The wrong kind of details: the components of wonder (aka lmp's rant) - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Nar · 08-13-2002, 03:31 PM

Another excellent topic which has had me stewing about it, LMP.

Been trying to wrestle a clarifying analogy into shape to tell me how the details=themes=voice conjunction works—Streams flowing down mountains, flowing with the force of the story’s archetypes and themes. Themes and archetypes suggest and require certain details to fill them out—those you want to see in a story. I would guess that those details that destroy the wonder are the ones that arise from expanding the world around the protagonists according to general knowledge, rather than those that –hmm—grow and germinate—let a thousand flowers bloom—where the streams/ themes are flowing in and your archetypes welling up from that artesian spring deep below.

The details that touch on the themes add to the wonder and dream-state, the details that come from elaborating the world as a sociologist or civil engineer will probably kill the wonder. How can you tell? As a reader, you know if you’re responding. As a writer, it comes from not forcing the story, from doing the back-of-the-mind dreaming and discussion beforehand, and writing from the mood and frame of mind required for the story—getting into character as the narrator, you might say.

So William the Conqueror died by falling on his saddle pommel, did he, Kuruharan? I never knew that. The saddlehorse that avenged a nation. My kingdom for a horse, indeed!

Class issues are tough for me to think clearly about, Naaramare and LMP. It's difficult to give the different cultures their proper weight, not to assume lower=impoverished in almost every way and upper=higher in almost every way. It might be illuminating to try thinking of different classes as competing tribes, or, better yet, competing cliques of professorial theory in a Univeristy-- the higher, tasteful yet all too painfully self-aware Classisists versus the lusty, simple Postmodern Hermeneuticals --or vice versa, it's just a thought experiment.

08-13-2002, 03:31 PM	#30
Nar Wight Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 228	Another excellent topic which has had me stewing about it, LMP. Been trying to wrestle a clarifying analogy into shape to tell me how the details=themes=voice conjunction works—Streams flowing down mountains, flowing with the force of the story’s archetypes and themes. Themes and archetypes suggest and require certain details to fill them out—those you want to see in a story. I would guess that those details that destroy the wonder are the ones that arise from expanding the world around the protagonists according to general knowledge, rather than those that –hmm—grow and germinate—let a thousand flowers bloom—where the streams/ themes are flowing in and your archetypes welling up from that artesian spring deep below. The details that touch on the themes add to the wonder and dream-state, the details that come from elaborating the world as a sociologist or civil engineer will probably kill the wonder. How can you tell? As a reader, you know if you’re responding. As a writer, it comes from not forcing the story, from doing the back-of-the-mind dreaming and discussion beforehand, and writing from the mood and frame of mind required for the story—getting into character as the narrator, you might say. So William the Conqueror died by falling on his saddle pommel, did he, Kuruharan? I never knew that. The saddlehorse that avenged a nation. My kingdom for a horse, indeed! Class issues are tough for me to think clearly about, Naaramare and LMP. It's difficult to give the different cultures their proper weight, not to assume lower=impoverished in almost every way and upper=higher in almost every way. It might be illuminating to try thinking of different classes as competing tribes, or, better yet, competing cliques of professorial theory in a Univeristy-- the higher, tasteful yet all too painfully self-aware Classisists versus the lusty, simple Postmodern Hermeneuticals --or vice versa, it's just a thought experiment.