Some notes written thirty years ago
Bardelys continued to slog through his ancient juvenile essays on art and writing. Along the way he found some that intrigued him; they were based less on abstract theory and more on personal observations he had made both as a reader and in writing his own works.
They were also practical and specific. Therefore he took them more seriously.
Here are a few from some thirty and a half years ago.
Rule of Three
(January 19, 1978)
It’s really amazing how the number three dominates art, especially writing. I cannot explain it. However, it should be used for rhythm – two items will seem too short, and four items will seem just a little bit too long. Five items seem all right, and six items are two triples – that is my idea. So depending on what results you want, you should organize your lists etc. in these numbers.
What Is Most Emphatic – since three-speaking will predominate, it is good to know which element is most emphasized of the three. The rule is: the first-mentioned is more emphasized than the second, and the third more than the first. This works the other way as well: if you want to conceal a detail you must tell, make it the second of three. (In movies, each item on the list of three will tend to override and mask the previous one; thus in film the first is least, and the third is most.)
Pace
(January 19, 1978)
Formula: pace equals activities divided by characteristics, or in other words, narration divided by description, or again verbs divided by nouns, or nouns divided by adjectives.
Also, there will be in most stories incidents, descriptions, or episodes which are necessary but not plugged into any specific time sequence. These should be deployed in order to help pacing – to slow sections or speed up (by their absence) others.
How Words and Phrases Work
(January 19, 1978)
Be aware of words and phrases and how they work. Words are the tools of the trade, and writing is distinguished from most other forms of art in that it is a relationship between writer and the words and only that, in order to create the desired relationship between the reader and words. Each word is loaded; what you have to do is pick those words which will trigger the right reactions in the reader’s psyche. And all the various ways, you have to get him off well. The process of awareness will be automatic as you write and read more; but it can be accelerated by deliberate or awareness. Learn the precise impact of every word and phrase.
One Problem
(January 19, 1978)
One problem of many beginners dealing with a complex plot, is that the overall direction is lost in concentrating upon specific scenes. This confusion can be a good thing at times; but the point is that you should control whether there shall be confusion or not. This is done (somehow) by subordinating scenes. If the tendency is wrongly away from the overall, mention it specifically. [Note 2008: I really don’t have any idea what I meant!]
Variety
(January 19, 1978)
Properly speaking, variety is the ideal. But a tedious sameness can have great artistic effect. However, as with all breaking of rules, it should be employed only sparingly for deliberate effects. One tremendous use of tedium is the glorious release of escaping it afterwards. Set up a rigid pattern which you pursue to the breaking point – then break away to something completely different. This is in line with a general theory of pleasure: there are pleasures and then there is the pleasure of being released from chronic pain.
Poetry
(January 19, 1978)
Poetry is the purest form of writing. All dross has been distilled away in the process of saying worlds in a dozen lines. Poetry is also the most efficient form of writing. It should be studied and attempted by every writer. In addition, poetry teaches the power of that single, capturing phrase; and the rhythm of words and lines.
Art and Revelation
(July 21, 1978)
It took me three steps to reach this point: first was ‘Art as the realization of the Dream,’ second was that ‘Art proceeds by revealing or showing,’ ferret was that ‘Art is beyond the mere function of Dreams because it can reveal what is not known or imagined by the reader.’
The Dream consists of the Other – the other self, the other sex, and the other world. It is not the other person, because we can only approach literary characters in the light of analyzing our own internal processes. (This is considering art as a process worked upon the reader; it is his dream which is being realized by a curious chemistry. I, the writer, am capable of achieving literary power only by making real my own dreams; but the response of the reader depends upon how well that realization corresponds, harmonizes, or exalts his own dreams; thus the reader remakes the work of art by perusing it. By this standard, the greatest work of art is that which becomes all things powerful to all people.) So that, even in the realization of the other sex, we do not see another person: just an aspect of our own selves dressed in another sexual identity. [Note 2008: today I would say that the other sex is still just part of ourselves, but in a different way – I would say rather that the Other Sex in the Dream is a manifestation of our own desires, and therefore refers more to ourselves, into any other person outside ourselves.] (Yet does this not deny all rational analysis based upon observed behavior? That is, do I not make the mistake here of regarding the process as purely an empathetic one, whereas in reality, just as we can deductively analyze another person, so we can use such observations to appreciate literary figures. It is also to undermine the alien quality of the Other, if we bind it by our own dreams, morals, and goals. If I intuitively construct a 13th century peasant, I must do so either on the basis of what I am, or what I have seen in some other person. How else can I gore about it? [Note 2008: there is also the matter of historical research, and analysis done upon that research.] Yet neither of those will have that fundamental quality which makes the 13th century peasant what he is, or was. To grow by dreams is to bind myself to what I know; drug-induced fancies should be able to conceive mockups of greater alienness, but still fashioned out of pieces already to be found within myself. True ‘otherness’ is the elusive for the artist, but not so for the reader, who passively consumes what the writer has created for him.)
So that the way Art ‘instructs his quote is by the revelation of the Other. The artist himself can become the author, by structuring his art around his philosophy, and succumbing to propaganda. Yet is that a legitimate process of art? Or should the artist be no more than the revealer? Let him speak through the fashioning of what he reveals; this is also to prohibit him from having characters mouth his own words.
Why am I saying this? Perhaps it is because I am such a rebel, that I do not like even to be bound by the artist’s Godhead over his own word. Yet that Godhead is inescapable: what I do not like, therefore, is its explicitness. I am not reacting against the act itself, merely insisting that the act be disguised.
What had begun as a very simple summation, has become so complicated that I am left with more questions than before I began.
Nonsense Words
(July 29, 1978)
Repeat a word to yourself fifty times.
The word will lose connection with the concept it has been chosen to represent. It looms large, mysterious, sinister – then it ends by becoming nonsensical. How could the word ever mean anything? What an odd word!
This is particularly true with the words so common that they are used every day. The word itself, the actual phonetic and physical quality of it, comes to have any meaning of its own, a personality if you will.
This process can be employed for the names of characters. If you refer to our character by a certain name for long enough (important: the name should be long enough or formal enough so that its repetition would be unusual: you want the reader to see and hear the words every time they are used. Not just ‘Jim,’ but ‘James L. Shaughnessy’) the name itself will come to have an effect on the reader. It will no longer simply name the character. It will come to have its own meaning – of the joy, of terror, of repulsion, etc. – love and by itself.
This is a particularly nice trick to have when you want to set up a punch for a character who is going to reappear suddenly in the story. Just before you leave him, repeat his name every chance you get. Refer to him with pronouns such as ‘him,’ ‘he,’ as seldom as possible always use the name and always use the full name.
I used to this technique twice so far in Ara Karn: in his own telling of his past life, I referred to his mentor not only with the full name but also with an epithet, and in the funeral of the Queen’s lover, I referred to the Imperial regent by his full name.
