Writer thread: Form vs. content

[CharleyH]

See, this is why I believe my writing is horrendus. I don't think about it. I just do it. And when I read all the wonderful works by all of you wonderful authors, I think..OMG, maybe I should think about it...and guess what? I'm stuck...I've been stuck ever since I started to think about.

I don't know much about form and content ~ hell, I don't know much about sex or writing stories...I just did what came into my mind.

When I read threads like this, I realize I can't write. I would love direction...but I don't even have time for that.

Honey? You definately know sex and sexual tease!

 

[cantdog]

Phooey on form, then, Charley. I guess I have to side with Sir Rob, here. I chose a form, say, a farce; many of my other decisions of plotting and character followed from it, but I deny that there was only one way, as Lauren says, to have written it. My argument could start with the fact that I could well have written two farces. If it were as deterministic as all that, I'd have two identical stories.

But my intimate knowledge of having written the damn thing also shows me that I could have made other choices at a myriad of different places. And now that I've said this, as I said the other stuff in my other post, I am sure you will come back once again, as you did with Rob, to say, 'no, that's not what I meant, what about form?'

Clearly, I have no good idea what you mean by 'form.' So phooey on it.

 

[Honey123]

Honey? You definately know sex and sexual tease!

Yeah...and after two minutes, what then??? Seriously tho, What do my stories lack...and not only that, what is lacking in my brain these days???????

 

[CharleyH]

Farce is a genre, which is content, not form. characters are content, not form. So, the question of where is form in all this is very valid, unless "farce" were a term sufficient to include a set of structural formal elements without which it could not exist, in which case, farce-writing wouldn't be random typing by monkeys, but it would be colouring within the lines by numbers.

Well, wait a second here. Character can be form - see play by Samuel Beckett called "Happy Days". You cant take the character, Winnie, out of the form in this case. She is the form and the content.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Its not one of yours I have read (shamefully) I am immediately interested, though. Thank you. I would enjoy taking you a bit deeper into your form, though? Beyond the first person.

Happy to oblige. Something else that was a struggle (and still is, given that I never stop revising) was pacing. The length, pace, and events of the story to me ideally arise out of what is being said in it. That's unfortunate in the case of "Will," because it's a novella and those are very difficult to sell. It would have a much better shot at being a commercial project as a novel, but it's a delicate business trying to turn it into one, and I'm not sure ultimately that I can. The central story and meaning are tied up in the horse's emotional and psychological development, and to my thinking, anything that doesn't contribute closely to that is not part of the story. Simply adding in a few extra chapters following a side adventure will not, to me, make this a good novel, because it will suddenly side-track the main thrust of it for no good reason (other than adding length).

On the other hand, I can't get it to feel right as a shorter work because it takes time to get where the characters are going emotionally. There, I think I still might have room to expand a bit. The horse has to release a deeply ingrained mistrust of humans; the human has to overcome a lifetime of believing that the horse can't have a mind and that any physical contact with her is unspeakably immoral and wrong. There's only so fast that can go - and yet, since it is the central force of the story, once it's done the story is done. I'm trying to coax it to a little greater length by figuring out some intermediate stage that gives the rider a little more time to draw closer to the horse, but to my mind, that's about the only way it can expand - by telling more of the central idea that really needs to be there.

The central ideas of the work affected my form in the area of style as well. The horse has a fairly formal voice with a relatively high vocabulary. I felt that this was necessary in order to make her wholly and clearly an intelligent creature in a world in which no other horse is anything but an ordinary horse. It also helped me to control her anger. She has a great deal of resentment towards humans at the opening of the story, and it was important to find a way to express that without having her appear so bitter and hostile that she became unsympathetic. By pushing her toward a more formal voice, I was able to moderate that a bit, and I think that it makes her emotional bloom toward the end stronger by contrast.

I did also see form in this story, as it was developing, as a series of crises or high points. I think it's one of the things that has left me happier with this story than others; somehow I saw more of its structure and arc than I did with others, although possibly because I was over a year writing it with a long hiatus in the middle. There are key points in the story that I knew from the start had to happen because they were turning points in meaning; they marked the progress of the central ideas, and so the form of the story had to lead from one to the next. It had to supply the backstory necessary to connect them and the grounding to give each one its punch.

Shanglan

 

[cantdog]

Farce is a genre, which is content, not form. characters are content, not form. So, the question of where is form in all this is very valid, unless "farce" were a term sufficient to include a set of structural formal elements without which it could not exist, in which case, farce-writing wouldn't be random typing by monkeys, but it would be colouring within the lines by numbers.

