We Are the Authors (I)

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

-Thomas Mann

As authors, we often know our characters before they are written. The urge, then, is to make sure our readers know every detail about them that we do – the color of their eyes, the roughness of their hands. In some cases the details are symbolic, sometimes plot elements. Yet stories, like conversations, are nothing without two parties; the written word is simply one hand clapping. The author writes “city,” and the reader builds it. In that sense we are all authors – for one, the cobblestones glisten like onyx; for another they’re worn blocks of sandstone. The more you write, the less you allow the reader to participate in the experience. The author thinks nothing of telling his readers how to picture things, but wouldn’t want his readers telling him how to write them.

Explication is always necessary, but if you write with the above in mind, you’ll probably write a little differently. At least you’ll write a little less.

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See also:

We Are the Authors (II)

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Fat Freddy’s Drop – Boondigga || 2009/Dr Boondigga & The Big BW

Truth

Last night I dreamed of the first city. It was no city of man; it was the city before men, before the world, before dreams, though it was all of those things. It was the first true city, the city before time, the city for which all of existence to follow would be but a poor reflection of its vision, and yet it was not the silver city, nor was it Avalon or Atlantis, though men would speak of them and in truth would speak of this city (and would not know it). Its houses were built from stones of purest alabaster, their roofs decked in gold and opal, its streets paved in of blood and onyx. Yet its streets were silent, its windows empty.

There had once been a thousand times a thousand inhabitants here; creatures of myth and legend, dream and un-dream, avatars of the elements and the aspects (the Oneros, the ruby avatars of desire, after whose kiss one could seek only them, until one met one’s true love) and they had walked its streets in multitudes, and the city rang with their voices. But it was late in the age of the first city. It sat on the edge of a western sea whose waters were a thousand turning sapphires, upon whose edges glinted the rays of setting suns (for it was summer’s twilight now, in the first city). In its bay stood twin monoliths, from whose rock would be carved the pillars of the world, from whose stone would spring the infant Gods. And the waters reached as far as the eye could see, and farther still, and there were no ships upon the waves, nor land at its end (for there was no end).

And in the east were the mountains, the walls of night, great fortresses rolling towards the city now in their shadow, for it was from these mountains that the world of men would be born, and the age of men was close at hand. And in my dream I read from a book that held the true name of the first city, and was told its true name, but it was lost upon waking, as the book was lost, and the city was lost as well, for it is now the age of men, and the ages of dream are long behind us.

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See also:

A Dream in August

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Eric Whitacre – Sleep (as performed by Polyphony, cond. Stephen Layton) || 2006/Cloudburst and Other Choral Works

Suspension

People talk about suspending disbelief as if disbelief was a torrent barely held back by the storytelling. In truth people believe almost by default; all you have to do is not mess that up. Which is the hard part. People will go along with the protagonist shooting lightning out his fingers before they’ll believe he’s in love. You have to understand this to tell a story.

All the Stories

The earth will cover us all.

-Marcus Aurelius

The people of the grey lands did not partake in food or drink, nor did they take time to sleep. Instead, they sat in circles and told stories, for that was all they had carried with them. And when the stories were over, they would stand and look to the shores for the new ones, and new stories.

Most often the new ones came in steadily, two by two, in threes and fours, and sometimes alone. Sometimes they would come in earlier than they should have, sometimes later, and once, one one who did not belong had come, and was told stories in his turn before returning. Every hundred or so years a great many would come in at once, and they would assume there’d been a sickness, or a war, as there were many wars.

In the beginning there were not many stories, but what stories they were – great tales of light and word and thunder, breathtaking to behold. As more came to the shores there were more stories, and though with every new arrival the stories seemed to lessen some in grandeur, even until the last days the stories told still moved the old ones, for they were small yet earnest, simple yet true, and they told of things long lost to the grey lands.

Then one day they all came in – every last one of them. Yet this time there were no stories, only silence. And so the people of the grey lands walked to the shores and were swallowed by the waves, and the waves were swallowed by the lands, and the lands were swallowed by the light, and the light was swallowed by the darkness.

And from the darkness, the first story began -

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Nigel Kennedy & The Kroke Band – One Voice (with the Kraków Philharmonic) || 2003/East Meets East

Maybe if…

Ending the mind much?

So wouldn’t we;
shoulders our,
overlooking one no with stories;
“own our,” wrote all we -
if maybe.

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Woodblue – Deji (ft. Koyumi) || 2007/North Letter