Tales retold and made to fly
Sep. 24th, 2006 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyingskullEzra Pound (I think it was him... hope so... anyway) said that every story has already been written: the purpose of a good writer is to write it anew. Or similar. Anyway this could very well be fanfic's banner, well-written fanfic, of course, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mistful's fanfic in particular.
I'm thinking of IYHARM, yes, and wasn't that a GREAT re-telling? Actually it was, I wasn't being ironic or anything, it was a superb retelling, I love it. But I'm also thinking of QOM, because to me the retelling of the characters is the retelling of the story.
It seems to me that, no matter what is said about plot, worldbuilding and style - all basic things in writing, it's lovely when they coesist but it can be nice with just two or one of them - the driving force behind storytelling as an art form is characters. When a writer can make her/his characters people, then plot, worldbuilding and style have to follow. I said storytelling as an art form, because the world is peopled by scribblers, some of whom make lots of money, but I'm talking about the GOOD writers here.
All stories are plot-driven by definition: they are, after all, stories. But the good - and excellent - writers write people who, exactly because they are who they are and evolve according to their selves, can't help getting there, wherever it is that the plot needs them to go. Somistful writes stories about real people who, because they are human, hence complicated and damaged in a myriad of ways, can't help but go where she wants them to go. I'm not presuming to know her particular writing technique, but that's not important to the reader, or even the careful critic.
Reading her stories through time I know without a shadow of doubt that she's growing by leaps and bounds as a writer and that her characters are more and more becoming people, until here, with QOM, there's not a single 'character' talking, acting and walking through her plot. These are real people at the core, so much that – even though her premises are wildly IC – the original characters are but pale shadows of hers.
This is how it should be! we cry, and not because the plot is enthralling – and it is – or thrilling – and it is – or tight and perfectly paced – and, boy, is it! – but because these are people and we want to know what happens to them; we want to know if they will resolve their several conflicts, if they will be able to grow and evolve, if they will perchance kill one another. This is true mastery of the art of writing, this is the core of what literature is all about. And, as if this were not enough – and it IS, but we're greedy, we readers – her multilayered and intense prose scintillates with wit, irony and benevolence. Oh, and coruscates with quotations and allusions of the subtle and unsubtle variety.
And worldbuilding invariably follows. Only in that particular world, with those particular mores, those particular variation of reality and physics and stuff can those particular people make the particular choices that will take them where they are supposed to go.mistful is using someone else's wordlbuilding, but she mends it with implication, allusion and an occasional shock of start reality. She is, in fact, writing it anew.
She creates a maze of mirrors and reflections of mirrors that sucks us in. We see Draco through Harry's eyes - of course, tight third POV - but, at the same time we see Harry seeing himself reflected in Draco's eyes. We could maybe be kept at a distance by this device, but we aren't, we're in, deep and foundering, just as our little freak and his beloved enemy are: we're looking for ourselves in them, they're looking for themselves in others' eyes... maybe our eyes, the readers' eyes.
This works for every single character, too, not just the protagonists. Look at Narcissa, single-minded loving mother with a core of ruthlessness that should perhaps be chilling - she disregards everyone's safety to ensure her son's - but that's how Harry sees her, or better, needs to see her until... until we see her die through Snape's eyes as heard through Harry's ears. See? By reflecting reflections into reflections - both meaning of reflection apply here - we can solve the puzzle, or go as near to solving other people as we're going to get in real life.
Gaiman - of whom more later - said that sometimes what we don't get explained in a book is more fascinating that what we get explained (let's taken as read that this is periphrasis based on memory). We'll never completely know another - maybe not even ourselves - but all the little mysteries fascinate. I personally like Narcissa in canon, but I'm utterly fascinated by this complex and intelligent heroine. She isn't going to sacrifice herself in a cliché bout of dying for her child, but she does because she really has no other choice than silence. She knows she's dead anyway. She tries, because she wants to live, but at the very end she becomes Antigone, so much bigger than life in silent contempt of her executioners.
Look at Snape caught in ungentle tenderness; at Ginny (whom I cordially detested... okay I still do in canon) caught at the edge between childhood and young maturity; at Hermione who's afraid of coming out of her head, so to speak, and confront her shaky ethics, but who tries so hard to matter; at Ron finally growing up; at Lupin hiding behind a passive aggressive not-snarl... look at them all. The kernel of all they are is in canon, yes, but it's nothing more than a hopeful latency, given meaning by the eagerness and imagination of readers. Inmistful's stories - particularly QOM - the eagerness and imagination of readers is better employed to probe the little mysteries of self and life.
