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poverty & stories
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From: Maia Cheli-Colando <maia_at_littlefolktales.org>
Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 01:01:02 -0700
This TED video seems particularly apropos to the discussion.
As writers, how do we tell our characters' stories? There are books that completely turn me off - earnest and heartfelt though I can tell the author may be - because they seem to be expressing what should be told from the inside, but instead feels like an observer's assessment, outwards in. There is a sense of quiet judgment or fear laced under the words.
How do we empathize with not only the pain but with the glory, and the humor that keeps people sane? How do we avoid making stories about "those" people? I think that somehow, we have to get to a place where those people are our people, us... and that involves a lot more work than emotional (or situational) projection requires. We have to keep asking ourselves if we are doing it right, getting it honestly, wrestling it down to the integrity of our characters' souls and experience... but not stop ourselves from writing anything at all in this process of examination.
If I read a story about poverty, war, famine, loss or abuse, and what I remember is that it is a story about poverty, war, famine, loss or abuse, then I guess it feels that either the writer didn't do their job, or I as the reader am not doing mine. As a reader, I should remember the dynamics - beautiful, painful, quirky, comfortable - of the character-person's life, but I shouldn't think of those dynamics first... I should think of them as part of the life of that person I now know. The same goes true for a writer... we have to immerse ourselves in our people, not their hassles. A la meme temps, we have to pull back and make sure that what we are writing makes sense, especially if it's not a reality we have yet lived ourselves.
Some what is positioned to be excellent literature on "youth issues" frustrates me - when the narrative voice feels to be imposing its own perspectives/distance on a real life experience that the writer can't fully imagine. Real life has good things. Real life is day to day and funny and complex. There aren't "endings" or conclusions in real life, because no matter what we do, the story keeps on going. When I get the sense that an author is trying to write /the conclusion/, with all that god-like authorial import, it makes me edgy. It makes me mad. It makes me want to put the book away, and wash my head. Because the stories go on.
What I want at the end of a book is the distinct sense that the characters and their world continue to revolve, continue to grow, continue to be blessed and to struggle, and hopefully feel more blessed than lost... I don't want to be in god's shoes, and I don't want to read through a god's lens. I want to feel like I got to know the people, and that they now can live inside and around me, independent of my judgments. And in order to do that with situations that feel scary to us, I think we have to let those people become real. Just people. People we could be.
I think that's part of why I loved The Higher Power of Lucky. If I think about it, I know that finances are tight, and family is challenging. But that's not what I think of first. I think of /her/, and I smile.
Maia
-- Maia Cheli-Colando Arcata, Humboldt Bay, California -- blogging at http://www.littlefolktales.org/wordpress -- -- or drop in on Facebook! --
Received on Thu 19 May 2011 01:01:02 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 01:01:02 -0700
This TED video seems particularly apropos to the discussion.
As writers, how do we tell our characters' stories? There are books that completely turn me off - earnest and heartfelt though I can tell the author may be - because they seem to be expressing what should be told from the inside, but instead feels like an observer's assessment, outwards in. There is a sense of quiet judgment or fear laced under the words.
How do we empathize with not only the pain but with the glory, and the humor that keeps people sane? How do we avoid making stories about "those" people? I think that somehow, we have to get to a place where those people are our people, us... and that involves a lot more work than emotional (or situational) projection requires. We have to keep asking ourselves if we are doing it right, getting it honestly, wrestling it down to the integrity of our characters' souls and experience... but not stop ourselves from writing anything at all in this process of examination.
If I read a story about poverty, war, famine, loss or abuse, and what I remember is that it is a story about poverty, war, famine, loss or abuse, then I guess it feels that either the writer didn't do their job, or I as the reader am not doing mine. As a reader, I should remember the dynamics - beautiful, painful, quirky, comfortable - of the character-person's life, but I shouldn't think of those dynamics first... I should think of them as part of the life of that person I now know. The same goes true for a writer... we have to immerse ourselves in our people, not their hassles. A la meme temps, we have to pull back and make sure that what we are writing makes sense, especially if it's not a reality we have yet lived ourselves.
Some what is positioned to be excellent literature on "youth issues" frustrates me - when the narrative voice feels to be imposing its own perspectives/distance on a real life experience that the writer can't fully imagine. Real life has good things. Real life is day to day and funny and complex. There aren't "endings" or conclusions in real life, because no matter what we do, the story keeps on going. When I get the sense that an author is trying to write /the conclusion/, with all that god-like authorial import, it makes me edgy. It makes me mad. It makes me want to put the book away, and wash my head. Because the stories go on.
What I want at the end of a book is the distinct sense that the characters and their world continue to revolve, continue to grow, continue to be blessed and to struggle, and hopefully feel more blessed than lost... I don't want to be in god's shoes, and I don't want to read through a god's lens. I want to feel like I got to know the people, and that they now can live inside and around me, independent of my judgments. And in order to do that with situations that feel scary to us, I think we have to let those people become real. Just people. People we could be.
I think that's part of why I loved The Higher Power of Lucky. If I think about it, I know that finances are tight, and family is challenging. But that's not what I think of first. I think of /her/, and I smile.
Maia
-- Maia Cheli-Colando Arcata, Humboldt Bay, California -- blogging at http://www.littlefolktales.org/wordpress -- -- or drop in on Facebook! --
Received on Thu 19 May 2011 01:01:02 AM CDT
