Creationism

Think of a day at the art museum. Imagine going into one of the galleries--the impressionists, surrealists, pre-Raphaelites, a room of sculptures including a couple by Rodin, whatever. Picture yourself standing before your favorite work by your favorite artist. Or imagine you’re at a concert, or in your car with the radio up playing your favorite piece of music. It could be Bach, Bacharach, Bonnie Raitt, or the Beasty Boys--doesn’t matter as long as you love it. Put yourself in whichever of these scenarios speaks to you most, and consider this question: When you come to the instant when you are most absorbed in that work of art, most lifted up and carried away on the waves of that piece of music, what exactly is happening?

In the film ‘Immortal Beloved’--about Beethoven’s later years and specifically the composing of his masterful 9th Symphony--Beethoven says that when someone listens to a piece of his music, if he’s been successful as a composer, they will feel exactly what he felt when he put the notes down on the score sheet. In other words, they will recreate his moment of creation.

That is what’s happening in the above scenarios, and that’s what I want to discuss today: Creationism. No, not that creationism! The other one; the one in which we all take part time and again throughout our lives, most often without the least notice because we’re too involved in the act to ruin it with a real-time, sterile analysis. After all, creating requires focus, and at those moments described above we ARE creators every bit as much as the artist or composer who originated the individual piece of work.

Or as Paul Horgan put it in his jewel of a novel, ‘Things As They Are’:
“The artist must first create, and then communicate. But who would listen? Who would see?" ... and ... “For magic to succeed, there must be one who reveals and one who believes. I believed every word and every act he revealed to me.”

Now, fellow writer, let’s apply this to our craft. Let’s say you’re no longer a writer (yes, I know that may well be impossible to imagine, but try). You’re confined to being a reader only, and are immersed in the one novel that, no matter how many times you’ve read it, never fails to hold you spellbound. When you’re most immersed in the setting, characters, and drama of that novel, aren’t you doing the same thing; recreating for yourself what the author has already birthed. In the realm of writing, that’s the creationism I’m talking about: the act of Co-Creation.

It’s not enough for a writer to put his ideas down in words. We cannot type “End” or “Finis” at the bottom of the last page of the final draft and think the job is done. Our job may be done, but The job is not. Don’t we need someone to read what we’ve written? Of course we do. But as much as we might want to, we cannot determine how they will react to it. We can’t tell the reader what to think or how to feel at every plot turn along the way. It’s out of our hands. Readers become co-creators with us by bringing their life experience to the endeavor, and passing our work through that filter. All we can do as authors is try to provide material that’s refined enough to give every reader the opportunity to make their final product something worthwhile. Those who believe in us, and in the characters and worlds we create, deserve no less.

But to what extent do we let our readers determine what we write? Should we worry about the audience at all? Is it enough just to know that co-creators exist out there somewhere? Enough with the questions, already! Sheeesh! That’s the problem I run into when considering this issue--the “chicken or the egg” quality of it spins me round until I’m dizzy.

Many genres--romance novels; serial westerns, mysteries, or spy novels; young adult fiction, etc.--demand that the writer write for a specific audience, and that’s okay. Even then, the author has latitude as to how he approaches that audience, can include in his work varying levels of characterization and/or plot that can impart a sense of depth where it would otherwise not have been expected. In short, the author CAN be true to himself when writing for a specific audience ... if that audience is an audience of one: Himself. As creators, we are responsible for--and only for--our creation. Let the reader as he reads be responsible for his co-creation. In that way, the author and the reader are able to come together, without ever meeting, to produce a single, multifaceted living thing that can be beautiful in its own way to each of its parents who may well see in it two very different beings.           

So here’s today’s question--

When you write, do you write for a specific audience, or do you write for yourself, confident that the audience will find you?

I may have been overly ambitious when I promised two new posts per week. I’m going to shoot for one and see what happens. Until next time...