Ambiguity

[NotWise]

I've been struggling with a story. No surprise, I often do.

I intend to write a story with an independent female protagonist and the Keresan (American Indian) stories of Yellow Woman came to mind--as did Leslie Marmon Silko's short story titled "Yellow Woman."

It's linked here if the site so allows. Otherwise if you're interested, use the google.

The story has erotic elements--very erotic, in my active imagination--but it isn't an 'erotic story' insofar as Lit standards are concerned.

Silko's "Yellow Woman" is the subject of intensive literary analysis from a number of different perspectives. I hold it with Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades, " but part of the appeal to me is because of the local association. "Yellow Woman" takes place at the edge of human habitation, not far from here.

One element of the story that comes up in analyses is Silko's use of ambiguity. As a reader you don't know what happened in the recent past. You don't know why the main character makes her decisions. You don't really know what happens at the climax of the story. You don't know how it all works out in the protagonist's life.

Are your stories intentionally ambiguous? Does that idea play any part in your writing? I hope to go forward with my story. Intentional ambiguity is appealing to me, but I suspect the story itself has to be powerful, otherwise readers will find the ambiguity to be simply confusing.

 

[sr71plt]

Sometimes; yes.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Ambiguity coupled with mystery can be two sides of a coin.

Something deliberately written as ambiguous should always work, but ambiguity as a consequence of clunky writing would be an entirely different thing.

 

[SimonDoom]

So far, no, my stories are not at all ambiguous. But I'm working on one that is somewhat ambiguous, and I hope to finish and publish it in the first quarter of 2018.

Ambiguity can work as long as the reader is clear that you want the story to be ambiguous. Otherwise, the reader may think you just didn't know what to do with the story. Ambiguity can be something that runs like a thread through the whole story, or it can be something sprung on the reader at the end.

Good luck with your story and keep us posted.

 

[SamScribble]

My stories often contain elements of ambiguity. Life is often ambiguous. I enjoy stories that leave you wondering. What made her do that? Why did he say that? Who was the guy sitting at the other end of the bar? The author must have put him there for a reason. Was he just another customer? Or was he an undercover cop?

In my non-erotic (or not-very-erotic) stories this is often well received. Here on Literotica, not so much.

Recently, someone sent me a detailed complaint for introducing a character and not providing a full background on the character. ‘You didn’t explain who he was or why he was in the story,’ my critic said. ‘You didn’t say what happened to him in the end.’

I suspect many Literotica readers are only interested up until the point that their todger goes pop. In that scenario, ambiguity probably has limited use.

 

[Damoiselle]

Ambiguity is something I have to put in effort for, usually. My first instinct is to figure out an explanation for everything, and I usually end up wanting to explain that in the story.

It's actually an impulse that really slows down my writing process. I'm working on a series right now that takes place in a fictional world, with alternate version of ancient Rome, Egypt, England, etc.

It keeps growing, and I keep adding stuff I probably don't need. The Sephretian queen is probably never going to appear. She'll probably barely be referenced, so why I know what her favorite gemstone and the name of her pet cat is, I couldn't tell you.

 

[sr71plt]

Considering the many times that Anonymous asks on nearly everyone's story where the rest of it is or what happens next, we must all write with ambiguity.

 

[SamScribble]

Considering the many times that Anonymous asks on nearly everyone's story where the rest of it is or what happens next, we must all write with ambiguity.

Boom! Boom!

 

[PuckIt]

When my wife was alive, she would often look at me and say two words; "kitchen sink."

What she meant was, whether in writing or talking, I have a tendency to over explain things. Or, throw everything up to and including the kitchen sink.

I caught a little flak here and there for my Summer contest entry about the length, more about the "unnecessary" scenes I included. The thing is, that was the only work I've posted on here that my wife had more than a passing hand in. And I really could not tell you just how many scenes got trimmed over her insistence they weren't needed. (Or how many stayed that she thought should go.)

Whoops. See what I mean about "kitchen sink" rambling?

My point is that I tend to try to make things as unambiguous as it's possible to get. Which may be a mistake on my part. Even my shorter (MUCH shorter) earlier postings under another name tended to try to paint a road map to explain just how we moved from A to B to bow-chicka-bow-wow.

But, I really do think that even if there is some ambiguity, there should, at the least, be a gossamer trail as to the "why" to be found on closer inspection. (Shrug) It's what I like to read and what I tend to write anyway. Long, meandering trails that tend to point to a specific outcome (with a few red herrings along the way).

 

[Bramblethorn]

Are your stories intentionally ambiguous? Does that idea play any part in your writing? I hope to go forward with my story. Intentional ambiguity is appealing to me, but I suspect the story itself has to be powerful, otherwise readers will find the ambiguity to be simply confusing.

