Wherein I Argue Once Again With Writing Advice

[hrj]

I was reading a very entertaining article linked to on Twitter Four Steps to Becoming a God(dess) of Literary Elements but just as in my recent post, I found myself bouncing off the central thesis of the article's advice. Specifically this piece:

As you write the first drafts of a novel or short story, don’t think about literary elements. Don’t think, what does this tree symbolize? Is this statement ironic? Does this scene need to be foreshadowed? Should I include an allusion here? Does this flashback work? Instead, just tell your story. Tell it fully. Create a compelling setting and characters. Figure out the plot. Get the dialogue moving. Establish tension. Follow the story through to an ending (even if the ending changes over time).

Preface everything else in this post with "what works for me". I can't even imagine being able to write a novel where I didn't add in the symbolism, allusions, foreshadowing, and most especially the metaphors until after I've written all the way through to the ending. Let me illustrate this with the two central metaphors of The Mystic Marriage: Love is Bread, and Love is Alchemy. Actually, let's just stick to Love is Alchemy, because it makes the point most strongly.

The Mystic Marriage is all about alchemy, transformation, redemption, and the difference between the flawless perfection of theory and the messy business of actual life. Every single plot element relating to Antuniet's alchemical project has a crucial parallel to her emotional life and the development of her romantic relationship, from the need to let go of her death-grip-tight control over the work and not only be open to help but be willing to beg for that help, to the almost too-obvious sexual symbolism of the alchemical "mystic marriage" and the ways in which that process can be understood in her own relationship, to the breakthrough when both the alchemy and her own heart become stronger and truer for accepting imperfection and the muddled impurity of existence. These are not elements that could be layered in as a literary technique after the first draft was complete. Take the scene when a distraught Jeanne throws a hodgepodge of chemicals into the crucible, literally opens a vein, and hands the result to Antuniet saying, "This is my heart; it is what you see. I don't know if it will come through the fire, but it's yours if you will have it." That was the very first scene I wrote before I knew anything else about how it would come about. It's the emotional heart of the novel. And it's entirely focused on the "literary" elements of the story. I couldn't have added those things in after-the-fact without having to entirely re-write the thing from scratch.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I agree totally. The idea of pasting in theme related metaphors, allusions and symbolism afterwards in a kind of "writing by numbers" sounds like a recipe for an awkward mess.

If the aim is to write the sort of book that is stylistically very simple and reads more like a transcript of a TV show or movie (all action and dialogue), then the literary stuff isn't actually necessary. But if you are aiming for rich prose, it has to be an organic part of the writing process and be there from the start, not a conscious and mechanical addition once the first draft is done. At least that's how it works for me.

Of course, knowing the huge diversity of writing processes, there are probably people who could make this approach work, but I wouldn't like to offer it as advice to novices.

[lferion]

I would never have a story, taking that advice/approach. There would be nothing to generate the words, and I'm not nearly as deliberate about my writing as you are!

I've been nodding vigorously along with your posts on this particularly.