(no subject)
Exegesis: The Wisdom of Water
Summary: a short essay about the writing process, written before submission and finished after having my marked story returned to me.
Read the first draft here.
Read the polished story here.
I didn’t struggle to find my character’s voice while writing the draft, but I did struggle to maintain it as I stretched the story out and fattened it up. His loping, gently repetitive style kept getting lost in longer paragraphs, and the more I fought to find it again the harder it became. Eventually I had to stand back from the character, and I realised that he had grown so much from that first draft - he now had a background, had a wider context than just the beach and his daughter, had so many more conflicts to resolve - that of course his voice would have changed. I then left the narrative style to develop more naturally, and focused on the narrative itself.
I had initially intended the narrator to be very emotionally distant from the subject matter of the story, to have an almost bored tone to his recount speeding up to one catalysing moment near the end that convinced him to follow the course of inaction. But a passionate scene kept inserting itself earlier in the story, and I realised that having a very passionate character who has constructed a dry and disinterested exterior is much more interesting than a character that is just plain dried out.
One text that influenced me a lot during the later drafts of my story is the Dhammapada, a Buddhist scripture that my boyfriend had loaned to me. The Dhammapada has many verses on attachment that are resolved by monks walking away from their responsibilities (such as pregnant wives, and children to support) in order to achieve enlightenment. As I thought about these verses I saw a connection to my story. Many modern schools of Buddhism would not condone the actions in these verses because they are lacking in compassion. So I began thinking about my narrator in terms of attachment and compassion, and his goal to be relieved of both. The biblical names were inserted to imply a background - white, Judeo-Christianity, while there are several references to Buddhist verses 33 and 34, “The Story of Venerable Meghiya”.
Once I had gathered a fuller understanding of my character, building up the story was easy. The hard part was cutting things out. While there is dead weight in any draft, there was some dead weight that I really liked. Samuel’s influence on the story was cut down a lot because I simply didn’t have the word count to both explain his involvement and cater to the narrator’s journey. I then had to consult a peer in order to ensure that there was enough of Samuel remaining in the story to explain and justify his presence.
Samuel was named due to one of the few Bible passages that I know:
"I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women." (2 Samuel 1:26).
I based my story in Canberra because I felt that its landscape reflected several of the reoccurring themes in my story. My brother lives there, and so I am often hearing about how cold it is and how frustrating the roads can be to navigate. I have also learned bits and pieces about graduate programs and working for the government from his involvement, mainly about the workplace culture in Canberra, which I incorporated into my story in order to give the character’s life more fullness. The holiday that the story takes place on, Family and Community Day, is a public holiday that happens suspiciously close to a big horse race in Australia. It’s generally considered to be a nice way for public servants to get out of work and bet on horses.
My lecturer made a few critiques of the story, and I agree with all of them. The first is that the reader isn’t given any indication as to how they should feel about the narrator’s actions - there is nothing in the story to indicate that they should be sympathetic to him or revile him. I intended from the start that the reader would have to make up their own minds, but I appreciate that it leaves the story without a message. There is nothing in the story to say he has done the right thing, therefore there is no message about obtaining freedom. There is nothing to say he has done the wrong thing, and so the story lacks a critique on society and the norms it pressures people to achieve.
She also made the comment that, at no point in my story, is there an objective view of the narrator - there is no indication of the reality of his situation, only his perception of it. This isn’t something that I personally have a problem with (as a relativist, I believe that there is only subjectivity in life), but it does mean that the reader isn’t necessarily grounded in their understanding of the narrator.
In comparison to my other stories, this is certainly the most sophisticated. I have used multiple thematic devises with a degree of subtlety, I’ve created a set of characters in complex situations that people can identify with (without using established characters as my playthings), and I’ve expanded and edited this story like no other. There are three months of work between the first draft and the final. The final piece had a word restriction of 2,500 words. I spent a lot of time wishing for a less words, and then wishing for more, but having that restriction forced me to put some real effort into first expanding the story to meet the requirements, and then cutting it back and back and back. The word count meant that I had to both develop a complex plot, and then tighten it and make it succinct. A blessing in disguise, really.
There are several stories that influenced my writing during the construction of this piece, the most important of which are:
Jap Floral by Claire Aman used a very slow build up of climaxes and then ended the story just before the very peak, giving an effect that I have tried to emulate.
Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway was another story that influenced me in terms with addressing the issues in my story/not addressing them at all.
