The Idea #27 is tongue in cheek. But these are some ideas about writing fiction, which I have done in ten novels (and counting), a dozen short stories, and two produced plays (I know, not exactly the same).
Background: In 2015 a colleague and I wrote an open educational resource public speaking textbook for a grant provided by our University System. We didn't realize at the time that it would go viral and be used all over the world within a few years. There are two reasons for that: it is good (as good as anything on the market) and it is free, although only in digital form. Check out www.exploringpublicspeaking.com for it. We also didn't know at the time that my co-author would die at 39 in 2016. I still miss him.
Back to the point, I receive requests for the test banks every other day, and this morning I received one from Pennsylvania. The writer had a signature line:
"Reading
fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other
than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings."
--Anne
Patchett, American Author
Not to dismiss Ms. Patchett's view, but I think this is a "fiction is good for you" argument. Fiction teaches you moral judgment, fiction makes you more empathetic, thus a more caring human being, etc., so take your fiction vitamin and read what we tell you to read because it's good for you.
If this were true, English professors would be the most empathetic persons on the planet. I don't thing that would be a universal sentiment.
Setting aside the overblown benefits of empathy*, fiction may or may not make you more empathetic. Certainly it does open one's mind, depending on what one reads (another bad argument: all fiction is the same fiction; all fiction has the same effects) and does allow us, if well written (another issue) to see how others think, feel, love, live, process, decide, and die.
That is a reason to read it, not a promise that it will change your moral sense, social justice activity, or interpersonal relationships. Or, that it will make you a good writer. These things are possibilities, but not iron-clad promises. If so, I would have won a Pulitzer by now.
The first reason to read fiction is that you enjoy it, that it is good writing, that it is an engaging story, that it is about human experience. There will be other effects, but that is not the first reason. It is a fundamental human art form.
I read a lot about fiction as well as more fiction than most, on top of writing it. I find some writing about fiction just too abstract, which is humorous. The writers use multisyllabic words and literary criticism terms. Good fiction is the opposite of abstract and abstraction. It is only good to the extent it is particular, concrete, specific, time- and place-bound, human, sensory: to use the old word, it has verisimilitude. From that we might move on to the universals and perhaps the abstractions.
This is no less true of speculative fiction, defined by Oxford Dictionary "as a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements."
I also read fiction by people who are trying to write it, desiring to help rather than criticize. One flaw, or developmental quirk, is that we fiction writers tend to put too much of ourselves into the work. I mean that we start with the abstractions and the moral lessons and they have too much pressure, too much influence, into the formation of the story, characters, settings, and particulars, rather than the story, characters, world building, and particulars being the material from which, eventually, the reader can draw her own conclusions. We have, for example, had experience with suicide of a loved one. The story becomes a step-by-step guide to helping someone with that kind of ideation rather than exploring the person's journey and its effects. Bible verses come into dialogue in just the right way, at the just the right moment, to resolve the problems. Only people "on the right side of history" (I dislike that term, by the way--why do we think we know what that is?) prevail. The old "deus ex machina" ploy lives again with the bullet-pointed advice of what a person in the character's situation should do.
I am reading Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye. It is dark, raw, compelling. I am taken into the life of a horribly abused young Black teenager in the 1940s. It hurts. How do I read it? As someone who wants to say they have read Toni Morrison, to get brownie points? As someone who wants to figure out why she won a Nobel Prize? As someone who wants to understand the African-American experience? As someone who is just curious? As someone who wants to improve her own craft by reading "the best"? (it is very good, and I'm not mocking her, but myself). As someone who wants to develop more empathy because at my advanced age I have decided I don't have enough?
For all or none of these reasons? Comments are open.
*Read David Brooks on this; he says it better than I; I just know that empathy itself does not result in compassionate action toward the other. There is a difference between feeling the feelings of others, expressing that well, and doing something about it. A HUGE DIFFERENCE. Health care professionals are taught to "have empathy" but that means they are taught to show it in a certain way, professionally: to use certain nonverbal behaviors and words.
The easy definition of empathy is "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." I don't think a health care professional would want to share those feelings. A more professional rendering is
If this were true, English professors would be the most empathetic persons on the planet. I don't thing that would be a universal sentiment.
Setting aside the overblown benefits of empathy*, fiction may or may not make you more empathetic. Certainly it does open one's mind, depending on what one reads (another bad argument: all fiction is the same fiction; all fiction has the same effects) and does allow us, if well written (another issue) to see how others think, feel, love, live, process, decide, and die.
That is a reason to read it, not a promise that it will change your moral sense, social justice activity, or interpersonal relationships. Or, that it will make you a good writer. These things are possibilities, but not iron-clad promises. If so, I would have won a Pulitzer by now.
The first reason to read fiction is that you enjoy it, that it is good writing, that it is an engaging story, that it is about human experience. There will be other effects, but that is not the first reason. It is a fundamental human art form.
I read a lot about fiction as well as more fiction than most, on top of writing it. I find some writing about fiction just too abstract, which is humorous. The writers use multisyllabic words and literary criticism terms. Good fiction is the opposite of abstract and abstraction. It is only good to the extent it is particular, concrete, specific, time- and place-bound, human, sensory: to use the old word, it has verisimilitude. From that we might move on to the universals and perhaps the abstractions.
This is no less true of speculative fiction, defined by Oxford Dictionary "as a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements."
I also read fiction by people who are trying to write it, desiring to help rather than criticize. One flaw, or developmental quirk, is that we fiction writers tend to put too much of ourselves into the work. I mean that we start with the abstractions and the moral lessons and they have too much pressure, too much influence, into the formation of the story, characters, settings, and particulars, rather than the story, characters, world building, and particulars being the material from which, eventually, the reader can draw her own conclusions. We have, for example, had experience with suicide of a loved one. The story becomes a step-by-step guide to helping someone with that kind of ideation rather than exploring the person's journey and its effects. Bible verses come into dialogue in just the right way, at the just the right moment, to resolve the problems. Only people "on the right side of history" (I dislike that term, by the way--why do we think we know what that is?) prevail. The old "deus ex machina" ploy lives again with the bullet-pointed advice of what a person in the character's situation should do.
I am reading Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye. It is dark, raw, compelling. I am taken into the life of a horribly abused young Black teenager in the 1940s. It hurts. How do I read it? As someone who wants to say they have read Toni Morrison, to get brownie points? As someone who wants to figure out why she won a Nobel Prize? As someone who wants to understand the African-American experience? As someone who is just curious? As someone who wants to improve her own craft by reading "the best"? (it is very good, and I'm not mocking her, but myself). As someone who wants to develop more empathy because at my advanced age I have decided I don't have enough?
For all or none of these reasons? Comments are open.
*Read David Brooks on this; he says it better than I; I just know that empathy itself does not result in compassionate action toward the other. There is a difference between feeling the feelings of others, expressing that well, and doing something about it. A HUGE DIFFERENCE. Health care professionals are taught to "have empathy" but that means they are taught to show it in a certain way, professionally: to use certain nonverbal behaviors and words.
The easy definition of empathy is "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." I don't think a health care professional would want to share those feelings. A more professional rendering is
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