Carol Wolf continues her quest to explore the imaginative bounds of story
The first way in which children’s fantasy influences adult fantasy is that it acts as a gateway drug for readers, who as they grow up desire more sophisticated fantasy to read. At the same time children’s fantasy causes little story-telling fantasy readers to grow up telling fantasy stories which develop from children’s to adult fantasy.
One of the worst influences on modern literature is the academic study of it. Whole departments of PhDs and PhD candidates, poring over stuff that writers were hacking out to amuse their friends, or support themselves and their families, excavating for the deepest meanings, lauding and deifying the writers, has changed our culture’s view of fiction. From Aphra Behn to Mrs. Gaskell, fiction was railed at from the pulpits and condemned in the parlor as a form of entertainment that could rot your brain or subvert your moral tone (and where do we hear this nowadays? Gods help us, in fifty more years I’ll bet there will be academics studying video games). Now, because of academia, fiction is taken very seriously indeed.
Children’s fantasy, on the other hand, still enjoys its status of being overlooked. Fairy tales, magical adventures, encounters with talking ducks and flying trains, are obviously not to be taken seriously. This gives the story-teller a world where nothing she writes is held to any special account, where she can try anything, and if it doesn’t quite work, well, it’s just a fairy tale, it’s just a fantasy, you know, for children. The talking duck is dumb, and trains can fly. Amidst this benign neglect, where there’s no place to fall, (I mean really, a talking duck?) the writer is given scope and depth to explore wonders without fear or hesitation.
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” “Chrestomanci! Chrestomanci! Chrestomanci!” The Moon is a Harsh Mistress . . . Because it doesn’t matter, we can go to our limits. Because isn’t not important enough to take seriously, we can reach out to the silliest, wildest, craziest wonders of our imagination. And with that material, we can make anything we are capable of.
Oh, all right, yes, that time when fantasy was not taken seriously is actually past. But as long as we have our separate shelves in bookstores and libraries, as long as we’re not “mainstream,” we can still go our lengths. We can go on writing children’s fantasies, for our childs’ hearts.
Children’s fantasy is story-driven. Adult fantasy still follows in that tradition. And neither, for the most part, has yet been poisoned by that most insidious gift of academia, The Theme.
Academics, making a study of fiction, discovered The Theme. They realized that stories create nuances, and powerful stories can in fact be interpreted as a metaphor about human conditions, and human lives. This metaphor is sometimes mind-blowing, life-changing, personal and powerful. “Ah hah!” cried the academics, none of whom had ever written a work of fiction in their lives, “Great writers of fiction are not actually writing stories, they are writing THEMES, which they clothe with their stories. It is actually a secret communication to people who are as smart and wise as we are. Fiction is all about THEME!!!” Okay, they didn’t say that. But they sure act like they did.
But it is not true. Themes are a by-product of story. If you make up a story, and it’s a good story, and you think it through and write it tight and fine, you will find, when you finish, that you have also written a couple of themes. Be True To Yourself. Stay the Course. We Don’t Always Know As Much As We Think We Do. Whatever. The bigger and stronger your story, the more numerous the themes you can find in it. But here’s the catch. If you start with the theme, “I’m going to write about Friendship!” your story will come up empty. Because you’ll be walking cardboard characters through a made-up construct in order to illustrate your theme. (You can see this in a lot of mainstream “literature.” And in a lot of bad plays.)
Unfortunately, Creative Writing teachers, and English teachers, are all trained by academics. When teaching story-telling, you’ll often hear them say (these people who, like their teachers, may never have written a story in their lives), “The first thing you do when you start to write your story, is choose your theme.”
Nooooo! Don’t do it! Please! You can just bet that Homer, when he wrote the Iliad, did not sit down first and think, “Now what is my theme?” And yet the Iliad is stuffed with ‘em.
Write the story. If you are writing with passion and honesty, you can try and shut the themes out, but they’ll crawl through the windows and under the doors. You can’t get shut of the things — if you do it the right way ’round.
Let us cleave to our position in the ghetto, outside the mainstream, where what we do is not important literature, and thus academics do not study it and take it apart, and then come and tell us (the next generation of us) how it is to be done. How it looks when it’s done right. What it should be about. We are the lucky ones, because we are all, still, just writing for the children.
Leigh Caroline on May 31, 2012
Actually, there already are people studying video games. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_studies it’s actually pretty neat stuff.
Carol on May 31, 2012
Oh, no, really? I had the honor of writing the scripts for Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, and Legacy of Kain: Defiance. Going down into history on Amy Hennig’s trouser leg would be such a trip.
