On Communication
12 July 2010 | Filed Under Guest Post
Because I’m dumb and messed up, Mitch’s guest post wasn’t actually posted. So here it is this week in two parts. Enjoy!
By virtue of reading this blog, you are engaging in an act of communication. You may never respond to this post, or you may never respond to this author specifically. In some ways, the anonymity of the Internet ensures that unless you purposefully interact with the medium so as to express specific information you will never share a thing. But you are reading this, and it completes a chain of communication. I have sorted through my memory to recall information, have encoded this information through language into a structured set of coda, and utilized this particular medium to express this information as what you are now reading. You have completed a chain whether you reciprocate the act or not, and for that I thank you.
This is the basic skeleton for modern communication theories – most specifically, a form of David Berlo’s Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver Model of Communication. Remember, though, that as a skeleton, it is waiting to be fleshed out. What goes into the empty slots is entirely up to the discretion of the Sender.
Rather, the person who’s got something to say.
As a writer myself, I find it helpful to consider that every act, verbal and nonverbal, eloquent and blunt, written or spoken, constitutes a communicative act. Any and all interaction is an expression of ideas to which both parties contribute and expand. And unlike many other forms of communication, writing offers unparalleled control. Until the moment you share your work, you are in command of every last element of the piece. You don’t have to think of the font on the spot, and generally you don’t have to make yourself louder to have your word choice heard across a room. The piece has your indelible stamp on it.
But that independence requires that you take your work seriously. You’re at the helm of the entire operation, and thus it’s your responsibility to make everything fit together. Just like a carpenter has to brace his walls, you have to go the extra mile and consider as much as you can to ensure your finished product doesn’t fall in on itself.
It goes without saying that to accomplish this feat, you will have to contemplate the world your piece inhabits, measure plot, and check all the mechanical, nitty-gritty components that make the story a story. What I do want to emphasize is that in order to make the narrative’s house a home, so to speak, I have found that I have to really focus on communicating my pieces. Though I could go on for ages, here are two factors I’ve found have helped my focus – and can hopefully help yours:
This is the cornerstone of any work of fiction, and its importance cannot be overstated. This is the focus of the story, the person/people/entity through whom we receive information and pick up cues as to whether or not to sympathize with the main character. It can be anything – a passage in a book, a floating spirit, even the protagonist itself – but it determines what is told when, and why. No matter what, even if there is no “true” protagonist, there is someone or something that clues us in on a set of information (the story) we otherwise do not have access to.
More importantly, though, the story can only be as clearly defined as its source. If we are thrust into a lover’s spat, for instance, a third-person omniscient narrator can give us valuable cues and get us quickly up to speed on the background, allowing us to immerse ourselves in the argument and the tension of the environment. But if that same omniscient narrator doesn’t give us information, we are left puzzled – two people are shouting, and we don’t know why.
In the same example, we could have the first-person narration of a best friend – someone who isn’t omniscient, but provides us with a context and establishes emotional stakes so we know right away the importance of the event. But if that first-person narration comes from, say, a passerby overhearing shouts from the street, we are once again left to decipher the information without a sense of direction.
In both cases, it isn’t the lack of information itself that leads to disengagement. After all, almost all murder mysteries hinge on the withholding of details until the big reveal. What is missing is a distinct voice from the narrator. This voice, no matter the form, qualifies the narrator in such a way as to lead us to accept or deny what they say, depending upon your story’s needs. For instance, compare the two passages below:
“Firebeard the Pirate captured a Spanish galleon. He then sent the captain to the brig.”
“Firebeard, the Pirate King, rammed into the foreign vessel with a mighty crush… Seizing the quivering captain, he guffawed. “Toss ‘im in the brig!”
With the same core action present in both, the second passage is more defined. This is accomplished by applying sensory details (the onomatopoetic “crush,” the visual “quivering,” etc.) that could only be known if the narrator had actually seen the action unfold. Thus, we find the narration more reliable, and affix more meaning to it. This is vital to a work of fiction because fiction still requires a modicum of plausibility to keep readers interested. It strives to achieve not a reality that isn’t true, but one that could be true.
Note, though, that we are still unclear as to the narrator’s identity. Consider every paragraph, every sentence, and even every word as a tool to further define both the storyteller and the story.
to be continued on Wednesday…
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