Completion: What do you think?

[hmmnmm]

Read something the other night, a quote attributed to Truman Capote. I'm not sure I agree but it definitely got me thinking - maybe I don't want to admit that he was right.

I don't remember the exact words but if I correctly understand the general meaning, the gist was something like: your story is not really finished until it comes to the place that it can't be written any other way, whatever happened in the story had to happen that way and if they still could happen any other way, the story's still not really finished.

Again, I'm not sure I agree, and my apologies to Capote if I misunderstood; but it makes me think and wonder. If it is true, then I'll probably never get anything really finished, since I'm always second-guessing story directions, not to mention the prose/language styles.

Think there's something to this philosophy?

 

[All_atremble]

I think in my head, none of my stories that I write (for here or otherwise) are ever completely done. But I view them like children, in that I grow them up and then send them on their merry way to do what they will.

 

[sr71plt]

No, not really. If it's fiction (and Capote was usually somewhat limited by having a nonfiction construct in which to write--even if he fictionalized around the edges), I think a story can lead to more than one ending--and the part of the "fun" in writing is to take essentially the same story and and take it to a different ending. A major element of fiction writing is "surprise." If the story always goes to a natural, "only possible" ending, reading can get pretty dull.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make. " Truman Capote

Sort of shafts the idea of perfection, which is ridiculous anyway. Shakespeare kept editing and changing his plays from Folio to Quarto and back again. He'd probably still be doing it if he were around. Dickens and Twain left very imperfect stories that have stood the test of time.

Fiction writing is like life - I'd love to go back and do some things better but anno domini precludes that. There's always another ending. George Bernard Shaw in Pygmalion (My Fair Lady) deliberately didn't finish his play but gave two opposing possibilities.

In a longwinded way I've repeated sr's point, and I agree with him. Just flick one of the plot coincidences a tad and the whole story morphs into a different beast.

 

[hmmnmm]

"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make. " Truman Capote
.........................................

Fiction writing is like life - I'd love to go back and do some things better but anno domini precludes that.

In a longwinded way I've repeated sr's point, and I agree with him. Just flick one of the plot coincidences a tad and the whole story morphs into a different beast.

That's a much better quote.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Truman Capote shows that he was definately not Obcessive Compulsive. An OBD could never possibly come to the point where a story is "finished" under that rule.

 

[JuliaHart]

I think a story is never finished. It simply reaches a point where the effort to edit exceeds the value returned.

 

[TxRad]

A story is somewhat like an orgasm. It's over when it's over and it's never the same for anyone. Conveying the feels you had during the orgasm is the whole point of the story.

 

[Guest]

A story is somewhat like an orgasm. It's over when it's over and it's never the same for anyone. Conveying the feels you had during the orgasm is the whole point of the story.

I agree.

(Oh, and Tx - you wanna come write a story with me?)

 

[hmmnmm]

A story is somewhat like an orgasm. It's over when it's over and it's never the same for anyone. Conveying the feels you had during the orgasm is the whole point of the story.

I'd include all that leads to and follows orgasm. Then there's orgasms in which others participate, and orgasms with only one. What one does for another's pleasure is not necessarily what one does for one's solitary pleasure. Some of what I may or may not do in private I may or may not care for none but certain few to know about.

Lovely illustrative lesson here.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Finally got an airport Hotspot that allows lit!

Stories are more than orgasms, surely - more like sports contests. They start with the protags nervous with each other, foreplay is paramount - with the clumsy search for understanding - then a bit of World Series scrimmaging, butts and sweat all round with the cheerleaders' teasing tushes then - after the great result - a post-coital euphoria as the spectators/readers disappear into the diaspora.

Lovely metaphor for fiction.

 

[hmmnmm]

Finally got an airport Hotspot that allows lit!

Stories are more than orgasms, surely - more like sports contests. They start with the protags nervous with each other, foreplay is paramount - with the clumsy search for understanding - then a bit of World Series scrimmaging, butts and sweat all round with the cheerleaders' teasing tushes then - after the great result - a post-coital euphoria as the spectators/readers disappear into the diaspora.

Lovely metaphor for fiction.

disappearance into the diaspora. I just wanna someday get that far. It's a high hurdle to surmount. To scale, to grasp and be astride of. I enjoy the pre-coital buildup. I think if you can get that going, then the final penetration - score is not guaranteed, because there's always the possible fumble, even in the hands of an all-star.

but the disappearance in the diaspora - someday. Someday.

