(no subject)

[seekingferret]

When I was in high school, some of my less diligent classmates would argue with our English teachers that surely the symbols we were analyzing in literature were not put in intentionally by the authors and therefore we were wasting our time drawing water from a stone. The author was more or less dead to me, so I didn't really care one way or another.

Well, I'm not dead, and it's interesting to muse, looking back on my fiction, on how more or less intentional my use of literature devices has been. I think the answer for me at least is that sometimes I use various figurations, symbols, and literary devices intentionally, but more often it's sort of half-intentional: I often know the themes I am working towards, and I try to write in a way that brings out those themes, and sometimes that means that I end up investing objects and characters and relationships with symbolic values that service those themes without specifically saying "I'm going to make this character a aymbol of X."

What about other writers who are reading this, how intentional are you when it comes to literary symbols in your writing?

Comments

[alexseanchai]

Sometimes it's on purpose. Sometimes it's oh so very not.

[seekingferret]

In "If We Were All Wise Men", I very consciously used the Exodus, the Passion, the B'nei B'rak Seder, and the story of the Binding of Isaac as templates, and shoehorned events so that there were echoes of the liturgy. I consciously created a subtle 'laughter' motif that was supposed to suggest that Shmuel or Malca was thinking about their son Isaac, set up by linking laughter and Isaac explicitly in the first mention, and by a reference to 'the laughter his name promised'. I used a device of languages and translated names that was intended to suggest ways in which Malca was domesticating her inner self to fit in among Spaniards- Joseph becomes Yosef, Samuel becomes Shmuel, once the escape is complete.

"If We Were All Wise Men" is probably the extreme example of actually putting in these devices with intent. More often it's a process of discovering resonances as I play with images.

[thirdblindmouse]

Why less diligent? I remember in middle school having big problems with the concept when literature analysis was first introduced.

[seekingferret]

They weren't arguing because they didn't understand the concept, they were arguing because they wanted to get out of writing an essay.

[cahn]

On the other hand, I remember in high school when we were reading Great Gatsby, we understood the concept of symbolism, but thought that the Eckelburg eyes being consciously symbolic of anything (or the green light) was a load of crap and completely stupid...

[sanguinity]

It varies. The closer I am to the final draft, the more conscious it gets. Early on in the draft, it's difficult for me to distinguish between "happy accident" and "my brain is manipulating symbols without bothering to tell me about it" -- although I'm moderately sure both mechanisms have occurred -- but once I notice that there's a symbol-level throughline, or that there could be one, I start consciously amplifying it a bit. Especially since such things are so handy for getting functional work done. (Communicating story-resolution, emphasizing themes, creating internal bonds through disparate pieces of the story, etc.)

And my vidding intensified that, actually: the Cameron vid I did for you is almost nothing but visual symbols, and that vid was something of a watershed for how deliberately I incorporate / amplify symbolism in my fic.

At the moment of actually doing it, though, I tend not to think of it as incorporating symbols so much as using leitmotifs. But I don't think those techniques are truly distinct: leitmotifs start to pick up thematic weight over the course of the story, blah blah, to the point that they start shorthanding for things other than what they literally are, blah.

[dragonfly]

Generally, I find that when I do it deliberately no one notices :-( but people occasionally describe my symbolism or whatnot in lit crit terms when I intended no such thing. o_O

Oh, except for that one time when I signaled an entry into the Celtic otherworld with a white car with red tail fins, and VANILLAFLUFFY actually caught it! \o/

[cahn]

Yeah, another one here for... sometimes it's half-intentional, or I (or a beta!! :P) realize something ought to be a theme and start bringing it out a little... and sometimes I intentionally make symbols and cross-references and linkages, which quite possibly no one ever notices.

And sometimes it's completely unintentional and subconscious and a reader says, "Wow, I really liked the theme of X," and i think, oh, huh, that was what it was about?

[zandperl]

I don't do deliberate symbolism, like you I go more for themes and ideas. My current fave of my fanfics (Repentance) I wanted it to be really moody and I succeeded, but I'm just blown away by what other people have read into it, making me out to be so much better a writer than I thought I was. :-P That was the first of a few works with an unreliable narrator, and there I only realized it late in my writing process but the others I was more conscious of it while writing.

I like sanguinity's idea of leitmotifs, which for me are more like specific ideas their minds keep coming back to and struggling with. My most recent work, Double B(l)ind, I figured out one MC's leitmotif (misanthropy) early on in working with my beta, while the other MC's leitmotif (self-identity) took me much longer in the process to figure out, and in fact I almost posted it before figuring it out, but then it just clicked and I went back and added and changed things to put it back in.

I have to say it's really great when I'm able to work with my main beta, ze's so insightful and really helps me to flesh out characters and ideas and it's just amazing to work with zim.