The thing about winter is so little changes, so little inspires. The slow sameness of these months is dulling.
The thing about fiction is that books are rarely what I want them to be, no matter how intriguing the premise. Contemporary fiction is a vast wasteland of tedious plots and self-absorbed, unlikely characters with the rare instances of creative delight sprinkled in so randomly and sparsely they're impossible to find.
I prefer first-person when it's done well, though it's a rarity. Poorly-done first person is distracting and often too heavy on character thought and lacking in plot, subtlety, and detail. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is perhaps the perfect example of brilliantly-done first-person. Careful construction of Offred's world is essential to the novel, and Atwood delivers. We're privy to Offred's point of view, but that doesn't mean we immediately know her every thought. On the contrary, her point of view is as telling of her character as any directly stated thoughts could be. Character details and history are revealed slowly, incrementally, until it is nearly impossible not to identify completely with Offred, and that absolute identification - only possible, I believe, with first-person - is what gives the novel its emotional resonance and makes it as heartbreaking as it is.
This is not to say that all third-person is crap. It isn't. Some stories are better told with some distance and objectivity between the characters and the reader. But often I think there's just too much distance, and consequently I feel no emotional connection with the characters.
Characters are what make sixty-five percent of a story for me. I don't have to like them, but I want to believe in them. I want them to be real for me for as long as the pages of the book are opened.
The other thirty-five percent is style and atmosphere, which is purely a matter of personal taste. There are novels that I literally cannot read - that I once could - because they lack variety in sentence structure. (In tenth grade I loved Patricia Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta novels, but now when I try to read them I'm just too distracted by the language. I keep rewriting the sentences is my mind. Elitist, perhaps, but not intentionally so. My non-English classes can be maddening, as well, when it comes to the readings. Anthropologists often have fascinating ideas, but their presentation is rather lacking.)
And, again, there's personal taste. I don't like "flowery" language per se, but I like an author with a sense of poetry. I adore imagery. I want to see things in different ways. One thing I will say honestly about fanfiction is that, at its best, the style and language and imagery is miles above that of any novel I've read recently.
As for atmosphere, that's entirely subjective. I like nightscapes, grittiness, forests and deserts, unusual places, winter and fall, rain and snow. I do not like obvious wealth or an excess of "taste," nor do I like pointed references to aforementioned "taste" as it relates to clothing, furnishings, hairstyle, women's figures, cuisine, and the like. I do not like beautiful people. Writers who take pains to mention the above only serve to create hollow images and characters, all glossy surfaces and empty calories, no substance or individual quirks. I like smart characters, I like female characters, I like independent-minded characters. I like relationships, but I do not like for relationships to be the story unless they're rich and strong enough to justify it (they seldom are).
Individual taste is all well and good. But perhaps I expect too much of novels when I read them.
But fiction, it is life pared down to the elements, the noteworthy. The aesthetic is magnified, humanity made raw, people the way we see them in the light of memory. The day to day mundanities are graced with theme and meaning; speech says only what it means to say. At its best, it is a presentation of life the way we'd all be able to see it if we could stop and explore the possibilities of each moment, each sweep of our eyes, each human interaction. I have spent my whole life translating my world into a story; is it any wonder I wish for the stories to do the same?
No more winter. No more city. I want to see the sky again, stretched wide and blue and gentle. I want the wide-open freedom of a field spread all before me. I want to find that calm quiet place in my head again, to feel in my blood my place in the world.
The thing about fiction is that books are rarely what I want them to be, no matter how intriguing the premise. Contemporary fiction is a vast wasteland of tedious plots and self-absorbed, unlikely characters with the rare instances of creative delight sprinkled in so randomly and sparsely they're impossible to find.
I prefer first-person when it's done well, though it's a rarity. Poorly-done first person is distracting and often too heavy on character thought and lacking in plot, subtlety, and detail. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is perhaps the perfect example of brilliantly-done first-person. Careful construction of Offred's world is essential to the novel, and Atwood delivers. We're privy to Offred's point of view, but that doesn't mean we immediately know her every thought. On the contrary, her point of view is as telling of her character as any directly stated thoughts could be. Character details and history are revealed slowly, incrementally, until it is nearly impossible not to identify completely with Offred, and that absolute identification - only possible, I believe, with first-person - is what gives the novel its emotional resonance and makes it as heartbreaking as it is.
This is not to say that all third-person is crap. It isn't. Some stories are better told with some distance and objectivity between the characters and the reader. But often I think there's just too much distance, and consequently I feel no emotional connection with the characters.
Characters are what make sixty-five percent of a story for me. I don't have to like them, but I want to believe in them. I want them to be real for me for as long as the pages of the book are opened.
The other thirty-five percent is style and atmosphere, which is purely a matter of personal taste. There are novels that I literally cannot read - that I once could - because they lack variety in sentence structure. (In tenth grade I loved Patricia Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta novels, but now when I try to read them I'm just too distracted by the language. I keep rewriting the sentences is my mind. Elitist, perhaps, but not intentionally so. My non-English classes can be maddening, as well, when it comes to the readings. Anthropologists often have fascinating ideas, but their presentation is rather lacking.)
And, again, there's personal taste. I don't like "flowery" language per se, but I like an author with a sense of poetry. I adore imagery. I want to see things in different ways. One thing I will say honestly about fanfiction is that, at its best, the style and language and imagery is miles above that of any novel I've read recently.
As for atmosphere, that's entirely subjective. I like nightscapes, grittiness, forests and deserts, unusual places, winter and fall, rain and snow. I do not like obvious wealth or an excess of "taste," nor do I like pointed references to aforementioned "taste" as it relates to clothing, furnishings, hairstyle, women's figures, cuisine, and the like. I do not like beautiful people. Writers who take pains to mention the above only serve to create hollow images and characters, all glossy surfaces and empty calories, no substance or individual quirks. I like smart characters, I like female characters, I like independent-minded characters. I like relationships, but I do not like for relationships to be the story unless they're rich and strong enough to justify it (they seldom are).
Individual taste is all well and good. But perhaps I expect too much of novels when I read them.
But fiction, it is life pared down to the elements, the noteworthy. The aesthetic is magnified, humanity made raw, people the way we see them in the light of memory. The day to day mundanities are graced with theme and meaning; speech says only what it means to say. At its best, it is a presentation of life the way we'd all be able to see it if we could stop and explore the possibilities of each moment, each sweep of our eyes, each human interaction. I have spent my whole life translating my world into a story; is it any wonder I wish for the stories to do the same?
No more winter. No more city. I want to see the sky again, stretched wide and blue and gentle. I want the wide-open freedom of a field spread all before me. I want to find that calm quiet place in my head again, to feel in my blood my place in the world.
Current Music: sarah polley - one more colour
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