I was thinking about this on the way home from work today -
Is the conveyance and portrayal of deep emotion what makes a really good writer?
Does the writer have to feel strong or deep emotion to write well?
Does this mean that those who have led comparatively "boring" lives do not make good writers because they haven't experienced emotion as deeply as others?
I don't really know why I was thinking of this. It may have been because I wondered if my writing improves when I feel passionate about a certain issue and then write about it.
This may be a dumb question, but any thoughts on the issue would be most welcome. : )
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ReplyDeleteJeanne,
ReplyDeleteCameron here. Hope you're well.
From one writer to another, I'd have to answer in the affirmative to your first two questions, though a great writer tends to temper strong emotion with objectivity. Some of the most powerful prose writers of the 20th century did this. I'm thinking of writers like Updike and Nabokov. Vladimir Nabokov is a combination of a poet and a scientist. He captures minute details with clinical precision, but he chooses word combinations and turns of phrase that are undeniably beautiful. Cormac McCarthy (a favorite of mine) renders scenes of stunning violence with a detachment and objectivity that is both compelling and horrifying.
As to the last question, it depends. I think it safe to say that Emily Dickinson lacked a considerable amount when it came to experience. In her case, she saw things in ways most who are accustomed to the world don't, or can't. Her poems are truly representations of "the world made strange."
Some writers are nothing more than the sum of their experiences and their resulting scars i.e. Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway etc.
The act of writing involves feeling things deeply, but, like most things, it's also an act of translation. To make deep feelings comprehensible with words is a delicate gift that takes intense dedication.
Just some thoughts. Great questions.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on these questions, Cameron. I agree that conveying depth of feeling in a way that actually translates to where people are is a gift.
ReplyDeleteFrom the above thoughts, can we then conclude that a person's experience (or lack thereof) does not necessarily dictate whether or not they will be a good writer?
What we would qualify as a "good" writer, then, would be someone who can take what they *have* experienced, or what they can imagine (using their unique point of view either way), and translate it in such a way that it communicates depth of feeling/depth of insight to the reader. Would you agree? Or am I still missing something?
In my estimation, the only indispensable experience is the act of reading and writing itself. The two are inextricable, and require solitude, introspection, and dedication in heavy doses.
ReplyDeletePhilip Roth says that if it takes you longer than two weeks to read a book, you haven't read it. Humbling thoughts, and yet another example of how impractical the writing enterprise actually is.
Write relentlessly, and you'll discover experiences you've never had, battles into which you never knew you'd charged, undiscovered countries, uncharted territories. At least, that's been my experience as I write.
Well, then I will accept the challenge to write relentlessly, and see what happens! I do more journal-writing than anything else right now, but I need to change that.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement and for your thoughts. I had my suspicions in college, but I have read several of your pieces on the Hands for Christ blog and they've been confirmed - You are an excellent writer!
Wonderful, Jeanne! I'm putting the finishing touches on a short story myself.
ReplyDeleteI uncovered this little gem not long ago from Stephen Millhauser (my favorite living writer) in an interview from BOMB magazine. It bears directly on your question:
"But words like “distance” and “formality” are easily misunderstood. To say I prefer distance isn’t to say I prefer coldness, haughtiness, lack of feeling, deadness. In my view, it’s precisely that “little distance” that permits genuine feeling to be expressed. My dislike of warm, cozy, chummy writing is that it always strikes me as fraudulent—a failure of feeling. Passion, beauty, intensity—everything I care about in art—is made possible through the discipline of distance. Or to say it another way: Powerful feeling in art takes place only through the particular kind of distance known as form."