, I've decided that it's time to put my money where my mouth is and post my own little manifesto.
When I sit down to write my first drafts, all I want to do is get the words on the page. When I sit down to edit, this is what I focus on, what drives me forward.
A writer is a teller of tales, and the tale is in the telling. Therefore, my first rule is story, story, story. The story comes before the technology, the moralising, the theme. My first and most important goal is to create an exciting, interesting, moving, compelling chain of events that transports a reader, however briefly, to somewhere more magical than where they are now.
A story is driven by characters, with quirks and foibles and flaws. Therefore, my second rule is, never create a character I don't both hate and love. But, even though story is first on my list, I will not bend a characters will to force a development in story.
I do not write science-fiction. I write speculative fiction. Therefore, while I will seek scientific plausibility in all my choices of story and setting, I will never sacrifice a fresh, compelling idea simply because it isn’t scientifically sound.
A story is not complete when there is nothing more to add – it is complete when there is nothing more to take away. I will cut bloat and fluff wherever possible, paring my stories down to the bone to maintain pace and clarity.
Finally, I will never write something I don't believe in. Sometimes you hit a point in a story where a development no longer makes sense, or a twist pushes the limits of your own credulity, or the morals being espoused are so foreign to you that they make you sick. Some writers would push on anyway, to maintain the flow of the story. I refuse.
That's my manifesto. You're welcome to tear it apart, or debate with me as I did with Graham (excerpts from my own debate with Graham are below the cut). And, if you're a writer yourself, maybe take the time to put your own manifesto down.
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My debate with Graham went thus:
Graham: It seems to me that the most important aspect of any work of fiction is that it explores the way people of particular types, with particular backgrounds, might react in circumstances the author invents. The whole point of this exercise is invalidated if the world in which the characters find themselves is not physically possible, or if the characters and the society they inhabit are not psychologically possible...
...The usual argument is that it is just fun to imagine such situations, and the reader gets to play a little ‘what if?’ game with the author. I don’t really mind this, and, of course, it can be fun if done well. Lord of the Rings was fun. But such writing, because it doesn’t deal with reality, will always be at the trivial end of the spectrum of speculative fiction. This, for me, includes all worlds that include magic, or supernatural beings of any kind
Me: Hi Graham,
I really have to take exception to this post......Some truly fantastic works of fiction in all genres have been patently implausible. C.S Lewis's “Screwtape Letters”, for one. Or Orwell's “Animal Farm”. Does the story lose any impact for the fact that the main characters are talking farm animals? Speaking of scifi, Clifford Simak's “City” was completely ridiculous in concept, but was still a brilliant novel.
Vonnegut's “The Siren's of Titan” has several twists and turns that even the author admits are complete nonsense, and the story doesn't suffer for them. And most of Philip K Dick's novels and novellas have zero grounding in reality, or believable future technology. They're still beautiful and inspirational...
Graham: ...in citing The Sirens of Titan and Animal Farm, you have hit on two of the books I especially like and found especially hard to deal with in formulating this view.
The fact is, though, that while I enjoyed both these books, I think they both suffer from exactly the problems you point out. I know this will seem like sacrilege but a book with the same message as Animal Farm but featuring realistic people instead of stylised animals would probably have been more powerful. When I look back on the book, it is the point it makes, not the method it uses, which gave it it's value. It is quite likely that Orwell could have made the same point more effectively without the farmyard setting. Certainly he didn't lack the skill!
The Sirens of Titan is a very different kettle of fish. Like all Vonnegut's books, the story, the fanciful twists, the soulful characters, seem to me to serve as an interesting dressing to the meat of what he was saying. That sad, angry, intelligent, humanist message was the point of everything he wrote. In the The Sirens of Titan he said, “A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is
around to be loved.” Who would have listened to that without the song and dance routine? If I could do what Vonnegut did, I'd be doing it...All the time we are bombarded with fantasies of what the world is like. It has got to the point (it may always have been at the point) where many people can no longer tell reality from invention. I would rather my own fiction did not add to this problem.
I doubt either of us is "right" in this debate, but it's raises a few interesting points of discussion. Feel free to jump in to the back-and-forthing.
