I posted the Google Books Eco book below in order to start a discussion on writing in terms of what I say and what I leave unsaid in my stories and my shorter pieces of work.
I am very much in agreement with Eco that the deepest experience I can have as a reader is to be allowed enough ‘textual space’, upon reading a text, to make my own meaning from it. To become, in essence, a subsequent author of the work. What I mean by ‘textual space’ is that in the story or the flash fiction, it is when the writer doesn’t explain everything, doesn’t tie up all the ends, or answer all the questions. Things are left open, as question marks, for the reader to ponder and make up their own mind about.
I bring this up now, because I’ve had a couple of comments where readers were either frustrated or disappointed that I left, for instance, the future of what happens to Mina and the house in Bequeathed, to the reader’s imagination. Or that I don’t explain why 48 hours is the time necessary to the narrator of the last flash fiction piece I wrote, “Dear Foolish Wound“.
Some people consider this laziness, that I rely on the reader’s imagination to, in some ways, flesh out the meaning of the piece, or bring a story to a satisfying conclusion for themselves. And I can’t always say that my judgment about just how ‘open’ to leave the story is perfect. I’m sure that sometimes I leave too much unwritten, and sometimes I tie the story up too tight. I’m still learning how to do this.
But I respect you as a reader. I know that when you read, you are creating a unique story for yourself as you go along, weaving what I have written in with your own experiences, desires, fantasies. I like this process that we share together. I know it means some work on your part, but I really do believe that we can have a deeper and more intense relationship if I let you be a part of the process…if I give you the space to be an author too.
How do you feel about this – do you feel it’s just a cop out on my part, or do you feel drawn into the challenge of it?
I loved the way I was left feeling taunted about the 48 hrs. I 100% delight in filling in gaps with my own take on things. Paul Auster never leaves enough space for the reader & one is left feeling impressed by his penmanship but, for me at least, empty. A spectator only.
Penny
But perhaps I could have left it differently – by asking the reader how much time they think they would need. How long could they endure, holding that wound closed, under scrutiny. See…maybe I don’t always go about leaving the text ‘open’ in the right way. But I learn. *grin*
Real art gives us an experience we can’t get any other way. Different artists make this happen in different ways, but they all make it happen. Textual space is one of your ways, Rgrl, and as for experimenting with it, that must be one of the motivations for creating new pieces again and again and giving them to us, pulling us into them. In your hands, it is a very effective technique. I found the “Bequeathed” completely satisfying; I was curious and intrigued by the 48 hours in “Dear Foolish Wound”–that detail helped remind me of how intensely personal the poem is for the speaker, at the same time that it resonated with me: my experience and the speakers experience (and the writer’s experience?), how do they relate, intersect, coincide, diverge? Thanks for giving us these wonderful pieces, Rgrl, and for provoking us to think about them and about art.
I understand this, because it is often the way I write. I want exactly what you say – to have the reader fill in some – perhaps many blanks. Spaces intentionally left spartan, or actions left uncompleted are for the reader’s imagination to take where they will. I feel very strongly it is not a copout. It’s a device or a tool. Like any, I think it takes practice to use well (spoken as a tinkerer, rather than an artisan), and a certain willingness of the reader to agree to those terms.
Thus it makes me cringe to know I was one of those so eager to see what you would give us next in Bequeathed – simply assuming there had to be more. Of course my mind began writing the rest of the story as soon as I finished the parts you wrote – it did that after the first two parts as well, but I was all too happy to discover the real direction as the story unfolded.
This is a fascinating topic, by the way.
Thanks, Monocle, I also find it fascinating, challenging as both a reader and a writer. I do think, though, that sometimes I don’t hit it quite on the money. Hehe
It is often too difficult to tell for sure, I think, until it’s out there and others have seen it. Or until you come back to it yourself long after the images and thoughts that drove the words originally have faded or moved on. Sometimes you go back and read something, and it all comes rushing back. Sometimes, you think ‘what the hell was I writing?” Then, sometimes, you create something new from reading the work again. The first and the last, for me, spell success.
