(quote: Darwin, video: Wale-The Artistic Integrity
For my American Realism course I have to write a research paper from no less than 8 sources. The only limitation is that it has to deal with American literature written between the Civil War and World War I. After the paltry class discussion when the professor asked those gathered to define evolution, I decided that I need to examine Darwin's influence on the written word as art form. While he was only partially a philosopher, he presented an idea which fundamentally alters the picture of the world. For those who do not accept his theory, there is still this pausing gap, this rigidly logical refutation of their "meaning" that they must come to terms with. After Darwin, god became obsolete as a philosophical device. And 75 years later, Existentialism questioned whether, in a world without god, does life have any meaning? My research centers around finding 'transitional fossils' that indicate a progression out of Romanticism, via Darwin's findings. Was Realism a rejection of Romanticism at least partially because Darwin changed how we see nature and our place in it? Are the hard truths revealed by Darwin reflected in the grittier aesthetic of Realism? Does the art of the time hint at our collective philosophical evolution, does it indicate the Existential anxiety of casting out mythology and order?
I can't listen to American news anymore. Even NPR has been seized with the Fear. You cannot turn on a television (I'm guessing) or visit a newspaper's website or listen to the radio without dire news about the economy. Thousands being laid-off, millions more underemployed, our collective investments dwindling in value. It is all either a temporary downturn, or the undulating spasms of a false ideology as it crumbles. And the working class can do nothing in reaction but save a little more, leave out a few luxuries, show up to work, try to sleep at night. And I have no lack of sympathy for those who have lost their jobs, or who are going through tough times. But a lot of us made bad decisions, or are stuck in undesirable circumstances, or both. And the lesson to be learned from this, especially for younger people who haven't yet bought a house they can't afford or squirted out one too many lil'uns, is that the whole dream we've been sold is a joke. Buy a house, slave away at a corporate job, distance yourself from reality with television and sports, capitulate to the reproductive urge. All these things and more have been marketed to us as the ideal, as the swift path to happiness. But it isn't. And every second you spend willing yourself to someone else's system, is another inch you drift from the person you are. Not to say that you should never get a job and work for the Man. But never let it fool you that this 9-5 is your life. And never rely on another's enterprise to make you happy. Whatever you do for yourself, can never be taken away.
I've been writing quite a bit so far this year. Though less and less of it is presentable. I'm so much pickier and careful and thoughtful and (un)conscious. And so now I write the first five pages of a story at least three times before I settle into a groove. Write out not an outline but an ever-evolving aesthetic manifesto each time I want a thing to become a story. When I was maybe 20-years old, sleepless, I developed a crude analogy for what a story needs to be. The Bonfire Theory of Narrative Craft. Basically, it is this: A story, at the broadest conceptual level, must have three elements. The first is the flames. Flames are what are seen from a distance, what dazzles, what draws someone in or scares away an animal. This is the story's "gimmick", what you describe a story as being about in one or two sentences (Choke is about a sex-addict who pretends to choke for money and affection). The second aspect is the "fuel". How the fire is assembled, the structure of the wood aligned such that it burns at the desired intensity. This is the story's plot, the causality, what actually happens, how all of the events are tied together. The final element is the coals. The long-burning furnace of the fire, the part you bake hot-dogs on. The part you could take with you in a clay vessel on your pilgrimage and use to start a fire elsewhere. This is the theme of the story. What the story has to say, why the story is important to tell. What from the story can a person take away and add to their own experience? Anyway. Good stories are built like bonfires. And depending on how you want it to burn, you have to carefully consider all three of these aspects.
I'm occasionally opining for the Boise Arbiter now. Check it out.