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Mmm, interesting. I'm not sure where I stand in this debate, but I think I'm leaning towards agreeing with you about things like Animal Farm. That said, my manifesto would be quite different to yours; I'm more than happy to write something I don't believe in because the main thing that I aim to do in my writing is to create an emotional impact, whether it's in me or my audience. Though, wait, I'm writing before I'm thinking, let me arrange my thoughts for a moment.
I'm losing my train of thought, but the main point I was trying to make is that if a story takes a road which starts to paint morals which "make [me] sick" then I don't think I would stop because of that. When I write, I don't write to show a world which I think should exist, I don't create ideal situations, I don't create nice characters who should ever win, so when I start down a road which I don't like, that's fitting because I'm already in a world where things aren't "right". I'm rambling badly; it's too early in the afternoon to be thinking, but either way, I'm fine with making myself and my readers sick.
Moving backwards through your manifesto, I'll skip the part about cutting and editing since I've never really been one to proof read, let alone cut down. I haven't written something seriously enough to need cutting down, or long enough. Or, rather, I've never had any of the work which I write seriously be put into a situation where it had to be made better. Rambling again, moving on.
I'll agree with the scientifically sound part, I think it's a good idea if it keeps the readers attached, believing still. Nothing worse than putting your characters in a situation which can't be escaped without being ridiculous.
I also agree with what you said about characters, I love all of my characters, regardless of whether I hate them as well. They're certainly all flawed.
About the story, I've always used the story as a vehicle for the characters or the theme. Though, I rarely write anything longer than a few pages, so I suppose it's different. Either way, I've always appreciated films which have had only a loose story which has enabled a much more detailed character study. For example, There Will Be Blood or Taxi Driver. The way I see it, in these films the story is only very loose, background to the characters who inhabit it.
Though, you could say that the interactions between the characters becomes the story. So, yeah.
i wonder whether your stuff thus far have been depressing reading simply because you both love and hate the character...
so you're drawn to make his life terribly difficult, so that you can attempt to get him a lovely, uplifting, beautiful way out of his depressive situations. except you never really get around to that final part because you won't bend a character's will for a story development. and by that time, the vicious cycle of depression and bad situations makes it necessary for a significant character change to get out... leaving people wanting to slit your characters' throats at the end of the book just to put them out of their misery... *grin*
ever tried to do a character that you only love?
i mean, ok, think back to stuff like locke lamora and takeshi kovacs. is there anything about them that you terribly hate? both mildly immoral but does that translate into a hate, or rather more of a wary respect for their ability to still be (in D&D vernacular) chaotic good?
i'm procrastinating from unpacking these boxes of stuff from walrus & carpenter, in case you're wondering. *grin*
Pretty intense reply, Liam. Thanks for putting in the hours =P
I get what you mean about creating an emotional impact. Perhaps if I was more of an emotional person that would be the direction I'd take with my writing, but I'm not. I fail at emotions. L2 emotions, Ruz.
I think I didn't explain my opinion on not writing what you believe well enough. I think there are ways to have immorality in a story while still believing in it. If you snag a copy of Weathermen from Iain, you'll find a main character who is both antagonist and protagonist, who does some truly awful things because he believes they're the overall right thing to do. And while anybody disconnected from the scene can see that this character is off the chain, when I sit down and really put myself inside his head, I understand why he does what he does. I believe in his actions. I believe he thinks he is doing the right thing.
It's okay to make your readers sick, but I think your characters should always believe in what they're doing. If not, then you're just creating cartoon cutouts.
@Jon: Takeshi Kovacs was a DICK. He's brutal, immoral, tortures his victims, shags his employer's wife... I love him as a character, but at the same time, I want to punch him in the face. And that's why I enjoyed that book so much.
Hmm. let's see if I can remember the gist of what I said.
First off, thanks for the link and the acknowledgement. Very kind.
Your five statements are very different from my own - different in kind (except maybe the last one.) You are clearly more concerned about process and technique than about content, the way I am. (Maybe not such a bad thing for a writer wanting to be published.) If it hadn't been for number 5, I was beginning to think you didn't care what you wrote just so long as it was a good yarn. But it seems thare are limits
Some might argue that putting story before character was doing it the wrong way round. Personally, I find if I put a few good characters into an interesting situation and let them loose, they can usually be relied on to write a good story for me.
