JCB's Ruminations on the Craft of Fiction #29
December 3, 2020
One of the problems with giving writing advice or feedback is that writers will notice that even if they don’t say things clearly or adhere to the guidelines, their mom, best friend, or other willing readers are still capable of understanding and enjoying what they’ve written. The obvious question arises, why should I listen to this advice? Why should I worry about clarity or point of view or story structure or any of the other arcana you’re going on about in your feedback? Sure, my story isn’t constructed according to your "rules," but my friends still like it. They "get" the point I was trying to make. Why should I listen to you at all?
This is a difficult question. First, because it’s intractable: the incurious writer will never take your advice no matter how you approach it. But second, and more importantly, these questions get to the nature of fiction. In a broader sense, they get to the heart of writing itself. Every written form serves a purpose, and any kind of purpose entails a foundational metric by which the writing can be shaped and judged. A written argument whose purpose is to convince a reader of something must provide a position and supporting argumentation, either logic or evidence or whatever provides support for the position the writer wants to be convincing: hence, we measure the success of such a composition by the presentation of those elements. The same goes for any other kind of writing. We adhere to certain requirements so that the force of our purpose can be realized in the writing.
The reason, then, that a writer of fiction ought to listen to our feedback--irrespective of whether they actually do--stems from the guiding principles that inform the feedback itself: the underlying purpose of fiction. People may disagree about what that purpose is, and from that disagreement we may discover disagreements over the kinds of guidelines we look to when offering advice or feedback, but our feedback should be based upon a philosophy of fiction that provides a clear statement of purpose and the consequent guidelines for advice in achieving that purpose.
My view on fiction is that its purpose is to provide a fictive experience, and our job as writers is to shape and control that experience. The literary meaning that critics lather themselves up with can--and should--be ignored. Our own personal compulsions or desire to communicate our deep personal insights should be likewise set aside in service of the overriding purpose of fiction, a compelling experience. John Gardner called this experience the "Fictive Dream," and he linked much of his writing advice and philosophy to the purpose of maximizing the dream-state aroused by well-crafted fiction. Nearly all common writing advice serves the maintenance of the fictive dream, and even if our well-intentioned friends and mothers can work out after the fact what we meant to do in the story, if we want to create a truly evocative experience for readers who are not predisposed to love us, we have to acknowledge advice and feedback that serves that purpose.
While other people may disagree about what the purpose of fiction may be, the most basic reason we should listen to well-intentioned advice--even if we eventually discard it--is because we understand our purpose in writing something agrees with the guiding metric that informs the feedback we receive.