Here is a reality people do not seem to understand. When writing from one perspective, one only reaches THAT targeted audience. Whether the subject be the universe, money, politics, whatever…People have their own reality and that is what they will base their judgments of any writing on. It’s the same way when it comes to life, politics, etc…People base their judgments on their own life experiences and it is not fair to condemn them based on those experiences. Everything in life is about perspective and people need to get it through their heads that not everyone will agree with what their perception of the world around them is. It is like viewing the same car accident from 2 different angles. People will see it happening slightly differently every time.
While perspective has to do with art, and how the artist sees it, and perception is about how one interprets something, both fall hand in hand when it comes to writing and/or life experiences. The writer puts the pen to paper and shares his/her interpretation of what is being discussed. It is the audience perception that determines the effectiveness of a writer’s words–and audience members will perceive the same lines differently each time!
Writers will be often misinterpreted, misunderstood and even at times maligned for the words they choose to put to paper. It comes with the territory. They will also be maligned and such for their own personal views regardless of what they are. That is why I said in an earlier post, there is no need for anyone to have to justify what their opinions are or why they have them to anyone else. They are what they are. No writer, artist, actor or whatever is obligated to say, “I feel this way because I…” to anyone, be it a reporter or an armchair expert. It is not like anyone would be able to change the mind of the author anyway.
My number one rule is as a writer, I will never try to justify what characters represent, why plot lines are written as they are and/or why I do not concern myself with being politically or socially correct when it comes to them. That does not matter. What matters is being that they represent something from my own life’s perspective, the real question should be “Why reveal them in the way I chose to?” That is something I have yet to see asked of any writer. Much of the time they have been asked to justify why they have their characters say or do certain things. That is the part the reader gets to figure out. I use them to point the direction in solving the entire puzzle. I certainly won’t divulge it in my notes either. It is easy to get lost in the real purpose if one gets hung up on the attitudes/actions of one or two characters.
Why read a book and then ask such a question about it anyway? All characters can be used to drive home several points within the same plot, I believe–as long as a writer does not write a long, drawn out work that is as confusing as Cubist art can be…Yes, it’s about PERCEPTION and Cubist art confounds me and amazes me at the same time.
Now you KNOW why it confuses me.
What I will say is that the characters, to me are real. They have a life of their own and they haunt me, and when they do, they come out through the pen. They can fend for themselves once out there on the page. All I do is play God and bring them to life and/or kill them off when they’ve finally incurred my eternal wrath.
The Haunted Pen 