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brainofckLong ago, when I was a rising eighth grader (20 years?), I attended Duke University's geek summer camp, TIP. Admission was based on SAT scores taken while the student was in 7th grade.
The first summer I attended, I took their writing course. I still believe that this course was the best value for the money my parents ever spent on my education.
In the program, the instructors introduced a concept, very difficult for all of us junior high students. We were writing lit crit papers, and they advocated that the only important meaning in a work of fiction was the meaning attributed to it by the reader. It didn't matter what the writer was trying to say. What mattered was what the reader thought the writer said.
I struggled with the concept then, but by the end of the summer I was a convert. However, since until recently I never wrote fiction, and since I've started writing, I've written mainly fairly shallow and unlayered porn, I had not had much opportunity to experience the phenomenon first hand of the disconnect between what a writer writes and what a reader reads.
But yesterday, I had a perfect illustration that I can now hand to anyone who disputes the concept.
In Love Bites, my terrible, horrible, aliens-made-them-do-it story, I did not realize the alien was Teal'c.
*facepalm*
EVERYBODY else did, apparently. Of COURSE the alien is Teal'c! I got many (undeserved) kudos for my cleverness.
So, if that isn't a perfect example of how ignorant a writer can be about her own story, I don't know what is.
I need to go back through the comments on Arena, because I'm certain that Wyldestarr and I, or Amise and I, or SOMEBODY and I went round in circles about the meaning of something there, about half-way through...
Crossposting to my other journal, because I like this story and want to make the point in both venues.
The first summer I attended, I took their writing course. I still believe that this course was the best value for the money my parents ever spent on my education.
In the program, the instructors introduced a concept, very difficult for all of us junior high students. We were writing lit crit papers, and they advocated that the only important meaning in a work of fiction was the meaning attributed to it by the reader. It didn't matter what the writer was trying to say. What mattered was what the reader thought the writer said.
I struggled with the concept then, but by the end of the summer I was a convert. However, since until recently I never wrote fiction, and since I've started writing, I've written mainly fairly shallow and unlayered porn, I had not had much opportunity to experience the phenomenon first hand of the disconnect between what a writer writes and what a reader reads.
But yesterday, I had a perfect illustration that I can now hand to anyone who disputes the concept.
In Love Bites, my terrible, horrible, aliens-made-them-do-it story, I did not realize the alien was Teal'c.
*facepalm*
EVERYBODY else did, apparently. Of COURSE the alien is Teal'c! I got many (undeserved) kudos for my cleverness.
So, if that isn't a perfect example of how ignorant a writer can be about her own story, I don't know what is.
I need to go back through the comments on Arena, because I'm certain that Wyldestarr and I, or Amise and I, or SOMEBODY and I went round in circles about the meaning of something there, about half-way through...
Crossposting to my other journal, because I like this story and want to make the point in both venues.
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Date: 2005-10-08 03:19 pm (UTC)That's not just a difficult concept for 7th graders. I know of one well-known professional writer who doesn't get that.
I do think that the writer's meaning is important. One of the reasons I'm addicted to reading on LJ is the dialog between the writer and the readers. I love reading about the thought process behind a story and what other's think about it. It adds layers of complexity that aren't normally available.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 12:05 pm (UTC)That is one of the awesome things about LJ, though, isn't it? You have a community of writers and readers talking and thinking. Very much the virtual salon. :p
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 06:26 pm (UTC)Ah well. The Beatles used to say that they just made up silly things, and then people would come up with all sorts of meaning behind their lyrics that would just astonish them.