Coming back to Gaiman - yeps, been re-reading Sandman obsessively of late. Needed to ponder on basic things like life, death and personal mythology - I think he said.... ah-HA! Found the correct quote. Here it goes:
I learned that writing could, in and of itself, be beautiful. (He's talking about Delany's Einstein Intersection. If you haven't read it, DO) I learned that sometimes what you do not understand, what remains beyond your grasp in a book, is as magical as what you can take from it. I learned that we have the right, or the obligation, to tell old stories in our own ways, because they are our stories, and they must be told.
He could have said that about QOM, really. There's a quality of writing in there that resonates deep within me, just as Gaiman's writing does. There's a calm fearlessness about farce and tragedy, there's risk taking, but nothing frantic about it. It's true storytelling and I'm celebrating it with this piddly new icon stolen blatantly from The Last Hero by Pterry (ill by Paul Kidby) only this time we'll remember the singer as well as the song.
Thank you Maya.
mistful's fanfic in particular.I'm thinking of IYHARM, yes, and wasn't that a GREAT re-telling? Actually it was, I wasn't being ironic or anything, it was a superb retelling, I love it. But I'm also thinking of QOM, because to me the retelling of the characters is the retelling of the story.
It seems to me that, no matter what is said about plot, worldbuilding and style - all basic things in writing, it's lovely when they coesist but it can be nice with just two or one of them - the driving force behind storytelling as an art form is characters. When a writer can make her/his characters people, then plot, worldbuilding and style have to follow. I said storytelling as an art form, because the world is peopled by scribblers, some of whom make lots of money, but I'm talking about the GOOD writers here.
All stories are plot-driven by definition: they are, after all, stories. But the good - and excellent - writers write people who, exactly because they are who they are and evolve according to their selves, can't help getting there, wherever it is that the plot needs them to go. So
mistful writes stories about real people who, because they are human, hence complicated and damaged in a myriad of ways, can't help but go where she wants them to go. I'm not presuming to know her particular writing technique, but that's not important to the reader, or even the careful critic.Reading her stories through time I know without a shadow of doubt that she's growing by leaps and bounds as a writer and that her characters are more and more becoming people, until here, with QOM, there's not a single 'character' talking, acting and walking through her plot. These are real people at the core, so much that – even though her premises are wildly IC – the original characters are but pale shadows of hers.
This is how it should be! we cry, and not because the plot is enthralling – and it is – or thrilling – and it is – or tight and perfectly paced – and, boy, is it! – but because these are people and we want to know what happens to them; we want to know if they will resolve their several conflicts, if they will be able to grow and evolve, if they will perchance kill one another. This is true mastery of the art of writing, this is the core of what literature is all about. And, as if this were not enough – and it IS, but we're greedy, we readers – her multilayered and intense prose scintillates with wit, irony and benevolence. Oh, and coruscates with quotations and allusions of the subtle and unsubtle variety.
And worldbuilding invariably follows. Only in that particular world, with those particular mores, those particular variation of reality and physics and stuff can those particular people make the particular choices that will take them where they are supposed to go.
mistful is using someone else's wordlbuilding, but she mends it with implication, allusion and an occasional shock of start reality. She is, in fact, writing it anew.She creates a maze of mirrors and reflections of mirrors that sucks us in. We see Draco through Harry's eyes - of course, tight third POV - but, at the same time we see Harry seeing himself reflected in Draco's eyes. We could maybe be kept at a distance by this device, but we aren't, we're in, deep and foundering, just as our little freak and his beloved enemy are: we're looking for ourselves in them, they're looking for themselves in others' eyes... maybe our eyes, the readers' eyes.
This works for every single character, too, not just the protagonists. Look at Narcissa, single-minded loving mother with a core of ruthlessness that should perhaps be chilling - she disregards everyone's safety to ensure her son's - but that's how Harry sees her, or better, needs to see her until... until we see her die through Snape's eyes as heard through Harry's ears. See? By reflecting reflections into reflections - both meaning of reflection apply here - we can solve the puzzle, or go as near to solving other people as we're going to get in real life.
Gaiman - of whom more later - said that sometimes what we don't get explained in a book is more fascinating that what we get explained (let's taken as read that this is periphrasis based on memory). We'll never completely know another - maybe not even ourselves - but all the little mysteries fascinate. I personally like Narcissa in canon, but I'm utterly fascinated by this complex and intelligent heroine. She isn't going to sacrifice herself in a cliché bout of dying for her child, but she does because she really has no other choice than silence. She knows she's dead anyway. She tries, because she wants to live, but at the very end she becomes Antigone, so much bigger than life in silent contempt of her executioners.
