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I am linking this because it has fascinated me this morning: a blog proprietor and his friends discussing possible meanings and motivations for the end of "Three Days and Nights in Lord Darkdrake's Hall".
(Okay, partially I want to demonstrate that same I WATCH YOUR INTERNETS FROM THE SKY thing that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala does, but the gentleman in question posted about the conversation in the SH reader forums, which are part of my daily internet rounds, so I can't really take credit for this one.)
For those who haven't read the story* it turns on a bit of dialogue that recurs middle to end. Why this spied-on conversation fascinates me is while pretty much everyone there is on the trail of what that turn means, all kinds of motives get pulled in for the author. There's suggestions made that I'm trying to show off some sort of deepness or profundity or mysteriousness, and that's why it's not coming together. When...well, I guess I just thought there were enough clues there to make the why of it obvious? Still obvious to me on rereading, but dude, I'm the person who wrote it. I can't see the insides of these things.
I'm now wondering if some of that story might still be lodged in my head (and never made it to the page), six months after publication. I never would have thought of it that way before.
Thank you, people on said blog, for letting me steal your perspective for a little while. :)
Back at Christmas, a couple of us had a conversation at a party about ego-surfing and why writers look up and read reviews of their stuff. One of my friends, who's more in the nonfiction end of things these days, chalked it up somewhat scornfully as an ego thing. That we're praise-hungry little creatures needing our fix of validation.**
What a couple of us argued in return is that no, the STORY doesn't actually really exist until we know it's made contact with readers. Until someone's talking about and around and through it in some corner of wherever, adding in the reader's fifty percent. Then it's a real story, when it's reacted to.
Hopefully that goes some way to explaining why I think this is the COOLEST THING EVER to have found this morning.
Real story! Real story! Doesn't matter if it's not necessarily the one I thought I wrote!
*No, I don't actually expect that everyone who reads this journal has read my entire body of work. I don't even know that some of you even read the journal. :p
**Situationally, this can be quite true.
(Okay, partially I want to demonstrate that same I WATCH YOUR INTERNETS FROM THE SKY thing that
matociquala does, but the gentleman in question posted about the conversation in the SH reader forums, which are part of my daily internet rounds, so I can't really take credit for this one.)For those who haven't read the story* it turns on a bit of dialogue that recurs middle to end. Why this spied-on conversation fascinates me is while pretty much everyone there is on the trail of what that turn means, all kinds of motives get pulled in for the author. There's suggestions made that I'm trying to show off some sort of deepness or profundity or mysteriousness, and that's why it's not coming together. When...well, I guess I just thought there were enough clues there to make the why of it obvious? Still obvious to me on rereading, but dude, I'm the person who wrote it. I can't see the insides of these things.
I'm now wondering if some of that story might still be lodged in my head (and never made it to the page), six months after publication. I never would have thought of it that way before.
Thank you, people on said blog, for letting me steal your perspective for a little while. :)
Back at Christmas, a couple of us had a conversation at a party about ego-surfing and why writers look up and read reviews of their stuff. One of my friends, who's more in the nonfiction end of things these days, chalked it up somewhat scornfully as an ego thing. That we're praise-hungry little creatures needing our fix of validation.**
What a couple of us argued in return is that no, the STORY doesn't actually really exist until we know it's made contact with readers. Until someone's talking about and around and through it in some corner of wherever, adding in the reader's fifty percent. Then it's a real story, when it's reacted to.
Hopefully that goes some way to explaining why I think this is the COOLEST THING EVER to have found this morning.
Real story! Real story! Doesn't matter if it's not necessarily the one I thought I wrote!
*No, I don't actually expect that everyone who reads this journal has read my entire body of work. I don't even know that some of you even read the journal. :p
**Situationally, this can be quite true.
