The means by which the talesman tells his tale affects the tale he tells
By Key
Most writing today is composed on a computer using a keyboard. The talesman moves his fingers, depresses keys, and the corresponding letters appear on a rewritable screen. Those talesmen who type by touch look mainly upon this screen where the letters appear as if by magic. The letters are formed in fonts chosen in whatever computer program the talesman uses to interpret the keystrokes, draw the letters on the screen, and save the tale in an electronic file.
Before talesmen adopted computers, they were widely using typewriters, also entering their tales one letter at a time through a keyboard.
To compose a tale by key involves what seems like two separate parts of the talesman’s being. There is first the imaginative part advancing through the tale word by word within his head, and seeing the tale unfurl behindward on the screen. Then there is the mechanical part which jerks fingers down upon the keys, usually out of sight.
By Pen
Before keyboards, most talesmen composed their tales using a writing implement (pen, pencil, stylus) upon a sheet of some smooth material which held the marks of the words. The talesman watched the sheet and drew upon it with the pen, making continuous marks, each one representing a whole word.
Since the calligraphy of drawing a whole word is more complex than a series of finger-jerks on different keys, the physical act of telling a tale by pen comes close to drawing. Since the pen records the words directly upon the sheet of paper, the talesman looks at the point where the pen touches the paper. As a result, the imaginative/seeing part of composition is more intimately married to the mechanical/recording part. The process feels more unified and intimate. And the record of the tale, in its hand-drawn scribbles of words, more intimately represents the talesman’s heart as he composes. Finally, because the pen is free to wander where it will across the broad or narrow field of the paper, the right-brain spatial awareness comes more into play, in a more natural, easy manner.
By Tongue
Before writing, talesmen composed their tales either silently, learning the words by rote before telling or performing them to an audience, or they composed even in the act of performing the tale. Since there is no objective, external record of the tale, each tale must be performed anew for each new audience, and in the process may be, in retelling, re-composed.
Composing a tale by tongue brings the imaginative part of the talesman’s mind to almost complete predominance over the act. More, he does not use his eyes to see what he tells. Instead he uses his ears alone, although in performing the tale, the talesman can see how the tale affects his audience, and adjust his composition accordingly.
What was Lost
Long ago, when the first men created writing, they added eyes and hands to the act of composing tales. Now talesmen have almost completely lost their ears in composing. They write only to be read.
And yet studies show that most of us, when we read, sound out the words in our heads. They call this ‘sub-vocalizing.’ If you pay heed, you can begin to feel the slight tugs and tremors at the root of your tongue and back of your throat, when you sub-vocalize what you read. And this triggers an imaginary hearing of the ‘sounds’ the words would make if you spoke them. No doubt talesmen also do something like sub-vocalizing when they compose, even though they compose by key.
Sounds of Silence
Certain passages in tales seem to make more ‘sound’ than others. Dialogue, above all when it is surrounded by quotation marks and is not interrupted by attributions, stage directions, or description, ‘sounds’ louder than description. And those parts of description that appeal to or mimic sounds make more ‘noise’ than the others. The content of signs seems to make no ‘sound’ at all.
When talesmen composed and told their tales by tongue alone, the tales approached what we call music. The best-remembered tales were poems, chanted or sung. (When a talesman chants, he concentrates on the rhythms of the words and phrases, and when he sings, he also pays heed to the notes of the individual syllables in the phrases.)
Understanding by Eye or Ear
When talesmen told their tales by tongue, the audience learned the tales by ear. These performing talesmen also controlled the time and pace of the telling, and the audience could not ‘skip back’ or ‘look ahead’ or ‘skim quickly on’ through the tale. But when writing (by pen or key) came to predominate talespinning, the talesmen lost the control over the unfurling of their tales, and gave its control over to their readers instead.
Differences
The act of composing a tale differs according to the means by which it is done. Keyboarding, handwriting, and speaking a tale, are three very different means to express what the heart imagines. It makes sense to assume that these different means of composing tales will influence the shape and skin of the tales. There will probably also be a difference between tales composed by writing with the left hand vs. the right, since the left hand communicates directly with the right hemisphere of the talesman’s brain, which is the symbolical, nonverbal, more imaginative part of the human mind.
For example, a few months ago I listened to the audiobook reading of Carl Hiaasen’s Skinny Dip. The first page of that book was written to be read and I trust Hiaasen would never have composed that opening the way he did, had he told it or composed it by tongue.
Best, Worst
I believe that composing by pen must be more intimate and natural than composing by key, and that composing by tongue must be the most intimate and natural of the three. Therefore, if my goal is to resurrect the most ancient art of talesmanship, I should compose by tongue.
It is possible to compose on computers by pen with handwriting recognition. This is built in to MicroSoft Windows XP Tablet Edition and to MicroSoft Windows Vista operating systems, but I have not tried either and I have my doubts that the software could recognize whole words. So we would need to key in what we have written out beforehand by pen. It is also possible to compose directly on computer by tongue with voice recognition software. This has long been an aspiration of mine but I’ve never trained the software or my voice to get along. (Even with enough training, speaking into a microphone and paying careful heed to what letters are drawn on the screen to check them for accuracy, will never recapture fully performing a tale to a human audience.)
(Composed by pen on paper)(First posted Friday 18 January 2008)
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