Great. So if you give us all a hint?

 

[BlackShanglan]

I'm going to side with Cantdog on the form/genre divide. I think it's at least partly illusory. Yes, part of genre is content, but part of it is form as well. "Genre" is a damned mutable term. Some use it to mean "play, poem, short story, novel"; others mean "farce, closet drama, parody, tragedy"; others mean "mystery, science fiction, horror, romance." Some of those are defined by their content, some by their form, and most by a combination of the two.

Shanglan

 

[cantdog]

You people make it sound like phlogiston. Or the Ultimate. If I sat to meditate about my farce, and threw out everything which I could see was "content" would I then have pure form left over?

 

[rgraham666]

You people make it sound like phlogiston. Or the Ultimate. If I sat to meditate about my farce, and threw out everything which I could see was "content" would I then have pure form left over?

Yes.

And it would not be funny.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Charley,

Form and Content are, in some ways, the same thing and at the same time separate. One cannot exist without the other. You can, however, "twist" either or both. That's what's done in humor all the time. But that's a slippery slope because if one or the other is twisted a bit too much it goes over the reader's head.

For instance, often times in humor, you are using more than one POV and allow the characters to totally misunderstand what is goiing on while the reader gets to see both sides as the joke emerges.

Generally in non-humorous erotic stories you wouldn't do that because it's too confusing. I had a new writer the other night who sent me a story she was ready to submit. She'd done the POV switch back and forth. It was almost unreadably confusing.

 

[CharleyH]

You people make it sound like phlogiston. Or the Ultimate. If I sat to meditate about my farce, and threw out everything which I could see was "content" would I then have pure form left over?

LOL good question lol - but why can't you fit one of your farces to form? Is not the way you TELL THE STORY - part of the story, and just as important as the narrative?

 

[CharleyH]

Charley,

Form and Content are, in some ways, the same thing and at the same time separate. One cannot exist without the other. You can, however, "twist" either or both. That's what's done in humor all the time. But that's a slippery slope because if one or the other is twisted a bit too much it goes over the reader's head.

For instance, often times in humor, you are using more than one POV and allow the characters to totally misunderstand what is goiing on while the reader gets to see both sides as the joke emerges.

Generally in non-humorous erotic stories you wouldn't do that because it's too confusing. I had a new writer the other night who sent me a story she was ready to submit. She'd done the POV switch back and forth. It was almost unreadably confusing.

Thank you, Jenny. Humour is tricky, I know, but satire is certainly a more difficult slope. I am not sure I agree with the rest, but I thank you for your take and encourage you to keep giving your opinion.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Great. So if you give us all a hint?

A hint on what? I said that if farce were a term reducing enough to describe all structural, formal options, then yes, you'd have form right there. But when you set out to write farce, and from there go to character, you still have all the formal choices to make. Exactly as you said: you could write not only one, but two, fifty, a thousand farces with those exact same characters.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

You people make it sound like phlogiston. Or the Ultimate. If I sat to meditate about my farce, and threw out everything which I could see was "content" would I then have pure form left over?

No, you'd have nothing. That's like asking "if I take a piece of wood and take out all the atoms, would I have pure ionic bonds left over?"

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I'm going to side with Cantdog on the form/genre divide. I think it's at least partly illusory. Yes, part of genre is content, but part of it is form as well. "Genre" is a damned mutable term. Some use it to mean "play, poem, short story, novel"; others mean "farce, closet drama, parody, tragedy"; others mean "mystery, science fiction, horror, romance." Some of those are defined by their content, some by their form, and most by a combination of the two.

Shanglan

That's absolutely true, but in no interpretation does genre define every single formal aspect. The majority, if not all, of those, will still have to be deliberately decided by the author, with a purpose that serves the story.

 

[BlackShanglan]

That's absolutely true, but in no interpretation does genre define every single formal aspect. The majority, if not all, of those, will still have to be deliberately decided by the author, with a purpose that serves the story.

I agree with you, but I think what I am saying (and possibly what Cant intended in talking about his farce) is that genre is or can be part of form, and that the only thing that encompasses all of form is the term "form." To talk about form meaningfully in its application to a work of literature, I think we have to talk about the parts, just as in order to talk about style we have to break that down into level of diction, sentence structure, specific word choices, etc. So Cant talked about his choice of genre, and I talked about POV, and then I came back and rattled on about pacing, plot points, and style - all of which are part of form and none of which comprise it in its totality. I can't see any actual element of a story that you can talk about as a single unit or idea that is "form" in all of its ramifications. Lord knows, if you're talking about a poem you could be there all day just covering rhyme and meter.

