On Terminology

[Stuart Dren]

Some writing terms are timeless, others trendy. Some emerge from 'rules' or 'systems.'

Using them can imply one is trying to mitigate the mysticism of creativity, or that one doesn't really 'get it' in the first place, that one's guidance was sought from how-to books and Youtube which then informed his vocab. Can't do, so try to teach?

I don't think so. Sure in some ways reaching for easy one-liners as advice can come from a reluctance for critical thinking, but we have to communicate somehow. Common terms will emerge with anything that warrants speaking about, especially something as complex, varied, nuanced as writing. That alone doesn't impose hamburger derivative slop.

What creates animosity with the more subconsciously driven creatives, I believe, is appeal to codification, an ugly word to that one with the nose ring, paint-stained overalls who lives inside all of us. Complete subservience to a system which was only created (and being created, changed at all times by everyone who is a part of the conversation) to broadly explain concepts and rough guidelines in the first place is the same as telling someone how she is supposed to act given the results of her Meyers-Briggs personality test.

In other words, I do not think writing terms or rules or guidelines, by themselves, are a reductive imposition on creativity. Much more important are the attitudes about them.

What do you think? Are these terms a wash, too meaningless to mean anything? Or do you think we need even more systems for understanding and explanation of literary/storytelling techniques? Or maybe the amount of codification and its use in conversation is just right, and needs no further thought?

 

[Trish]

I don't think they're a reductive imposition on creativity so much as that they're woefully incomplete. Can we call a "rule" which also has fifty different ways or reasons to break it, a "rule" at all? Not if you value the meaning of the word "rule". For sure, there are exceptions to rules, but it's no longer an exception when there are more times to break it than there are to use it.

So, yes, I suppose that while they may be a good jumping off point for the new writer, I find the majority to be largely meaningless other than in generalities. I'm resisting the urge to name any of them, as I don't think you're looking for a debate on individual terms and I don't want to accidentally start one, heh.

I definitely don't think we need more. People are confused enough.

 

[Banespawn]

I think like any other artform, there is a craft side to writing.

I know very little about painting, or playing the guitar, or singing. But I do know that painters generally paint the shadows all in one direction based on an imagined light source. And I know that guitar players learn different chords. And I know that singers must have good breath control.

These are all things that are on the craft side of art. They are things that can be taught and learned.

None of that infringes upon each artist's own unique voice. Learning chopsticks on a piano doesn't make every pianist the same.

Every artist learns from those who came before, whether they realize it or not. Every book you've read has taught you things about language and story that you now use to write your own stories. We are the culmination of our experiences, and as writers, we are the culmination of the things we have read. Don't run from it. Embrace it. Seek out new ideas, keep the ones you like, and discard the rest.

 

[Naomasa298]

There are guidelines. There are no "rules", apart from for grammar.

Those so-called "rules", like "show, don't tell" are useful for quick improvement at beginner level, but that's all they are. It helps people overcome early-stage mistakes that are common across most writers. Once you get past a certain point, it stops becoming useful, and starts becoming restrictive.

 

[JLT]

I think like any other artform, there is a craft side to writing.

I know very little about painting, or playing the guitar, or singing. But I do know that painters generally paint the shadows all in one direction based on an imagined light source. And I know that guitar players learn different chords. And I know that singers must have good breath control.

That is a good representation of the difference between craft and art. Craft is about the process and art is about the result.

There are techniques that must be mastered in the pursuit of an art. For the painter, it's an understanding of lighting and perspective or the way a brush must be wielded or a paint to be mixed. For a singer, it's an understanding of pitch and breath control. For a guitarist, it's about how to tune the strings and play the chord. These things can, to a large measure, be taught. For a writer, it's the familiarity with a language and and understanding of how spelling and punctuation and grammar work in the creation of a piece.

But technique alone is not enough. It doesn't approach art until it deliberately invokes a response in the listener or the viewer or the reader and commands that person's attention.

I've just added the word "deliberately" because I've read a lot of computer-generated poetry, and seen a lot of AI-generated art, and such, and while they display no flagrant misuse of the elements of their crafts, they leave me cold. They may hit on a happy confluence of colors or notes or words, I don't feel the artist behind the work. At best, they are kaleidoscopic, forming pretty patterns without an underlying intent.

 

[Homer Potvin]

the mysticism of creativity

I don't think there's much mystical about it. Every dingdong out there has a muse or an inspiration or a bullshit calling of some sort. Put in the work, get 100K words in cogent order together, then come talk to me about the mysticism.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

Every time someone brings up the mysticism of creativity, the loneliness of the long distance writer, pursuing the muse, suffering for one's art, and similar romantic notions, I get irritated. For real mystery and suffering, take a course in graduate level statistics.

