[stylist] Visual description and characters

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Jim,

Perhaps I'm not quite understanding what you mean- which is very well
true in my case, smile. You say, though, "Something in me wants to rebel
when you tell me everything. I want to project how things look, feel,
and smell onto the story. Too much detail makes me think that the author
is telling me how I should act, feel, and react if I were the character,
when I want to become the character, and live through the author's
character, but through my senses."

First, it's only natural that an author wouldn't write from a blind
perspective, or relying solely on sensory detail other than visual, if
they had no experience or exposure to blindness. Just as it's natural
for some blind writers to rely on information other than visual, it's
equally natural for sighted writers to focus on visual aspects. This
doesn't mean a writer avoids the other senses, but we can't expect every
story to be written in the perspective of each individual reader.

An author attempts to create relatable characters, but ultimately they
write from their perspective- their experience of life. If you're a
writer and sighted, this includes the visual aspect of life. Writers are
suppose to be observant, paying attention to the details around them.
You gather this information with whatever senses are available to you.
This process helps bring a fullness to one's writing.

Now, when you say, "Too much detail makes me think that the author is
telling me how I should act, feel, and react if I were the character,
when I want to become the character, and live through the author's
character...," it's not a readers job to make the character other than
who the character is as defined by the author. Characters are crafted to
be three-dimensional so they come to life. Authors want readers to place
themselves in the story, to relate to characters, to have emotional
responses, but based on characters as they are. What you want is why you
write your own stories. We don't go to a play or film expecting
characters to be what we want, and the same is how it should be for
literary characters. In a way, characters in literature are like real
people because a writer has spent time developing each one with
individual personalities, emotions, dreams, actions and quirks. To
project whatever an individual reader wants into a story and character
isn't the intention behind reading a story. The writer is telling us how
to think, act, respond as that character because that's how the
character was created. It would be like if I expected you to be a
certain way according to my own line of thinking, but obviously you are
who you are, complex, multi-dimensional being, and when you say, act or
do something, you do it with the intention that I understand your
thought process or opinion or belief. Though not real, characters in a
story are like this. We don't spend time creating characters so that
readers can change a character based on individual experiences, likes,
dislikes, etc. Remember choose-your-own-adventure books for kids? We
don't write characters as choose-whatever-you-want-for-this-character
characters. It's not our job as readers to define characters. We may not
like them, or how a story is told, but we aren't suppose to project
ourselves and ideas into a story other than when we relate or evoke some
emotion, but based on how an existing character is structured.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 10
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:49:41 -0400
From: "Homme, James" <james.homme at highmark.com>
To: Writer's Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] visual description was Re:  Hemingway quote
Message-ID:
	<AB5137F7193A8D49A42CA31303E3FDD57D352342 at EXMB1.highmark.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi Chris,
This is in no way meant to be offensive.

Here are some opinions about wordiness. Those of us who are blind like
too many words, because we like to have the spaces filled up. Sighted
people like the same thing, except that they like the visual space
filled up.

As writers, from my very limited education, we need to get our thoughts
down, even if they are wordy, and then fall in love with our work too
much to be totally brutal about editing it so that it allows our
imaginations to pick up both what is there and what isn't.

Case in point. If you listen to popular music, you will notice that many
of the lyrics are generic. I think they are successful, because they
allow the listener to fill in the spaces with their life experiences.

Maybe it's my learning style coming out, here, but too many details
keeps the work from allowing me to put myself in the story. Something in
me wants to rebel when you tell me everything. I want to project how
things look, feel, and smell onto the story. Too much detail makes me
think that the author is telling me how I should act, feel, and react if
I were the character, when I want to become the character, and live
through the author's character, but through my senses.

Hopefully this makes sense.

Jim