 

[TxRad]

I agree.

(Oh, and Tx - you wanna come write a story with me?)

Any time and any place darlin'

 

[Guest]

Any time and any place darlin'

Wonders if we'll get any writing done.

 

[curious1istaken]

I'd like, if I may, to return to the thought attributed to Truman Capote about the need to keep at a story until it can be written no other way. I could be mistaken, having never sat around drinking and chatting with Capote about his idea. Nonetheless, I'd like to make a suggestion about what he may have meant.

Since writing is a solitary, personal endeavor in which no one else can participate until the story is finished and s/he has the opportunity to read it, I wonder whether Capote may have meant that it is necessary to continue writing until the internal writer is satisfied that nothing can be added, subtracted or rearranged to tell the story one started to tell.

Every story starts with an idea, a sound, an event, an emotion, however indistinct it may be at the beginning. From that kernel flows whatever naturally flows from there. The path taken to the end is likely to wind through many a literary and emotional thicket, broad desert, raging river, and who-knows-what-else before it reaches the end. When the end has come, it is obvious.

An author who does not feel s/he has reached that end, that, perhaps, it is not possible to reach the end, has quit too soon. Maybe, rather than publishing a piece that feels as though it is not finished and never will be, it would be a good idea to set the manuscript aside for a couple of weeks, a couple of months, or a couple of years before revisiting it to see whether the path that had been obscured has become apparent -- even if its terminus remains hidden in the fog.

When all is said and done, there is but one critic that matters, and that is the one inside. We write for ourselves, not for others, and we are satisfied when we have satisfied ourselves, not others. If others like what we do, we've achieved a bonus. If they like enough to buy it, we've reached the pinnacle. But it matters only that we have done well for ourselves.

Just my thoughts on a back-to-work Tuesday.

 

[hmmnmm]

I'd like, if I may, to return to the thought attributed to Truman Capote about the need to keep at a story until it can be written no other way. I could be mistaken, having never sat around drinking and chatting with Capote about his idea. Nonetheless, I'd like to make a suggestion about what he may have meant.

Since writing is a solitary, personal endeavor in which no one else can participate until the story is finished and s/he has the opportunity to read it, I wonder whether Capote may have meant that it is necessary to continue writing until the internal writer is satisfied that nothing can be added, subtracted or rearranged to tell the story one started to tell.

Every story starts with an idea, a sound, an event, an emotion, however indistinct it may be at the beginning. From that kernel flows whatever naturally flows from there. The path taken to the end is likely to wind through many a literary and emotional thicket, broad desert, raging river, and who-knows-what-else before it reaches the end. When the end has come, it is obvious.

An author who does not feel s/he has reached that end, that, perhaps, it is not possible to reach the end, has quit too soon. Maybe, rather than publishing a piece that feels as though it is not finished and never will be, it would be a good idea to set the manuscript aside for a couple of weeks, a couple of months, or a couple of years before revisiting it to see whether the path that had been obscured has become apparent -- even if its terminus remains hidden in the fog.

When all is said and done, there is but one critic that matters, and that is the one inside. We write for ourselves, not for others, and we are satisfied when we have satisfied ourselves, not others. If others like what we do, we've achieved a bonus. If they like enough to buy it, we've reached the pinnacle. But it matters only that we have done well for ourselves.

Just my thoughts on a back-to-work Tuesday.

I've been meaning to respond this, but my admittedly self-abused neurons are still processing. Lot of spot-on thoughts here, though.

Just for now, to relate my own travails, I tend to get a germ of an idea (you said it, "an idea, a sound..."), or just playing with something for exercise, and something or someone begins to appear. So take that way and see where it goes. But somewhere along the way, multiple possible avenues begin to open up, and they're all equally attractive. In fact they could be seeds for different stories. But I can only choose one, for now. So, pick one and go, but then realize the characters may be behaving or speaking in ways that are at odds with who they began as. Or, they wouldn't respond to this or that situation in the way they are responding, as they are currently sketched. Which means fixing their personalities or the circumstances.

If the collar wasn't so comfortable and the leash attached to an exquisitely kissable hand... and if the maze wasn't so beautifully decorated. But I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be lost. Maybe... maybe... maybe, endings and completions are somehow distastefully associated with farewells? Those can be hard.

Well, better get going.

Thanks for the words of wisdom.