Shaved Ice

Just a heads up, I won't be posting a blog next week, since it's nearing the end of the quarter.

In the first draft of last week's post, I originally deviated from discussing the pros and cons of writing so soon after a session vs waiting to talking about Ernest Hemingway's "Iceberg Theory," otherwise referred to as the theory of omission. The iceberg illustrates that the elements the reader sees on the page such as character dialogue or action, the tip of the iceberg, are all supported by the unseen elements beneath the water, such as the symbolism, the theme, the subtext that can be intuited through the descriptions without spelling it plain for the reader. This deviation happened in place of where I mentioned Steven King's "On Writing," and it guided me along a knot so dense, it took all of Wednesday to write and Thursday to cut.

I don't have a problem with the model, per se, at least not as a lens through which to study a writer's handling of subtext, or lack thereof, through dialogue or their world-building through fashion, which the series "Andor" did beautifully. In my opinion, frameworks work best when applied to a finished piece, whether it be your own or another's. Music theory, studying the shape of the chords from one bar to the next, applies here as well.

However, putting myself under the lens here, I find it's far too easy to latch onto a framework, such as the iceberg theory in today's example, and try to create a story adhering to that advice instead of letting the story breathe first. It's a limitation, and limitations generally encourage creativity, but it's the wrong kind of limitation in that it encourages perfectionism instead. A scene gets written and then immediately analyzed and deconstructed because it "holds the reader's hand too much," or it's "just an info dump." Eventually, the scene becomes a beautiful, hollow, brittle shell of the original.

Another example is when I was reading "GMC: Goal, Motivation, & Conflict," by Debra Dixon years ago. I fell into this exact trap and created characters that were stiff, mechanical, and fragile, despite the book's attempt at the exact opposite. I was assigning all these internal and external goals and motivations at newly conceived characters when that's just not how my mind creates. I feel the personality first and discover the goals, the motivations, and the conflicts along the way, because I'm getting to know each character like I would a person.

As a music composer, I struggle greatly with applying theory as I go, thinking vertically for chord structure instead of horizontally for voice leading, and that's because I spent 5 years studying methods of composing that work against my own creative process. Much of my curriculum for my bachelor's was focused on learning the theory first and then composing to that theory when it should have been learn the theory, apply that theory to preexisting (simple!) pieces, then follow the same exact structure of those pieces for one of your own.

For example, instead of starting with the tonic chord, the "home" chord, and then mechanically working your way through your composition via what the circle of fifths decrees as the next natural chord progression, analyze a piece such as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," and then write your own piece copying that same exact structure. Once finished, compare it to the original to see what works and what doesn't, going insofar as to change some of the chord structures to hear why the alternatives do or do not work. During my undergrad, more emphasis should have been put on the forms, the modes, the silence within a piece.

Create first, theory second, play third, compare fourth.

Keep in mind, too, that I'm somebody who latches onto structure. If a framework exists, I'm going to gravitate toward it almost unconsciously. Unfortunately, by strictly following others' models or advice or "rules" first, my creations suffer, so I find myself in a catch-22.

So, how does somebody like myself get to the iceberg? Well, first and foremost, I would say accept the vagueness of the iceberg metaphor and then think more concretely instead.

Imagine yourself sitting on a stool. In front of you is an empty pedestal. At your side you have a mixed bag of materials, from clay to wood to metal bits and glass, each representing different facets of your creation, story in this case, though it could apply to composing music or writing a poem or drawing from imagination. As you create, you are adding material to that pedestal in front of you. Like certain tropes? Throw those in! Have a specific twist in mind? Plop that in as well. If you stay your twitchy editing hands until the piece is finished, you wind up with a unique block made of a hodge-podge of materials.

For me and my partner, the block represents the 145+ transcripts of our campaign, and we're still adding to it. He places some clay to represent the setting, I place some wood to represent the characters, he places metal bits to represent the conflict, etc. A professional writer looking at these transcripts would call the story a mess, and their eyes would cross, because we repeat themes, we chew the scenery, we have scenes with very little development. And that's fine. Really. Because these transcripts are, essentially, the very first draft of the story, and we learn as we go.

Once you finish the first book or arc or movement of a piece, that is where the hammer and chisel comes in, the iceberg theory in this case. This is where you get to shape the material the way you want, and the dust and detritus becomes the unseen portion of the iceberg holding up the rest. The war that led to the fall of the gods you waxed poetic about in chapter 3 can be sanded down to a complaint about the spread of a mysterious disease following the gods' deaths, for example.

In my case, Cael's journals and their performances are me chiseling and shaping the story through the limitation of their perspective. Every time I rewrite their journals or edit their performances, I'm using that chisel; I'm sanding with another theory or framework such as "GMC"; I'm polishing with yet another theory or framework such as Chekhov's gun.

Sometimes I cut too much and a crack splits through the piece like a faultline, requiring me to add some more of the clay or marble or whatever back in to repair it, but it had to exist first for me to know that cutting it was to the detriment of the story.

Of course, as you grow as a creator, these frameworks become more and more intuitive. The biggest hang-up for me when I was still floundering about as a fledgling writer and that I still experience when I compose music is that I treat the theories as hard and fast rules. They are my precious, and as Gollum can tell you, it's oh so very difficult to give up your precious.

It helps remembering that the works that inspired the theories existed first, and the theories were developed as a way of making sense of the piece's format and success. Theories are our way of understanding the world, all the way from art to science, but too much focus on them, at least from an artistic standpoint, can choke the creation before you've even begun. So, go ahead. Build your block first then chisel it later. I guarantee by the time the piece is finished, your sculpted iceberg will look different from mine.

Summary of Notable Accomplishments (9.9 - 9.15):

• I planned and ran my very first session, and my partner had a blast!

  • And then immediately afterward I started picking apart what I could have done better, what I would have changed about my environment/encounter, etc. because my brain doesn't revel long on accomplishments before going, "Okay, but next time how can you improve?"

  • I spent most of my time last week planning these situations; oddly enough it reminded me of when I used to plan my English lessons in Japan

• Transcribed session 144 and 145.1

  • Apparently when I GM, I don't take breaks. 145.1 was almost 2 hours long....

  • When my partner GMs, we might go for 50 minutes max before taking a break

  • Silver lining is that 145 is only 3 parts in total because of this?

• Confronted a dog owner about the behavior of their dogs when I go on my walks; he hasn't fixed the issue, and letting the dogs sniff me while in the owner's presence in the hopes they'd recognize me on subsequent walks didn't work

  • It's getting to the point where I'm going to have to contact the police or something and file a complaint, because with how large these dogs are, the problematic one could easily overtake me

  • For now it just ran onto the road and barked menacingly at me, and that was just while I was walking; if I decided to go on a jog?

• Built With Science:

  • Back

  • Arms

  • Shoulders

  • Chest

• 8k+ Steps, most days done at a 12% incline on my walking pad

• Finished listening to Dresden book 3: "A Grave Peril"!

Real Talk:

• Of course, my whole post above is just one way of approaching a piece and is by no means the steadfast rule. My eldest sister, for example, iterates repeatedly before her story is fully written. (I trust she'll correct me if I'm misremembering.) What are your specific approaches?

• What advice/rule/theory drives you absolutely mad and why? Not because it's wrong in and of itself but because the way people apply it doesn't match its intended usage? "Show, don't tell," is one possible example I can think of, but we're not limited to writing here. Photography, computer programming, most anything works.

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Mura