Shanglan

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I agree with you, but I think what I am saying (and possibly what Cant intended in talking about his farce) is that genre is or can be part of form, and that the only thing that encompasses all of form is the term "form." To talk about form meaningfully in its application to a work of literature, I think we have to talk about the parts, just as in order to talk about style we have to break that down into level of diction, sentence structure, specific word choices, etc. So Cant talked about his choice of genre, and I talked about POV, and then I came back and rattled on about pacing, plot points, and style - all of which are part of form and none of which comprise it in its totality. I can't see any actual element of a story that you can talk about as a single unit or idea that is "form" in all of its ramifications. Lord knows, if you're talking about a poem you could be there all day just covering rhyme and meter.

Shanglan

I suspect we're all saying the same thing, then.

I'll be happy if people just stop to think, as you said, "What effect will this have?" before they write each word or make each formal decision. The quality of their writing will leap the second they start asking themselves that. There should be no random choices in Literature. Unless, of course, randomness is the purpose, as that pinko Tristan Tzara tried to do, but even then, there is a purposeful choice.

 

[CharleyH]

I agree with you, but I think what I am saying (and possibly what Cant intended in talking about his farce) is that genre is or can be part of form, and that the only thing that encompasses all of form is the term "form."

Shanglan

I certainly understand and agree, but was waiting for examples. Genre is a part of a conventional form - the question might be better asked - where is form beyond convention?

 

[CharleyH]

Thanks to all who posted - to the rest of you? WOW.

 

[Guest]

 

[CharleyH]

I knew there was a reason I don't read these threads.

Sincerely,

The Monkey in Red Jammies

Possibly because you are too ...

Why not answer to other if you can?

 

[Guest]

 

[CharleyH]

Because I can't answer.

I get an idea, sit down, write it out, spell-check and it's done.

According to Lauren, that's not writing, so I don't get to voice an opinion here.

Shutting up now,

The same monkey.

Thanks lilRJ.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Because I can't answer.

I get an idea, sit down, write it out, spell-check and it's done.

According to Lauren, that's not writing, so I don't get to voice an opinion here.

Shutting up now,

The same monkey.

Which is why every writer has a different opinion, n'est ce-qui pas?
Me, I know that form is very important to me as a reader- the stylings of Vladimir Nabokov delight me more than the actual tales he tells in some cases-
and I enjoy writing to form once in a while, but I will, as often spend effort to remove excessive stylizations from a story I'm writing... but then I don't write many forms anyway- standard narrative is enough for me!

The only other thing I have to contribute is that my poem "Rochester" was nominated for poem of the year here at Lit, and I am completely convinced that was because it is a Sonnet, and most everything else is Vers Libre. I do think it's a decent poem, don't get me wrong, but it's the formal structure that made everyone look at it twice.

 

[gauchecritic]

That's exactly it, Shang. I cannot begin to understand people who write, as Rob put it, without stopping to thinking about it. Every word we put down on paper, every structural element, should be a deliberate choice with a deliberate purpose. Otherwise, it's not writing. It's only a step up from monkeys typing randomly.

That's a bit harsh Laur. (I can call you Laur right?)

I've edited a few people's work (I think I've mentioned this elsewhere) and pointed out to them maybe a recurring theme or place mention of an object used later in the story. They had no idea that they'd actually included that. They wrote without consciously thinking about it and still managed to include form as they wrote the content.

As my alter-ego I posted a very short piece on a Lit thread in a Checkovian stylee, straight off the top of my head. At another writing group I posted it as an example of a complete short story with plot, character development, tension, resolution and denoument. Someone argued with me that it wasn't a 'whole' story (mainly because it was about a hundred words) and in answer to his criticism, for the very first time I analysed (appreciated) it and pointed out the various elements that did make it a 'story' rather than a scene.

When I actually wrote it I didn't once stop and consider the form or the content. When I was forced to look at it later it was all there. (so much for subconscious attention)

As to the main question. Form v. content. I have very little idea about what 'form' actually is except that:

You can describe a milk bottle and you can describe milk but those two don't describe a bottle of milk.

I can't see how form can affect content or vice versa (and no, the bottle of milk doesn't extend to assignation) excepting that you're talking about plays versus poems versus stories. Is that what form means? (serious question)