You probably guessed it but it is number 3 that I take exception to. "I will never sacrifice a fresh, compelling idea simply because it isn’t scientifically sound." To me this sounds like you don't care what kind of nonsense you come up with as long as it's 'fresh' and 'compelling'. By nonsense, of course, I mean unreal fantastical notions.
Sadly, it is far to easy to dream up dumb ideas. Three ghosts meet regularly at the restaurant where they sit behind the diners and drink their souls through straws. Autistic kids are really suffering from being overwhelmed by the sights, sounds and thoughts of people living in a parallel dimension. People are starting to act strangely because their minds are being re-written by microwave signals beamed through their own cell phones. Etc., etc.. I'm pretty sure all of us could dream up stuff like this all day long. Sadly, it's what a lot of publishers - and readers! - like. To me it's sterile and trivial. It means nothing (not being real) and takes us nowhere (garbage in, garbage out),
It's much harder, but oh so much more rewarding and valuable, to have ideas that are grounded in reality.
Thanks for the reply, Graham. I understand completely where you're coming from... but I'm going to have to stick to my guns and disagree. All three of those crazy nonsense plots you listed could have come straight from a Clive Barker collection, or Neil Gaiman, or P.K.Dick. Three authors who are very talented at taking ridiculous notions and giving them character and nuance and emotion enough to burrow indelibly into our memories. That, to me, is powerful, rewarding fiction.
There's a time and place for the scientifically sound, and a time and place for the ridiculous. I guess the power of each lies entirely in the hands of the author.
Replying to what you said about characters believing in what they're doing, I agree entirely. I wasn't really thinking about what you said in your manifesto as being along the line of the story, rather I was thinking of them from the position of an outsider, a reader or an author.
So yeah, I agree with you now, you should certainly be able to believe in what your characters are doing, believe that they are doing what they would do, rather than believe they are doing "the right thing" or what you'd do, etc. Thanks for clarifying.
As for emotional impact, I don't particularly think of myself as an emotional person, which is maybe why I like impact in art: I don't emote all that much in life, so I seek catharsis in what I read, watch, listen to, etc. So, since I enjoy that sort of stuff, it influences what I write.
Oh, well, if you're willing to put up with brilliantly-written, first-class, works of genius, you just stick with your Philip K. Dick then! (Actually, while PKD was certifiably nuts at times - e.g. Valis - at others, he wrote great sci-fi that would easily pass on all my criteria - Do Androids Dream,,,)
Those "authors who are very talented at taking ridiculous notions and giving them character and nuance and emotion enough to burrow indelibly into our memories," would be so much more enjoyable if they just left out the 'ridiculous' bit.
Actually, as much as I adore PKD, I think his actual word-to-word writing talent was pretty woeful. His sentences were sloppy, his characters paper-thin cliches, and his scene construction was jarring. And yet, he's become a cultural icon not for his quality of prose but for his ideas.
Most of them don't hold up to any sort of scientific scrutiny (reality-bending alien drugs in Three Stigmata? Psychic and Anti-Psychic agencies in Ubik? A psychically-shared group religious experience in Do Androids Dream?) and yet they continue to inspire and spark the imagination.
Although I agree entirely with you when you say PKD was balls-out crazy. I read his biography recently, the man should never have been let out of the institution.
"Three ghosts meet regularly at the restaurant where they sit behind the diners and drink their souls through straws."
I am so writing this one. Thanks Graham!
... and I'll have the one about the autistic kids hearing parallel dimensions, thanks Graham. I think my manifesto (which remains unwritten but is speeding towards me through the ether) sits somewhere between the two of you.
Character is everything to me, because it's their psychology which drives the story. Imagine my shock when the villain in my first novel killed off one of my favourite good guys - did it screw up my vague plot structure? You bet! Did it cause narrative headaches? Absolutely. Would I change it? Not a chance, because for him to do anything else at that moment would have been feeble.
But do I sacrifice a wonderful exploration of the human experience just because something might be scientifically implausible? No way. I DO have limits, and perhaps defining those for myself is a part of getting my manifesto down. But I'm still happily playing with different forms - fairy tale, romance, etc - and I think my overarching manifesto item might turn out to be "don't box me in, baby".
Hm. Much to contemplate. Thanks for opening up this can of worms!
I'm with Janette when it comes to character vs story.
Though, I haven't written anything long enough to have the characters make a significant, story changing decision that ruins what I had planned. Though, I should add that I don't usually have a plan.