Fields and Fence Lines (Part Three)

This is the third of a currently unknown number of posts in which I consider my limits as a writer.

"Consider" being the operative word. I'm neither bemoaning my limits, nor glorify them. I'm just noting them, since for the most part, they are what they are.

In my first post, I explained that I learned to write organically, by reading and writing, rather than formally, and that may have limited my writing. And in the second one, I talked about how I'm not much of an intellectual with no interest in questions without answers, in philosophy, phycology, politics, in short, in "themes" readers often find in great literature.  

These personal limits can be seen as fences that enclose my abilities as a writer.

Another of the fences that limits my ability as a writer, a box unchecked when it comes to writing popular and/or great literature, is that I'm not a passionate fellow. Drama isn't my thing. Not in real life, nor in my writing.

Most people love drama.

It seems that one of the chief characteristics of the great classics, and in all sorts of popular fiction as well, is that it stirs the emotions of the reader. It creates within the reader deep, heartfelt emotions via the experiences of the characters in the story, or at least, a usually safe facsimile of those emotions. They can be made to experience them, while at the same time, knowing that the emotions are not caused by real life events. They're emotions that have been created artificially, by their imagination, and empathy for imaginary characters, that in the end, are just that; imaginary. They are safe emotions.

People want to experience safe emotions. They want to feel. It's the reason sports exist. Sports are an artificially constructed struggles that participants and fans can take a part in to experience the range of emotions that real life struggles evoke, within a struggle that doesn't really matter.

In the same way, readers can experience emotions they otherwise would not - or hope not - experience in their real life, along with the characters in a book, if the story is well written. Again, these emotions are created by something that doesn't matter.

In short, books can supply real emotions without real causes and real consequences. Ones that can be laid aside at will, though often, they may linger like real experiences.

Unlike most people, I don't like drama. I like a simple, uneventful life. I'm an "Ordinary Man. " 

I'm an ordinary man
Who desires nothing more
Than just an ordinary chance to live exactly as he likes
And do precisely what he wants
An average man am I, of no eccentric whim
Who likes to live his life, free of strife
Doing whatever he thinks is best for him
Well, just an ordinary man

I'm a quiet living man
Who prefers to spend the evenings
In the silence of his room
Who likes an atmosphere as restful
As an undiscovered tomb
A pensive man am I, of philosophic joys
Who likes to meditate, contemplate
Free from humanity's mad inhuman noise
Quiet living man

-- An extract of the lyrics of I'm An Ordinary Man, from My Fair Lady.

I suspect that great writes are very passionate about a lot of things. Great writers use their passions to write stories. But they can do more than just write about themselves and what they have experienced. Their limits are the limits of their imaginations. However, while I certainly write stories beyond my personal limits - all my characters are far braver and bolder than me, for example, But passions and powerful emotions are beyond the fence line for me, as a person, and as a writer, the result of a combination of nature and personal preference. 

And this goes for my reading as well. I write the book I want to read, and in reading I'm not looking for powerful emotions, be it passionate love or terror, grief, grimness, tragedy, and despair. I'm looking for interesting places and spending time with cheerful, entertaining characters, presented with clever, witty writing. And that's also my goal in writing. 

As a side note, I'm currently reading an old book with a number of emotional romantic scenes and musings that seem to go on and on. I'm just skipping over most of them.

And something along those lines are what my loyal readers expect from my stories, so meeting those expectations are another reason I stay on my side of the fence.

But there is a more personal and practical reason I avoid heavy stories, and that is the fact that I usually spend six or more months dreaming them up and writing them down. Unlike readers who may only spend six or seven hours in the book, the story lives within my head for months at a time. And to some extent or another, I live my stories, or at least, they live in my imagination throughout the day. Thus, writing a grim, dark, depressing story would certainly seep into and darken my everyday life, and that's a price I'm unwilling to pay. I don't know how authors of dark stories do it, unless they are simply a reflection of past experiences, everyday live, or they have the ability to compartmentalize their stories, keep it separate from their everyday life.

Could I venture beyond this fence line? Sure. It's only words, and I know words. But will I? No. Even though I recognize that in settling for light, escapist, stories, I am taking greatness off the table, but oh, well. Greatness demands a steep price, a price I am unwilling to pay.

There is, however, one plus to my muted emotional range; auto-narration audiobooks work well with my style, since the artificial reading voice is not required to reproduce extreme human emotions. Steady as she goes works well for auto-generated audiobooks.