Look at Snape caught in ungentle tenderness; at Ginny (whom I cordially detested... okay I still do in canon) caught at the edge between childhood and young maturity; at Hermione who's afraid of coming out of her head, so to speak, and confront her shaky ethics, but who tries so hard to matter; at Ron finally growing up; at Lupin hiding behind a passive aggressive not-snarl... look at them all. The kernel of all they are is in canon, yes, but it's nothing more than a hopeful latency, given meaning by the eagerness and imagination of readers. In
mistful's stories - particularly QOM - the eagerness and imagination of readers is better employed to probe the little mysteries of self and life.Coming back to Gaiman - yeps, been re-reading Sandman obsessively of late. Needed to ponder on basic things like life, death and personal mythology - I think he said.... ah-HA! Found the correct quote. Here it goes:
I learned that writing could, in and of itself, be beautiful. (He's talking about Delany's Einstein Intersection. If you haven't read it, DO) I learned that sometimes what you do not understand, what remains beyond your grasp in a book, is as magical as what you can take from it. I learned that we have the right, or the obligation, to tell old stories in our own ways, because they are our stories, and they must be told.
He could have said that about QOM, really. There's a quality of writing in there that resonates deep within me, just as Gaiman's writing does. There's a calm fearlessness about farce and tragedy, there's risk taking, but nothing frantic about it. It's true storytelling and I'm celebrating it with this piddly new icon stolen blatantly from The Last Hero by Pterry (ill by Paul Kidby) only this time we'll remember the singer as well as the song.
Thank you Maya.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: HUGZ!
Date: 2006-09-27 09:02 am (UTC)Hehehe, doubtful, but thanks for the blessing. =]
I have to say, I'm almost starting to understand the whole "pain feels good" thing. Sweating and straining does feel sort of cleansing, somehow, like some of the unhealthy stuff I've eaten is being exorcised. =]
> Be proud of you, I am.
(*beams*) :D
> The karate thing reminds me of Pterry's attitude to magic: it works best
> when you don't do it. *G*
I think the principle is the same, yeah. Teach people how to do it, and in the process they'll hopefully learn the benefits of not doing it. Ignorant people are more inclined to improvise. =]
> In my own muddled head it was implicit, but you made me realise it
> actually isn't for most readers.
Ah. :) We're in complete agreement, then... but no, it isn't for most readers, apparently, or why would I so often have to hear about Robin freaking Hobb?
I doubt you're familiar with her - she's neither literate enough to be interesting on her own or popular enough to have superior fanfiction writers. =] But according to most people on westeros.org, she's Characterisation Incarnate. And I just can't see it. Her main hero is such a complete blank that I honestly can't even describe him, except to say that he feels sorry for himself a lot. He's born out of wedlock, and he feels sorry for himself about that. He's the King's assassin, forcing him to keep secrets from everyone, and he feels sorry for himself about that. He's got a form of magic that is regarded as "evil" and feels sorry for himself about that (the magic gives him the power to talk to animals, as it happens, and it's reviled in his world because it's supposed to be primitive and inhuman. But of course there's really nothing wrong with that, it's just a matter of realising that there's nothing special about humans and animals are just as important and bla bla bla, Hobb's enviromentalist agenda is so overbearing that it makes even me groan, Greenpeace supporter that I am). Generally, he doesn't have character traits, he just has reasons to feel sorry for himself! :P
And hey, he's the peak of Hobb's characterisation skills! After all, he agrees with her on everything, so she has no problem writing him. She also has a number of secondary characters, though, and oh, man. They're as foul a bunch of charicatures and stereotypes as you'd ever see! They have incomrehensible beliefs and attitudes, because Hobb has grasped that not everyone can agree with her own self-evident truths, but she hasn't understood why someone would think differently. One of the villains even accuse one of the heroines of being very unreasonable for being angry with him over ordering her raped because, quote, "rape is something women have just made up, in order to make it seem that they can be deprived of something they have an infinite supply of." (*sighs*) Moderation, thy name sure ain't Hobb. Or even Ogden, which is "Robin Hobb"'s actual name.
I would take Rowling over this crap! Rowling, I say! And yet, Hobb is supposed to be the Characterisation Queen of Fantasy. (*sighs and shakes head*)
Hee. Sorry about the mini-rant. =]