I am drawn by the challenge of it and in all honesty, demand a constant flow of content that forces me to use analytical imagination. I respect authors who are not afraid to challenge me as a reader.
It is the search for semblance of sense that leads to nonsense. In a reality that fiction only mirrors and readers are often seeking refuge from, suspension of disbelief is actually something I find people take for granted. The worst results in a premature deus ex machina. That kind of laziness leaves the reader alienated and bored.
If the world were a place where logic and linear progression were the dominant forces, perhaps there would be room to criticize an author’s break from explaining every last element in play. But truth is stranger than fiction and our imaginations respond to it even more strangely. As long as the author doesn’t contradict or patronize the reader, I like filling in the gaps. The goal is to get us thinking again, not put us to sleep, right?
There are always empty spaces. In writing there are always empty spaces to be filled in by our minds. No matter how many details you pour into a description, we are still left the creative task of knitting them together into a picture of a face, the timbre of a moan, the panorama of landscape. That’s why I like radio drama so much. Voices give it life, but it lives in my mind.
I often write little vignettes that address only one section of the story. I often write them for the sadist, since part of my duties as his poetic pet is to provide him with his own personal porn. I tend to stop just before I would have to get all explicit, as that part is boring to me. I’m more interested in the dance that comes before. That pisses him off. He’s a man. He likes my poetry but he wants the other stuff as well. it serves his needs. But me, I like to swim in the white spaces between the letters.
I have no complaints with the room you leave us. They add to the richness of your writing. So thanks, as always, for respecting – and feeding – our own imaginations.
Perhaps I’m dating myself, but one of the tragedies inherent in the early years of MTV was the loss of the internal canvas of music. Before, when all you had was radio or record (concerts were their own thing), the music built the visual or story in my mind. I remember first seeing videos of songs I loved and thinking “that’s not at all how it looked to me”. Today, with music videos still an inherent part of the popular scene the expectation is that someone will paint the music picture for us. I bet it was the same way for radio show listeners in the early days of television. The subtraction of the unsaid.
“the loss of the internal canvas of music” Beautifully said. I agree.
It is your story and once you try pleasing the them without pleasing yourself, it is no longer yours. So write the way you feel and if they don’t get it, their lose.
Fascinating post. I think peole’s issues arise from the fact that it has become trendy to have open-ended endings and, whhen done badly, these are quite dreadful. And they are dreadful because actually they don’t leave room for the reader to explore and connect and imagine.
When done well, they are the most satisfying endings of all – Murakami is a master of this (as he is of most things). Of course, it’s not a new debate. Charlotte Bronte’s Villette provoked outrage because the ending does not tell us whetehr the protagonist’s lover survived – and it’s a more satisfying book as a result.
I wrote a couple of papers that have sections on the ambiguous ending. They’re in the appendices to the paperback of Songs from… Happy to send them to you. Just drop me an e-mail
Dan
Well then, I can only hope and pray that I do it adequately.
I believe the textural spaces are necessary in fiction. Unlike nonfiction, fiction is meant to let us paint ourselves into the story. If too much information is given, we, the readers, are restricted in our ability to do so. I have stopped reading books and stories midway because the author didn’t leave me enough room.
Much like negative space in visual art, textural space is needed for balance. You take hold of your reader, fix their hands upon the rope, but let them pull themselves along. And, at the end of the story, it’s up to the reader to decide if it’s time to let go, or if their imagination feels that rope need extend a little more.
I loved the question mark of the 48 hours in ‘Dear Foolish Wound’. I found the poem exquisite and walked away from it thinking how strong the speaker will have to be, to last that time, when I don’t think I could. I don’t need to know the WHY of that time frame. It could be a family event, company, whathave you, but the why of it means naught compared to the emotional load that poem is delivering.
As for ‘Bequeathed’, my only desire for more is to find out what other deliciously naughty ways does the ghost fuck Mina. I’m greedy, and I love the way you write sex. But that’s sex for sex’s sake and would detract from the whole tone of the piece.
~SG
Very interesting analogy between open texts and negative space!