Paul (@princejvstin) on May 31, 2012
Leigh beat me to it. Some video games are already being studied…
—
But it is not true. Themes are a by-product of story.
Maybe. I’m not an academic. I’ve heard the arguments that theme comes first. I’m not very swayed by them though.
Carol on May 31, 2012
Easily tested: try writing a story both ways. See if it works. If it comes out the other way, do write to me.
Pip Foweraker on May 31, 2012
Bravo! Bravely said!
I think that studying stories can be done with a light and happy heart. Getting ‘bogged down’ in academia can be exactly that – like wading through a swamp.
Far better to leave the slogging through swamps to fantasy characters themselves, or to get outside with some sturdy boots and slog through an actual swamp – I want my escapism to be comfortable and preferably take place in front of a fire, thankyou very much!
Although, interestingly, the more fantasy I read – and I’ve been reading fantasy voraciously for probably as much as everyone else in the Bazaar – the more I enjoy the subtle flavours and nuances that can only be appreciated after years of exposure.
Game studies are fantastically fun, as well, as long as they complement the good playing of good games!
Carol on May 31, 2012
I love your idea of studying with a light and happy heart. Intriguing idea, letting a character do the academic slogging for you.
Unfortunately, academia is not light or happy. It is very, very serious.
I love your idea that the more fantasy you read, the more nuances you understand. I look forward to that.
Thanks for your note!
AE Marling on June 1, 2012
Playful imagining is serious business. The great thing about children’s YA is the whimsy, the hedonism, the joy of imagining for imagining’s sake. Adults who lose the ability to do things for their own sake, who think all activities should have a point, often fall into severe depression. That’s why I recommend a heady dose of vitamin fantasy.
Carol on June 1, 2012
Whimsy! Yes, let’s not forget whimsy. Thanks.
wj on June 3, 2012
I don’t know what academics mean by “theme” (and doubt I really want to know, actually). But I could see how someone could come up with a good story by starting with an Idea.
“I think it would be good to write a story where the hero is real and substantial support for the heroine, rather than the reverse.” Then work out the characters, at least the leads, and the situation they start in, and go from there.
To me, that sounds like starting with a theme. But then, I speak English, not academiaese.
Carol Wolf on June 3, 2012
“Hero is real and substantial support for the heroine” is an interesting idea, because all subsequent questions involve character choices. What if she’s an old fashioned girl who wants to be protected, even though she has super powers? What if he’s supportive because he’s actually manipulating her, a la Prince Albert (who tried to rule England through Victoria, indeed, thought that was the gig when he married her). What happens next is based, to an extent, on the results of those character choices.
If you were starting with a theme, it would be more like: “men should support women heroines more,” and the events of your story would prove it. And if you did that, your character choices would not be organic, but based on your preconception of how this story ought to turn out. Just like old fashioned moral tales: “Drink is bad for you!” and you know how that story is going to turn out.
I think one of the problems with starting with theme, is the foregone conclusion of the story. A lot of the magic of story telling is not knowing yourself how it’s going to turn out, and by following along in your own tracks, so to speak, surprising yourself with bigger ideas than you could consciously have imagined. Something like that.
wj on June 4, 2012
I was thinking more of something parallel to McKillip’s Riddle Master of Hed series: the heroine would have a Quest to deal with, which had priority over everything else (whether she likes it or not). And the hero would be clearly powerful in his own right, but in a support role in terms of the quest. I think the Theme there could well be phrased as “Men should support heroines more, rather than vis versa (which is more common).”
But I don’t see that the conclusion is predetermined. Nor that events would all necessarily be proving it. More that events would look at what would play out, given the initial situation — a woman with a Quest. As you say, the character choices would influence that. But does that by itself mean that the story wasn’t starting with a Theme?
Carol Wolf on June 4, 2012
I still think you’re starting with an idea, rather than a theme (which is what storytellers do quite naturally!). If the answer to “what is your story about” causes you to name your character and say what happens in the story, then I think you’re starting with a story idea. If you reply, “My story is about Friendship,” or “My story is about Coming of Age,.” then you’re describing the theme.
The theme is the “unifying dominant idea,” by definition. Story is a series of events acting upon the characters in such a way that they are changed.
If you approach your story thinking about the Theme, it will be static and the characters one-dimensional. If you develop your story thinking about, well, story, then it won’t be, or at least it will be less so, and you get the theme(s) anyway, as a bonus. Really!
It’s easily tested. Choose a theme, and then write a one-page story. Then, pick one of the characters and write a story off on a tangent, also that short. See if story is lit up more than the other, or if one is more static.