Summary: a short essay about the writing process, written before submission and finished after having my marked story returned to me.
Read the first draft here.
Read the polished story here.
I didn’t struggle to find my character’s voice while writing the draft, but I did struggle to maintain it as I stretched the story out and fattened it up. His loping, gently repetitive style kept getting lost in longer paragraphs, and the more I fought to find it again the harder it became. Eventually I had to stand back from the character, and I realised that he had grown so much from that first draft - he now had a background, had a wider context than just the beach and his daughter, had so many more conflicts to resolve - that of course his voice would have changed. I then left the narrative style to develop more naturally, and focused on the narrative itself.
I had initially intended the narrator to be very emotionally distant from the subject matter of the story, to have an almost bored tone to his recount speeding up to one catalysing moment near the end that convinced him to follow the course of inaction. But a passionate scene kept inserting itself earlier in the story, and I realised that having a very passionate character who has constructed a dry and disinterested exterior is much more interesting than a character that is just plain dried out.
One text that influenced me a lot during the later drafts of my story is the Dhammapada, a Buddhist scripture that my boyfriend had loaned to me. The Dhammapada has many verses on attachment that are resolved by monks walking away from their responsibilities (such as pregnant wives, and children to support) in order to achieve enlightenment. As I thought about these verses I saw a connection to my story. Many modern schools of Buddhism would not condone the actions in these verses because they are lacking in compassion. So I began thinking about my narrator in terms of attachment and compassion, and his goal to be relieved of both. The biblical names were inserted to imply a background - white, Judeo-Christianity, while there are several references to Buddhist verses 33 and 34, “The Story of Venerable Meghiya”.
Once I had gathered a fuller understanding of my character, building up the story was easy. The hard part was cutting things out. While there is dead weight in any draft, there was some dead weight that I really liked. Samuel’s influence on the story was cut down a lot because I simply didn’t have the word count to both explain his involvement and cater to the narrator’s journey. I then had to consult a peer in order to ensure that there was enough of Samuel remaining in the story to explain and justify his presence.
Samuel was named due to one of the few Bible passages that I know:
"I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women." (2 Samuel 1:26).
I based my story in Canberra because I felt that its landscape reflected several of the reoccurring themes in my story. My brother lives there, and so I am often hearing about how cold it is and how frustrating the roads can be to navigate. I have also learned bits and pieces about graduate programs and working for the government from his involvement, mainly about the workplace culture in Canberra, which I incorporated into my story in order to give the character’s life more fullness. The holiday that the story takes place on, Family and Community Day, is a public holiday that happens suspiciously close to a big horse race in Australia. It’s generally considered to be a nice way for public servants to get out of work and bet on horses.
My lecturer made a few critiques of the story, and I agree with all of them. The first is that the reader isn’t given any indication as to how they should feel about the narrator’s actions - there is nothing in the story to indicate that they should be sympathetic to him or revile him. I intended from the start that the reader would have to make up their own minds, but I appreciate that it leaves the story without a message. There is nothing in the story to say he has done the right thing, therefore there is no message about obtaining freedom. There is nothing to say he has done the wrong thing, and so the story lacks a critique on society and the norms it pressures people to achieve.
She also made the comment that, at no point in my story, is there an objective view of the narrator - there is no indication of the reality of his situation, only his perception of it. This isn’t something that I personally have a problem with (as a relativist, I believe that there is only subjectivity in life), but it does mean that the reader isn’t necessarily grounded in their understanding of the narrator.
In comparison to my other stories, this is certainly the most sophisticated. I have used multiple thematic devises with a degree of subtlety, I’ve created a set of characters in complex situations that people can identify with (without using established characters as my playthings), and I’ve expanded and edited this story like no other. There are three months of work between the first draft and the final. The final piece had a word restriction of 2,500 words. I spent a lot of time wishing for a less words, and then wishing for more, but having that restriction forced me to put some real effort into first expanding the story to meet the requirements, and then cutting it back and back and back. The word count meant that I had to both develop a complex plot, and then tighten it and make it succinct. A blessing in disguise, really.
There are several stories that influenced my writing during the construction of this piece, the most important of which are:
Jap Floral by Claire Aman used a very slow build up of climaxes and then ended the story just before the very peak, giving an effect that I have tried to emulate.
Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway was another story that influenced me in terms with addressing the issues in my story/not addressing them at all.