With a discussion over lunch with a colleague, an interesting conversation came up, where we were talking about the development of imaginary worlds and the characters that inhabit them. He is re-reading the Game of Thrones books and was wondering what the process is for a writer to be able to develop such complexity, not just in storyline, but also in character depth, bringing in layers and nuance, as if they were intimately acquainted.
And, they are.
At least of a sort. Because writers can only write what they know, which means that their characters and worlds are going to be built from the building blocks of experience. And, the more they write, the greater and more detailed that imaginary world view becomes, the more connected to the characters, the stronger the interrelated relationships between the imaginary experiences of characters become.
Not only this, I at least think that most of the greatest writers, are also astute observers of their environment, as well as being reflective on what they see and experience. For many, they were probably the nerdy kid at school, the one who was singled out and teased, the outcast forced into a lonely world of consumption of vicarious experience, through watching their peers interact with each other, and themselves. They also likely saw many of those behaviors and actions in people when that person though, no one was watching.
The imagination is a muscle. It can be trained.
Reflection in itself is an imaginary process, a creative process, taking what was observed and breaking it down as if how it played out in experience, is actually how it played out. It never is. From the perspective of our awareness, what we experience is a story we tell ourselves we experienced, not the reality. And, our feedback loop we use to evaluate authenticity and accuracy, is self-reported, to the impartial audience of ourselves.
We make a judgement on the world we see and feel we are correct, even though the vast majority of our judgements have no evidence loop to say whether we are right or wrong. And therefore when we are proven wrong, it feels like that incorrect evaluation is an outlier, as after all, we were right all those other times we felt right.
But, the feedback of being wrong about our evaluations of the world, generally come through external feedback, where what we present as our view, meets a conflict of some kind. This means that in order to discover how often and how wrong we might be, we have to present it to the world and see what the world responds.
A writer does this when they deliver their world to their audience and the great writers are those who are able to find that connection between the audience and the characters and world within. It needs to be relatable, even if the framework of the setting is imaginary. The audience needs to feel familiar, which is why love is the most common topic in music, likely followed by sadness. It is about connecting with the emotional side of the audience, the desire, the wanting, the disappointment, the anger and the fear.
Good writing builds the world for the audience and compels them to play a role, even if from a position of silent observer, the fly on the wall position. And, this type of writing isn't by accident, though for some it might come more naturally. It is like method acting to make it believable, it is about channeling the character and for some time, embodying the role, even if it is vastly different to what one might know in the real world.
The success of this process depends on the audience, where the feedback is the reception and it can be a brutal world getting criticism in the public world, especially these days. It really is no wonder why so many people say "I don't care what people think of me" yet, create nothing that is going to attract people's judgements.
And, I believe that while some people are becoming more reflective on their experiences, there is also a move away from dealing with the negatives by avoiding them through other activities. Rather than dive into the issues at hand, there is always a tool of distraction in hand. This not only leaves the challenges unfaced and without closure, but also lessens or stagnates the abilities to deal with future challenges also.
In my opinion, which is all I can give, everyone should write, because not only is it an outlet and a development tool of imagination, but it is a tool that can be used to make sense of our experience and possibly, develop better quality responses to the challenges we face. Rather than acting on default programming, reacting to the environment, we become a little more analytical and tactical, making our responses more tailored for circumstance and primed for an improved outcome.
In many ways, writing through our experiences is like being able to go back in time with the perfect response, acting the way we would have liked to act, if we had only had the time. However, if we do not build the rules of our own engagement, we are going to keep acting in ways that we wish we wouldn't, not getting the results we wish we would.
We are complex - far more complex than any written character - yet, while we know this, most of us spend very little time exploring what it means for us and how it affects our world. What many find though is, once they become intentionally reflective, they start to recognize that things that were happening to them, were actually happening with them, that they were at least in part, responsible for the outcome. And in doing so, are empowered to change their behavior, to adjust the programming to bring action closer to imagination.
We are all creative and while some of us imagine a better world to escape to, others among us imagine a better way to get there. Yet, it seems that all of us, are not content imagining that things are perfect, just the way they are.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]