Tuesday, August 29th, 2006

Time	Event
7:24a	Story and Reader kate_nepveu asks about the difference between what the writer owes the story and the reader. This is my response, posted over there, and here too because it got long. There's the story. If I can tell it, it's going to be there whether anyone reads it or not. If I'm going to tell it, what I owe it is the need to get it right. The story is, in this model, independent of everything -- words, style, POV, plot. It's this platonic imagination of itself that I am being true to much as Dante is being true to Beatrice, and to which my tattered shred of told story is a pale shadow. The reader is somewhere else entirely. The reader is two things, the reader is the real reader, say you, and then also my perceived reader. (As my perceived reader for the Sulien books was the gestalt of rasfw, this also includes kate_nepveu. But not everyone.) My perceived reader has to understand the thing. Whether real readers do or not depends on how close to the perceived reader they are. A real reader like my Aunt Jane who read the first line of The King's Peace and put it down, satisfied that so much was true and that she didn't want any more of it is not part of my perceived reader. I can't hope to make things work for everyone -- in fact I don't think it's possible, even without thinking about language, because something genre that's comprehensible to everyone is going to be booooring to an accomplished genre reader. My perceived reader for Farthing includes people who don't read in genre, but this isn't true for any of my other books. In Tooth and Claw I had two perceived readers, I had the imaginary dragon perceived readers and the "real" human perceived readers, and I played with that. (Footnotes, incidentally, are a way of building a support structure to get real readers to where the perceived readers are supposed to be -- in older texts when we've moved too far away, and in modern texts where the author is playing with where the perceived reader is, like Jonathan Strange.) Anyway, I need to consider the perceived reader when I set up the mode -- where they are standing, how I should tell the story to make it clear to them, as well as true to itself. I need to play fair with them. The perceived reader is the reason things get explained, and how much they get explained. They are the audience, they are the direction the story faces. But I can't consider them too much, I can't put them above the needs of the story. The story doesn't need any of that, indeed it needs to stand apart from all that and be considered on its own with its own needs and requirements. I have to balance them. Say I am telling Goldilocks to a child, and the child is scared and hiding and saying "Don't let the bears eat her, please don't let the bears eat her!" -- if I give way to that demand and let Goldilocks escape and run off into the forest I am not being true to the story. But equally, if I am telling the same story to the same child and I say: Onwards went Dandelion, plunderer, breaker of guest-law, Turning from oat-slop, yawning, bedwards, Slinks up the stairs... I'm being true to the story, but not being comprehensible to the reader. And if I tell it so it's all nice and soft and funny and then have the bears I have characterised as teddy bears tear the child apart, I'm not playing fair. I hope this makes sense. And Happy Birthday rushthatspeaks! (29 Comments | Comment on this)
12:15p	Three Bears Norse. (It was supposed to be an example, sheesh.) An old home, a bear home, remote from human-haunts, Wall-girt and weather-warded, where ones wise in woodcraft Lick into new life, a baby, a bear cub, Safe among saplings, far in the forest. Till one comes slyly, girlchild, goldilocks, Soft-handed, secret-seeker, pamperling, pretty one, "No!" never heard she, dancing like dandelion, Stealing twixt tree-boughs, spies out the bear-house. Fast closed stands the door, all bears gone from home, In rushes Dandelion, door-breaker, greedy one, No thought spares she for holy guest-law, Spoiled child, undenied, heart set on plunder. First seizes three chairs, orderly, big to small, Claims each and tries each, breaking the smallest. Next finds the oat-slop, orderly, big to small, Claims each and tries each, eating the smallest. Onwards goes Dandelion, breaker of guest-law, Turning from oat-slop, yawning, bedwards, Slinks up the stairs, three beds, big to small, Orderly, tries each, sleeps on the smallest. Bears, heading homewards, sleepy as sun seeks sea, Father foremost, bear-cub beside him, bear mother guarding rear, Stop still, scent surprise, coming on cautiously See their door open stands, blowing on wild winds. "Who?" asks bear-father, "Dared to sit in my chair?" "Who?" growls bear-mother, "Dared to sit in my chair?" "Who," howls bear cub "Dared to sit in my chair, Breaking it to scattered shards? I vow revenge." "Who?" asks bear-father, "Dared to taste my oat-slop?" "Who?" growls bear-mother, "Dared to taste my oat slop?" "Who," howls bear cub "Dared to eat my oat-slop, Eating it all up? I vow revenge!" Upstairs, at long last, learn of the lawbreaker, Sleeping serenely, stuffed with their oat-slop, Wakes for an instant, seeing them, simpers, screams, Bear teeth, bear claws, shred her, sunder her, so perish law-breakers. (113 Comments | Comment on this)

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