A Quick Note
I have to run, but I wanted to quickly say a couple of things that I've been thinking about recently and want to consider in depth later:1. The fact that fictional writing requires dialogue to make it interesting- it is the dialogue that creates the characters, even more than their actions. If novels are, as I suspect they are, paintings of propositional psyches- what does this say about human nature?
2. I really should stop being surprised by this, but when giving forth their opinions, people don't realize or consider how weak their premises usually are. Premises! It's all about premises!
posted by Emmett @ 15:20
4 Comments:
I don't know about dialogue. I hear that the only episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to get an Emmy was the one where the characters all lost their voices and couldn't speak for half the show.
What prompted this identification of weak premises? Me?
A not so quick note.
See, this is why I hate debating live. Chances are that if I'm shoved into a situation and forced to take an opinion, I'm not going to have thought it out very well, and the basic premise of whatever I say is easily kicked out from under me. This is why I specialize in spacing off and making snide remarks during our famous lunchtime debates.
You know what? My natural tendency to want to mentally undermine any statment is telling me to make a case for action being able to make a portrait of a person, but we're so dependent on language to relay information. It's definitely possible to get information across without talking. Body language, for example. Also, I'm thinking of the opening scene to Indiana Jones. Indy barely says a word until we see his face, but we get lots of info about him just by his cool stalking around in the cave and brushing spiders off people's back with his whip and stuff. A good writeup of the action and visuals and demeanor could still give us a lot of info about this character. The thing is, though, that this sort of communication hits a brick wall in detail level. We can get across that he's a confident looking-out-for-me-and-mine action hero archeologist, but nothing deeper than that. I may not be thinking about it enough to get accurate results, but it seems like action alone can only give us one-line descriptions about a character.
And remember, plot AND character, not just character. There's a massive debate among writers about which is the be all and end all, plot or character, but they're really intertwined so closely connected that you can't ignore the other. I'd say that novels are proposed psyches AND proposed situations and how they come together. But yes, I too have noticed that most "real" (haha) novels function by creating workable human psyches within the pages.
I will now be a prime example of a person with a weak premise and give an overwhelming generalization: Half of the world doesn't think anymore; at least not in America. We just act. Hey, that kinda tied into what the first point you made was. We act and talk without thinking. We have to think for the characters when we write! Haha, don't you love my weak, unthoughtful premises?
That's why I largely keep my mouth shut here. I don't think very deeply.
I tend to not want to attack a weak premise that begins "Americans are idiots!" so you're safe around me, at least.
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