Vicarious Life Experience, Transposing Themes and the Importance of Empathy
Here's a tongue twister for you;
Very little is literal in literature,
Even if literally little the literature be.
I just made that up, so apologies to anyone who didn't find their tongues suitably twisted but I stand by the message. Literature is so full of metaphors, figurative speaking and allegorical devices that an author is seldom able to apply their life experience directly.
However, anyone who has thought about writing will have encountered the advice that they should write from experience. Young authors are often passed over for this very reason but what is it that we are really looking for when we say; 'Life Experience'?
Well, Sylvia Plath's poem; 'Tulips', is a good example of directly applied life experience. She wrote it about a bouquet of tulips which she received while in hospital for an appendectomy and one passage reads;
'The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.'
Though this passage was inspired by Plath's literal experience in hospital, we still see the use of metaphor ('like an awful baby') and an expansion of the moment into something more. With the mention flowers breathing and their redness talking to her wound, she separates the experience from the activity. So the appendectomy becomes of secondary import to the perspective it induced.
So, when writing from experience, our perception of the experience is often of greater import than the experience itself. Put another way, there are no mundane experiences, only mundane thoughts about experiences. An extremely talented writer could deliver revelations to their audience while describing a walk down the road.
Another thing to consider, for anyone who believes that their lives are too short, or dull, to write is vicarious life experience. Those happenings which impact your life even though you never lived through them. Listening to the wisdom of your elders is listening to the wisdom of vicarious life experience.
As human beings, we are predisposed to listen to stories from members of our family in order to avoid their mistakes. Beyond this, we are empathetic towards our family in a way which allows us to truly understand their ordeals. I advise any author, young or old, to develop their ability to empathise and to weave the stories of others into their personal web of human understanding. In this way, your characters and stories will be full and robust, instead of empty and unconvincing.
So, with all that said, I'd just like to acknowledge the fact that Kobo has reinstated all of my titles for sale on their UK site, so; Woohoo! I can now stop speculating about where this situation will end and just tell you all to go and download Beige Soup for FREE! Also, don't forget that my other sci-fi books; 'The Fifth Descendant', 'Digital Wax' and 'Citizen Class 5' are all available on most e-readers for the ragamuffin price of £2.99 UK.
Endlessly, Perpetually, Something,
L-J
Anger is blindness and does not suffer one to see the face of any man with truth - From; 'The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs'