Maybe it would help if you were to think of yourself as a composer. A classical composer, like Vivaldi. I keep classics like that playing all day long. The Four Seasons, Flight of the Bumblebee, Moonlight Sonata, Ride of the Valkyries. Their titles, and to some extent their music are all evocative of what the writer is trying to convey. That doesn’t mean that the reader takes away the same elements that the composer intended.But the reason I listen to this evocative music rather than something drably named Symphony #5 is because I value the connection that the composer threw out amonst his listeners, inciting, inviting them to hear what he hears, see what he sees.
I’m absolutely blown away at what amazing readers I have. Really. Speechless.
Perhaps the reason I get to write the way I write is because you guys let me.
Thank you so much. All of you. So much food for thought.
Since when… is the author/reader relationship a democracy? A reader is more like a patron in a fine dining establishment. We go NOT to be a part of the process but to enjoy and be served. The palette is our only contribution. There is *time* between the courses to let it relax and to savor the subtle and piquant of what just passed our lips. If we want to march into the kitchen and provide direction… we should stay home and cook for ourselves.
As a reader we are “Subs” the author, our chosen “Dom”… I give her/him my time, my mind and they do what they will with it. My response, my emotion is my palette; I relax and enjoy… anticipation is a cruel pleasure. To ache for closure is what brings me back. Paragraphs end, but the story remains… haunting our day. We savor it’s subtleties and remember its bite. Without “closure” it lingers. Perhaps today Mina *might* reappear… perhaps not; but I return for Mina or one of her sisters that RG’s pen paints so exquisitely… and I enjoy.
Hi Steven,
This is very much the view of literary critics up until about the 1960’s. However, and this is entirely personal, I despair that the relationship I have with my readers should be so basely transactional and consumerist.
Plus, I although I like your idea of the writer/reader relationship being a metaphorical D/s one, it surprises me that you feel both parties in such a relationship aren’t engaged and participating. And certainly, since in your first paragraph, you say a reader reads to “enjoy and be served”, and then you liken the relationship to the writer as Dom and the reader as sub, you can see that the power paradigm you suggest doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, since you yourself have drifted from seeing the writer as ‘server’ to the writer as ‘dominant’ in the space of two paragraphs.
Literary criticism aside, I am the writer here, NOT the author. The author is the meaning maker, and each reader makes their own, unique meaning from what they read. For me, it is a logical progression to consciously allow and in fact encourage readers to play a deeper role in the process of authorship.
But finally, I am not here to ‘serve’ and if all you are willing to bring to this interchange is your palette, then I am probably not the writer for you. I do not ‘sell’ you a product, and you pay me nothing for ‘consuming’ my writing. I believe I have a right, in fact, an obligation, to invite the reader deeper into the process. So, if you don’t find that exciting or a challenge, you may find my work not to your palette. That’s entirely fine.
RG, your writing is (in my experience, anyway) sharp and clear and specific and evocative. It’s the exact opposite of “vague.”
In order to evoke, the writer has to create space for that which is being evoked. Creating space is not “lazy”; it takes intention, and craft, and imagination, and work.
As a writer, the space you create will not appeal to everyone. Not everyone enjoys the work of Christopher Wren, or Frank Lloyd Wright, but there’s no doubt in my mind that they created amazing, startling, brilliant spaces. Whether or not a person chooses to walk in those spaces is up to him or her.
emme
Far from the intellect, you make my soul feel drunk. Your words are wild seeds.
I was especially moved, (I don’t know if that’s he right word… ) by the setting descriptions in “The Dinner Party”. I served in Viet Nam in 1966 as a helicopter crew chief in he 498th Air Ambulance Co. The atmosphere that you created is to me is almost physical. I can nearly smell the thick night air with all of the atmospheric nuances of Qui Nhon and Nahtrang. When we were out at night, we as soldiers, were mainly looking for one thing… The locals referred to it as “Boom-boom”, and I found myself in some very unique places and with many very unique women in my pursuits. Your story reminded me very much of “The Story of ‘O'” in a sensual “thickness” sort of way. (Does that make sense?)
Thanks for sharing your writing gift,
WWB
It does make sense and ‘thickness’ is the right word. Thank you for commenting.