Here I sit with all the right ingredients a writer desires in order to produce a masterpiece, a passage of terminological genius: Soft light filters through my curtain, the unobtrusive chirping of late-summer birds, and a head full of philosophy and questions, theory and hypotheses, supposed wisdom to contribute to human kind. Oh, and of course the relative silence.
And yet I have absolutely nothing to write, no ambition to take this opportune moment to begin a novel that will rival Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, no inclination whatsoever to compose a sonnet that will rock Shakespeare’s tomb with jealousy, nor do I have the temperament to waffle on in short lines (with the occasional rhyme) and call it an epic poem.
What, then, is my mission here? Or what is my literary discovery?
Well, for one, that there is no given formula for a profound piece of writing; that the author cannot be lazy in his approach, even though he lives by writing, not to write. The fact that I make sense of my world by describing and dissecting it does not give me the license to sit here, string a few well-constructed but ultimately meaningless phrases together, ensuring that there are a few phonetic difficulties therein, and then publish it (after which I can claim that I have contributed something to society). That is not the author’s mission. If it is, he must rethink the reasons for his interaction with words, and if indeed he is guilty of using the (self-bestowed) vocation of Writer falsely, let him honourably take his work and shove it. Society is not interested.
What, then, makes a piece of writing profound? What makes a successful author?
Resonance.
A good writer will have to confront himself with these questions: to what extent is what I am producing here relevant to the reader? Am I able to communicate this to the reader? Beyond the grand use of words, what is the qualitative substance of the text, and can the reader identify with this substance?
One must not make the error of equating resonance to being boring and unoriginal, for if a challenging and new perspective is proposed by the author, this does not affect the relevance of the writing, or the readers’ ability to identify with it. On the contrary, a text may be rendered completely irrelevant if it seeks only to conform to cultural norms in the name of safety, simply because what it is saying would have been said many a time before, and thus the text is redundant. In an age where boundaries are constantly being pushed, reset and/or re-established, it is detrimental for the writer to merely describe these boundaries, for there is already a clear awareness of their nature if they are being constantly manipulated. So, in delightful post-modern frankness, this is how I would summarise what I have just said: Hey, man, give us something to think about! Don’t just tell us what we are thinking about in fancy words!
Resonance is what makes a good writer. Now let us look at what makes a great one.
A great wordsmith will not only give the reader something to think about by making his ideas and observations clear, accessible and challenging, but he will indeed change the way the reader thinks altogether. What shall we call his second ingredient, then?
Inspiration.
If through diction I can show the reader a) where he is in relation to the ideas and observations I am putting forward (Resonance) and b) where I propose he should be in relation to the ideas and observations put forward (through showing him that where he ‘should’ be is indeed different and better than where he is), then I have inspired him to make changes in his thinking. This change of thinking will probably not result in any action, but I have influenced his thought processes nonetheless. Did not Shakespeare change the way one thinks about traditional romance in The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet? Did not Alan Paton bring a refreshing humanity to, and a tangible account of how the otherwise abstract (to Europe) ‘atrocity’ of Apartheid affected ordinary South Africans through Cry, The Beloved Country? What about the stir that Chika Onyeani caused when he challenged the Black population to wake up from economic slumber in Capitalist Nigger? Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things, like Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, spin the notion of social taboo on its head, and cause us to think about a more open platform of discussion to deal with social ills, instead of just sweeping things under the rug.
A great writer, then, presents the text with such skill that he brainwashes the reader while entertaining him. It is an intricate interplay between deliberately chosen words and chapter titles, of theme and symbolism, of character development and plot, of complex language usage and simple exclamations, of omission and repetition. Behold, I use the word brainwash here as a good thing when one considers the abundance of pointless literary dirt out there.
After all, don’t great writers challenge the norm?
No comments:
Post a Comment