 

[Homer Potvin]

Every time someone brings up the mysticism of creativity, the loneliness of the long distance writer, pursuing the muse, suffering for one's art, and similar romantic notions, I get irritated. For real mystery and suffering, take a course in graduate level statistics.

If I had a muse, I'd have my sushi knife at its throat right now to untangle this chapter I'm writing. I can't get the frigging beats correct.

 

[Naomasa298]

I'm glad other people feel the same way as I do about the mystical bullcrap.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

The Society of Creative Curmudgeons welcomes you.

 

[Homer Potvin]

Music as mentioned upthread is cut and dry math and science on many levels. The reason why major key music sounds "happy" is that the major third occurs naturally in the harmonic sequence of all sounds. Even in a fart, there are tonal thirds, fifths, sevenths, and fourths that mathematically occur along certain wavelengths, all combining together to produce the sound that reaches our ears. The reason why minor key music sounds "sad" is that by adjusting the pitches of certain intervals, it breaks the natural sequence of sound we're used to, which gives our brains a sense of dissonance. It's sort of like grammar if words occurred in nature and could be scientifically quantified. That doesn't mean music isn't emotional or evocative. Far from it. But it sure as shit isn't mystical. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

[JLT]

IMHO, some artists do feel that their work stems from a mystic source that they can't identify with an external impetus. When Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan" or John Lennon wrote "Across the Universe," both writers claimed that the piece occurred to them in a sort of mystic state, almost fully formed, and all they had to do was set it down. When Paul McCartney wrote "Yesterday" he was so convinced that he couldn't have created it that he went around to various musical specialists, asking them if they'd heard the melody before.

It also happens in other disciplines. The structure of the benzene ring came to Kekulé in a dreamlike state, after years of puzzling out the nature of the carbon-hydrogen bond.

But all these people had the training and the discipline to bring these inchoate images or impressions into tangible form, and recognize them for the value they had. "Yesterday" might have come to a farm worker in a rice paddy somewhere, but we would never have heard of it. But Sir Paul had the ability to wake up, go to a piano, and use all his musical training to shape the melody in his head to the structure we've come to know.

So I don't knock an artist or writer for claiming that an idea came from whatever mystical state they were in at the time. But the expression of that idea was due to their familiarity with their art or discipline.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

I ascribe to the compost theory of creativity. Everything we ever experience, observe, read, imagine, etc. goes into a heap somewhere in our mind where mental microganisms eventually break it down into creative compost. It's there to draw on, consciously or unconsciously.

 

[Luxuria]

When Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan" or John Lennon wrote "Across the Universe," both writers claimed that the piece occurred to them in a sort of mystic state, almost fully formed, and all they had to do was set it down.

How high were they?

I agree. This writing is mystical thing is silly. Sure, I love the feeling of the flow state, but it's not MAGIC.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

I wish this thread would stop eliminating all my excuses.

I also think there's so much more to a fart than tonal sequencing.

There's a lot that goes into producing something artistically creative. Talent features. All that hard work and graft needs something to sprout out of. Where does talent come from?

Application gets in there too, sometimes that deep meditative state where an obsessive compulsion mixes with hard graft to crank and recrank the thing until it meets the vision of what the creator wants it to be.

There's also inspiration, whether during the composition or mowing the lawn, moments when that puzzle piece drops.

Get all that together and you're maybe half-way there. The second half comes together through the recipient, the observer who assists in conjuring the world the artist has put together, who puts life into a static bunch of symbols to arrive at something vibrant.

That's longhand. Take the talent, the application, the inspiration and the connection to the recipient and find a quick way to convey the complexity and uncertainty of the entire venture. I know, call it a muse, or refer to mysticism or magic because, despite the scientific underlay, there's no formula to success (whatever that might be) and it might save a little time when speaking about the process.

 

[Homer Potvin]

How high were they?

According to Coleridge he smoked a bunch of opium right before having the dream, so there's that.

Where does talent come from?

No clue, but whatever it is, I'd say that's the part that can't be taught.

There's also inspiration, whether during the composition or mowing the lawn, moments when that puzzle piece drops.

I would agree with that. Inspiration is definitely a compulsive thing. Unless you're one of those people who get inspired by everything. Then it loses its flavor.

The second half comes together through the recipient, the observer who assists in conjuring the world the artist has put together, who puts life into a static bunch of symbols to arrive at something vibrant.

That's the ticket when it comes to the anti-stimulus of the written medium. Aside from some black marks on white paper, there is quite literally nothing to stimulate the brain. The imagination is the fuel there, which is probably some people are readers and some people are not. If you have an under-active imagination, a story won't do anything for ya.