Yeah, I've used ambiguity in various ways.

My latest story is about a well-off woman who hires a younger, impoverished friend to be her mistress. I've been playing with the ambiguity in their relationship - to what extent is Our Narrator taking advantage of impressionable youth, vs. enjoying a consensual relationship with somebody who is old enough to make her own decisions?

One of my Erotic Horror stories is ambiguous about the identity of the narrator, including their gender; in that one, I wanted to establish them as something of an empty vessel with a weak sense of self, waiting to be filled by... something.

My other EH piece is Lovecraftian horror where the nature of the Big Bad is never explained; perhaps there's a tentacle monster under that veil, perhaps it's all in our heroine's head.

Considering the many times that Anonymous asks on nearly everyone's story where the rest of it is or what happens next, we must all write with ambiguity.

Ain't THAT the truth.

 

[Hypoxia]

I've written deliberately ambiguous songs because that's easy. But murky prose, no. My pre-LIT career of technical writing and editing inclines me toward precision, concision, and clarity -- we DON'T want ambiguous tech and user manuals for significant systems. "Try something like this or maybe that or not..." wouldn't fly in my world.

I could homage the structure of Chip Delaney's DHALGREN, whose amnesiac protagonist spins moodily through mysterious (and erotic) encounters and ends at the beginning so the tale is endlessly circular -- it's a great read during a high fever.

I'm sitting on one storyline that could run that way. MC awakens in mystery. Normally they'd seek and eventually find their past and future, but let's skip that. MC has erotic encounters with no explanation and little curiosity. Why do things happen? Who knows and who cares? At the end, MC awakens in mystery. A wheel of anonymous karma?

That's more than just hinting at ambiguous outcomes. Full-tilt into the fog!

 

[NotWise]

I realized after posting my question that I used ambiguity fairly prominently in one of my stories. The readers knew the essentials of what happened, but drawing out the details would have been inconsistent with the story's "atmosphere," so how it happened is left to the reader's imagination.

 

[Hypoxia]

With music, it often works perfectly. I guess it is very important to create a good flow and atmosphere, and it may work, but that's a different art than just bringing up a good story.

We're fairly used to ambiguous or nonsense lyrics and poetry in Western culture. "I've been through the desert on a horse with no name," yeah, sure. Call it symbolism. Or think of Dylan's nearly endless HARD RAIN, a collage of hinting images, some sharp, some fuzzy, some chewy. A story built like that might be confusing, eh? But a song lets us imagine whatever we want from those hints.

Maybe size would also play a role; I might not like it if I've read an endless piece of work, and at the end of it, still don't get it.

Above I mentioned DHALGREN which is a pretty long book, up in the thousand pages realm. It works because Delaney is a fucking great writer. Other books might fail to satisfy because at the end, there's nothing to 'get'. Ain't no there there.

I tend to make 'place' a character. Many of my tales happen in specific locales and won't work elsewhere. But yes, other locations are generic, ambiguous. It could be any city or island or cornfield. Unspecific bit players aren't difficult. But an ambiguous, fuzzy MC? How can readers identify with a mystery? (Hint: great writing helps.)

EDIT - Another thought on ambiguity: We might generate such because we (as authors) imagine more than we can write. We pen a passage that creates superb mental images in our own heads, and we imagine that readers see the same stuff. Oink. Doesn't happen that way. If we don't tell readers just what to see, they'll see something else.

 

[rae121452]

SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY by william empsom. 1930. it'll tell you everything you want to know.

 

[sr71plt]

I have one in which it's (purposely) left ambiguous what gender the protagonist is. It generated a bit of discussion at the time.

 

[Charmolypi]

I like stories that challenge me to figure out motives and events. But I also need you to leave enough bread crumbs that I’m about 70% confident that I know what happened.

 

[Hypoxia]

SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY by william empsom. 1930. it'll tell you everything you want to know.

Seven Types of Ambiguity

1) The first type of ambiguity is the metaphor, that is, when two things are said to be alike which have different properties. This concept is similar to that of metaphysical conceit.

2) Two or more meanings are resolved into one. Empson characterizes this as using two different metaphors at once.

3) Two ideas that are connected through context can be given in one word simultaneously.

4) Two or more meanings that do not agree but combine to make clear a complicated state of mind in the author.

5) When the author discovers his idea in the act of writing. Empson describes a simile that lies halfway between two statements made by the author.

6) When a statement says nothing and the readers are forced to invent a statement of their own, most likely in conflict with that of the author.

7) Two words that within context are opposites that expose a fundamental division in the author's mind.