Story as dream · 11:37pm Dec 13th, 2013
I read the beginning and end of Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers today. I realized while reading the first chapter that absolutely everything in the book – the locations, the descriptions of them, the things that happened and the descriptions of them – were symbols, or at least atmospheric. It opens with a page full of description using words associated with water (flood, pour, drain, wave, engulf), suggesting that the protagonist are lost on an ocean and about to be engulfed in a great wave. The first paragraph describes workers on the barges under their hotel window, emphasizing their activity and apparent senselessness, setting the stage for how the couple wanders the city (and their relationship) aimlessly, without knowing where they are or what is happening around them.
Every detail used foreshadows the upcoming events; no unrelated details are presented. We’re told that it is a famous tourist destination, and that the locals speak a different language, but not what city it is or what language they are speaking. The details are iconic, stereotyped, even cliche’. The streets grow dark and the buildings brooding, and we know something bad is going to happen; we know Robert is dangerous from the kinds of buildings nearby when we run into him. We know immediately from Robert’s gold chain and smell of aftershave that he’s some variety of douche. So it’s much like a dream: Some idea, mood, or obsession generates a series of images and events.
I don’t know exactly how that translates into a method of writing, but it does at least suggest that “plot first” and “characters first” are not the only options.
There’s a wonderful line around the third page: “She loved him, but not at this particular moment.” I’ve seen that line many times before, but only where someone had just done something to make the other person angry. Here, it’s used while they’re getting ready to go out. It doesn’t mean that some fleeting emotion is overpowering her love for him; it means her love is a thing that she feels now and then. This is either brilliant characterization, or a statement about love.
I read the ending (which I sometimes do to avoid investing a lot of time in a bad book), and this novel, which had such promise of saying something interesting about relationships, turned out to be more of a Gothic thriller about sadomasochism and murder. But I bet it’s a well-written Gothic thriller.
Huh, reading the ending first. Interesting practice. Has there ever been a time when you regretted doing that?
An interesting alternative is to read the ending to see if the book is worth your time, then forget about the book for some months, and return to it having forgotten the ending (unless it was particularly striking, but then you will want to get to it right away anyway)
1603782 I can't remember. It's saved me a lot of time, though. A book that isn't worth reading if you already know the ending, probably isn't worth reading even if you don't.
1604073
There have been a few occasions where I have been attracted to reading something I otherwise wouldn't have because I saw a spoiler for it on TV Tropes, something that sounded really interesting and made me want to see how the story got to that point. So I can see the logic in your choice.
I can also see that I ought to trawl through your blog sometimes soon.
I've been trying to write a fic like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty for a few months, and haven't gotten any traction. The idea of a character who daydreams and can't determine the difference between their dreams and their daydreams is interesting to me, where you can mix metaphor and reality until the reader can't determine which is which, but doesn't care (without going into Brazil territory, please). My problem is I'm not creative enough to make a coherent plot thread that would go through the story.
1604991
Seems like you'd need a character who's a little more broken than usual to pull that off. The six that come to mind would be Pinkie, Derpy, Screwloose, Trixie, Lyra, and Celestia—I'd say those six seem most capable of creating their own dream world to live in (the last with potentially disastrous results). Pinkie could probably do it well with a fundamentally mundane plot thread: something like a weeklong preparation for someone's birthday party, during which time things like ninjas buying up all of Ponyville's eggs (needed for cake-baking) and Pound Cake being a secret Changeling spy (trying to feed off the love created by the party), etc, become increasingly important elements of the plot and never quite making it clear whether any of it is true or not.
(Felt a near-pathological need to toss something out here)
I would add that "prose first" is very much an option, just not one that's en vogue at the moment. (It may be making a comeback)
1605347 I'd say those six seem most capable of creating their own dream world to live in (the last with potentially disastrous results)
And that dream is called... Equestria.
I'm already working on a story that fits that description, but of course it's tragic and bleak instead of funny. Working title is "All the Pretty Pony Princesses".