Carrying
Readers along a
Subliminal
Current of Subtext
The driving
concern that shaped my philosophy of writing are not associated
with the appearance of words on the page or my overall appearance
as an author, but rather the ideas I want my readers to grasp.
The operative
word here is the active verb "grasp," suggesting that wordsmiths
who use their canvas to craft a literary physiognomy risk
alienating their audience. Arguably, the author sells readers a
state of mind or mood, a set of values and ideas, which, ideally,
would register with readers implicitly. A connection of this
depth is not achieved by cramming a set of static images up the
optic nerve ("passive reader syndrome") but by prevailing upon a
natural propensity among readers to participate in the story.
Overwhelmed
at first by a Babel of potential options as an author with a
blank canvas, I learned that a clear path presented itself when I
realized all choices boiled down to a decision between treating
my reader as a participant or a spectator. From the dawn of that
epiphany evolved a style of writing concerned with "leading the
reader," coaxing them into completing my sentences, utilizing
foreshadowing and a nexus of metaphors to direct readers into
drawing my conclusions for themselves.
This is
easier said than done, however. It takes a special form of
discipline to resist the temptation to bury the lead by entombing
in text the very words you want to flash across their minds.
Authors are also acutely aware that they may not receive credit
for ideas they did not state explicitly. Authors know that the
tangible and indisputable evidence of their artistry and their
vision is the text, wordsmithed as skilled artisans and inserted
directly into the mind of the reader.
I succumbed
to temptation in the final draft of my book's concluding chapter,
when I penned the following: "The improbability of the day's
events escaped neither Fetters nor Sykes. A phenomenon by proxy,
this contest of wills was a symptom of the contest of ways.
The conflict
between Sykes and Fetters was a metamorphosis of the animosity
between Anton Mason and Diane Fetters - and deeper still - an
incarnation of the conflict between the nature of the psyche and
the professional culture of psychology.” Why did I do it?
Writing this sentence felt good, much like the "release"
associated with the last two stages of the sexual response cycle
(orgasm and resolution). I discharged a tension that had been
building in me over a number of chapters, the tension associated
with apprehending anew an unrealized tapestry of tie-ins and
interrelationships that accumulated across chapters into one
formless snowball. Concerned that my readers may not glean the
transcendental idea to which this crude pattern pointed -- not
having done what was necessary to get these tie-ins pointing more
squarely in the same direction (or at one another) -- not
having paved the trail down which I could lead my readers to
their epiphany -- I had no choice but to insert the epiphany
lock, stock, and barrel as a single declarative statement. To
this day, I lament this lapse in the subliminal current of
subtext (along which I carry my readers).
Authors
deploy a number of devices to seize and sustain the reader, which
include but are not limited to metaphors, foreshadowing,
homologous phrase structures, and even misdirection (building
expectations for violation by subsequent events). One of the
less famous issues involves the use of description. An
acquisitions editor for an independent press (to whom I submitted
my first two chapters) once remarked that I had not included
enough details about the physical characteristics of my novel's
settings and characters to "draw readers into my universe." I
revisited as many decisions as I could remember in writing the
chapters to ascertain how various scenes would have read if I had
used more description. At that moment, I realized that I did not
want to fully host the novel's universe, but that the goal of
avoiding "passive reader syndrome" would best be served by a
collaborative (between author and reader) stocking of the pond.
The debate quickly called to mind one of the reasons why I was
never a willing consumer of extracurricular fiction and why I
begrudged many big-book assignments in high school as a method of
assault. Notwithstanding characteristics integral to the book's
message, physical or topographic features constrain a reader's
imagination and impair his or her predisposition to identify with
characters. (I enter into the evidence my wife's distress upon
learning how I envisioned one of her favorite characters in my
novel). As an author, I believe that if I surveyed a sample of
my readers, that I would learn that readers actively engage the
novel by drawing constructively from their own personal
experiences and imagination, possibly casting whole persons from
their own lives in the novel's roles. By sharing responsibility
for description with the readers, and giving free play to diverse
individual factors, I create a more active reader, contrary to
the acquisitions editor, who staunchly defended his opinion that,
in the absence of characteristics supplied by the author, readers
will refrain from using their imagination and subsequently detach
from the story. By strategically targeting points in the novel
for "minimum essential description" (a process not unlike editing
film to improve flow among the frames), I boosted the storyline's
metabolism by removing the fat -- the extraneous details that
muffled the clarity and impact of dramatic events and dialogue.
I
thoughtfully ministered to relevant metaphors concerning the
distinction between those aspects of a novel that are visible and
invisible to a reader (e.g., staging area behind the curtain vs.
the stage; the "noumena" and "phenomena" of Immanuel Kant; web
site vs. its HTML code; genotypes and phenotypes; and latent and
manifest dream content). New to the author ranks, I quickly
learned to characterize the task of writing as one of managing
the manifestation of the latent ideas (i.e., when and how your
house's facade should conceal its interior and when and how it
should serve as an outward extension of the interior design).
