One of the coolest things I learned from NaNoWriMo was how a writer's values make the story something you can analyze, and in doing so, learn about the way the author's mind works.
It's cool, because I'm an English major (meaning: I analyze literature a lot), and I always figured that the authors I was reading and analyzing thought through all the things they wrote painstakingly. As if they were hunched over their little story with a pen in one hand and a fork in the other, and any time their work didn't have some huge earth-shattering meaning behind it, they stuck the fork in a wall socket to jump-start their brains into thinking epic thoughts.
At some point during this month, I looked at something I'd written and realized that what I think of as the truth just magically shows through in the things I write.
You can actually mistakenly write a piece of literature that someone else can analyze. In fact, I might venture to say that all literature does this in some way.
I just thought that was really cool.
2 comments:
I actually agree - it's pretty cool how this works. And thank heavens it does work that way, because inserting symbolism and deeper meanings into a text which didn't already have them inherent the first time round is a recipe for disaster in my opinion.
The organic birth of ideas which are then translated into our writing and become accessible to others, is truly a wonderful thing.
I never really thought about that before, but come to think of it that's actually really interesting to point out!
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