The Sign Of A Great Writer?

Filed under Improve your book, Writing tips.

Great writersMy recent trip to American to witness the launch of the Xbox Kinect was a truly mind altering experience.

I was lucky enough to spend a week in California and was exposed to a lifestyle radically different from that I normally live in the UK. This got me thinking about what we writers consider to be normal.

I feel that we are all prone to seeing the world through our own eyes. We readily assume that what we see and experience is representative of everyone else’s viewpoint. This can be illustrated by such social media platforms as Twitter and Facebook. The chances are your followers and friends will have a similar life experience to yourself, seeing the world in a similar way to yourself. This means that on a day-to-day basis your most intimate contacts are re-enforcing what you consider to be normal and common place. The fact is that for most people this is not the case. Your normality is abnormal for most other people.

This presents a writer with a paradox. How can a writer present thoughts and ideas that they consider common place to readers with little similar experience or framework of understanding? Yet, it is the exposure of ideas alien to ourselves that makes great literature.

I now wonder if this is one of the great unspoken paradoxes of writing. Is the character of a great writer one who is simultaneously aware of their own place in the world, whilst recognising, and being able to express, the uniqueness of their common experience…

Any thoughts?

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  • Steve

    If a writer thinks of their thoughts and ideas as commonplace they are deluding themselves. Assume everyone is different. A “common experience” cannot be unique but our view or interpretation of a common experience can be.

  • http://twitter.com/nikperring nikperring

    What an interesting post! Thanks for bringing this up and for making me think.

    One of the best pieces of (fiction) writing advice I’ve seen is: ‘write about the world as you see it’ because it will, in some way, be unique. I suppose it takes quite a bit of courage to do that.

    Nik

  • Steve

    If a writer thinks of their thoughts and ideas as commonplace they are deluding themselves. Assume everyone is different. A “common experience” cannot be unique but our view or interpretation of a common experience can be.

  • http://twitter.com/nikperring nikperring

    What an interesting post! Thanks for bringing this up and for making me think.

    One of the best pieces of (fiction) writing advice I've seen is: 'write about the world as you see it' because it will, in some way, be unique. I suppose it takes quite a bit of courage to do that.

    Nik

  • http://www.alishasanvicens.com Alisha

    Hi Bubble Cow, As an American who’s lived in California and the UK and now Seattle, I’m thinking about this question too. Mainly in terms of trying to understand what my audience already assumes. My thinking and experiences have been shaped by so many places and it’s difficult to remember the things I take for granted that other people may not have come across yet. A great reminder…Alisha

  • http://www.alishasanvicens.com Alisha

    Hi Bubble Cow, As an American who's lived in California and the UK and now Seattle, I'm thinking about this question too. Mainly in terms of trying to understand what my audience already assumes. My thinking and experiences have been shaped by so many places and it's difficult to remember the things I take for granted that other people may not have come across yet. A great reminder…Alisha

  • http://www.kellyrailton.com Kelly

    This is a very interesting post and is quite timely for a small dilemma I am currently having with my writing (as a newbie to the attempts of novel writing). I have set my novel in a charity shop. Things happen there that I know ARE commonplace because I’ve witnessed similar things in them (as I used to Area Manage charity shops) however I think some things may ‘jar’ with the reader, and make them think ‘that would never happen in a charity shop’ because it is so outwith their own personal understanding and experience of charity shops!

    And so I am trying to find ways of letting these things happen without it being too far removed from what the reader may expect. But am I right to do so?.. Should I allow the reader to trust ‘the uniqueness of [my] common experience’?

    One thing I would say though is that somehow I seem to surround myself with people who don’t have the same views or experiences as me. It’s challenging at times but it does make for some good writing material!

    Thanks,

    Kelly

  • http://www.kellyrailton.com Kelly

    This is a very interesting post and is quite timely for a small dilemma I am currently having with my writing (as a newbie to the attempts of novel writing). I have set my novel in a charity shop. Things happen there that I know ARE commonplace because I've witnessed similar things in them (as I used to Area Manage charity shops) however I think some things may 'jar' with the reader, and make them think 'that would never happen in a charity shop' because it is so outwith their own personal understanding and experience of charity shops!

    And so I am trying to find ways of letting these things happen without it being too far removed from what the reader may expect. But am I right to do so?.. Should I allow the reader to trust 'the uniqueness of [my] common experience'?

    One thing I would say though is that somehow I seem to surround myself with people who don't have the same views or experiences as me. It's challenging at times but it does make for some good writing material!

    Thanks,

    Kelly

  • http://www.unformation.net Ben

    This is totally an emotional response, not a rational response, but a sense of wonder at the “ordinary” of the universe you’re describing really helps me feel a story. By identifying a weird perspective you’re normalising it when it’s exotic, and highlighting it when it’s normal.

    If you can impart a sense of wonder at such ordinary but absurd facts of life as greying Armani-wearing ex-yuppies with briefcases poised to shove aside people (me) at Oxford Circus, then even in a hundred years people will understand.

    It reminds me of the obligatory Douglas Adams quote:

    “The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

    • garysmailes

      Ben – I love Douglas Adams…thanks for your comments.

  • http://www.unformation.net Ben

    This is totally an emotional response, not a rational response, but a sense of wonder at the “ordinary” of the universe you're describing really helps me feel a story. By identifying a weird perspective you're normalising it when it's exotic, and highlighting it when it's normal.

    If you can impart a sense of wonder at such ordinary but absurd facts of life as greying Armani-wearing ex-yuppies with briefcases poised to shove aside people (me) at Oxford Circus, then even in a hundred years people will understand.

    It reminds me of the obligatory Douglas Adams quote:

    “The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

  • garysmailes

    Ben – I love Douglas Adams…thanks for your comments.