Prompt of the Day #10
What makes your character unique? Or what's the point in your poem? For that matter, why are you writing? Do you have a purpose? Is there a reason for your actions or the actions of your characters? What contributes to the purpose/purposelessness of your writing?
Becoming a writer is tough, we all know that. I imagine a bunch of you have the same days as I do: sitting, pen in hand, the dim glow of a dying bulb glancing over the page, computer battery dead and notes upon notes scattered about with their pigeon-scratch-scrawl glaring accusingly at your ineffectual attempts to write anything worth reading. Or maybe you've just opened the mail and received yet another rejection generically printed out by a publishing company that hasn't quite forgotten its manners. Perhaps you've been perusing the new best-sellers and bemoaning the fact that your work is so much better than this. I don't doubt we've all been there at some point. The industry does not work in our favour. It just doesn't. There are too many of us for it to do so. So what's the point?
Point One for the day is this: Think about what motivates you, because if it's money and fame, then you're probably deluded. If you think it'll eventually happen or that someone will notice you, then your naive. Seriously, you'll probably never be published by one of the Big Six and you shouldn't hold out hope that your luck will change. It might never be your day. So what's the point?
You've noticed by now that I'm deliberately being antagonistic and demoralising. I've also been incredibly unsubtle and used a wee epistrophe for my own entertainment.
This week has been all about Freedom - we've tried to offer you prompts and examples of how some of the best writers out there have reflected the issues surrounding freedom in their work. Here, in the SUNDAY SUMMARY. We want to address one last point: Purpose. Freewill in Literature almost always ties into the purpose of a character.
If a character, like our 'metallurgical Louisa' from Of Gradgrinds and Great Expectations, is in your story then she will play a symbolic role - representing the pull of two factors and the way that these twist within her own life, or depicting the inner tug-of-war between personal and social identity. Her purpose as a character is as an illustration of how much or how little one's life is determined. If you have an Aragorn or a Frodo or your story is about a Quest type journey, then you'll be considering the relationship your characters have with their 'destiny' or the 'inevitable'. If you have a Voyage and Return style plot then you might be playing with 'The Reluctant Hero' or you you might be looking at the way they develop, what spurs them on. Or if you're looking at ideas of personal identity, then you might be using concepts that philosophers still puzzle over: to what extent we remain ourselves through time, how much is nature vs nurture, whether or not freewill is important to our sense of self.
When it comes to poetry, you might be writing inner-monologues where a character frets over their purpose or lack thereof, or using symbolism that reflects a conflict between freewill and determinism. You might be looking at the works of T.S.Eliot and the post-modernists who look at the new sense of existential freewill, what that means for society or you might be leaning more towards a discussion lie that in 'The Road Not Taken'. Maybe you're a determinist or you find glory in the idea of a higher power - in which case maybe you'll look at the poetical techniques and symbols in Psalms or at writers such as Gerald Manley Hopkins.
When it comes down to it, a lot of things seem pointless if you don't have freewill. It would feel like we were in our own Sisyphus style existence, constantly struggling towards something that will only happen if it is determined. With freewill, there's a sense that we can do anything, that choices can be made and we can thus define ourselves - or as Kirilov in Dostoevsky's 'The Possessed' suggests: become God. This is rather wonderfully illustrated in one of the many philosophical discussions of the novel -
This week has been all about Freedom - we've tried to offer you prompts and examples of how some of the best writers out there have reflected the issues surrounding freedom in their work. Here, in the SUNDAY SUMMARY. We want to address one last point: Purpose. Freewill in Literature almost always ties into the purpose of a character.
If a character, like our 'metallurgical Louisa' from Of Gradgrinds and Great Expectations, is in your story then she will play a symbolic role - representing the pull of two factors and the way that these twist within her own life, or depicting the inner tug-of-war between personal and social identity. Her purpose as a character is as an illustration of how much or how little one's life is determined. If you have an Aragorn or a Frodo or your story is about a Quest type journey, then you'll be considering the relationship your characters have with their 'destiny' or the 'inevitable'. If you have a Voyage and Return style plot then you might be playing with 'The Reluctant Hero' or you you might be looking at the way they develop, what spurs them on. Or if you're looking at ideas of personal identity, then you might be using concepts that philosophers still puzzle over: to what extent we remain ourselves through time, how much is nature vs nurture, whether or not freewill is important to our sense of self.
When it comes to poetry, you might be writing inner-monologues where a character frets over their purpose or lack thereof, or using symbolism that reflects a conflict between freewill and determinism. You might be looking at the works of T.S.Eliot and the post-modernists who look at the new sense of existential freewill, what that means for society or you might be leaning more towards a discussion lie that in 'The Road Not Taken'. Maybe you're a determinist or you find glory in the idea of a higher power - in which case maybe you'll look at the poetical techniques and symbols in Psalms or at writers such as Gerald Manley Hopkins.
When it comes down to it, a lot of things seem pointless if you don't have freewill. It would feel like we were in our own Sisyphus style existence, constantly struggling towards something that will only happen if it is determined. With freewill, there's a sense that we can do anything, that choices can be made and we can thus define ourselves - or as Kirilov in Dostoevsky's 'The Possessed' suggests: become God. This is rather wonderfully illustrated in one of the many philosophical discussions of the novel -
God is necessary, and so must exist.But I know that He doesn’t exist and can’t exist.But don’t you understand that a man with two such ideas cannot go on living?
And is later followed by the more extensive consideration of his own sense of inevitable necessity.
Is there no man on this planet who, having finished with God and believing in his own will, will have enough courage to express his self-will in its most important point? […] All man did was to invent God so as to live without killing himself. That’s the essence of universal history till now. I am the only man in universal history who for the first time refused to invent God. […] To realize that there is no god and not to realize at the same instant that you have become god yourself – is an absurdity, for else you would certainly kill yourself. If you do realize it, you are a king and will never kill yourself, but will live in the greatest glory. But he who is first to realize it is bound to kill himself, for otherwise who will begin and prove it? […] I am still only a god against my will, and I am unhappy because I am bound to express my self-will. […] Fear is the curse of mankind. But I shall proclaim my self-will. I am bound to believe that I do not believe. I shall begin and end, and open the door.He feels that he MUST 'open the door', that in order for any to realise their freedom to act as they will, he must prove it so. There is much more to be said of these passages and of Kirilov but I want to focus on that idea of necessity. Kirilov is a symbolic figure in the novel but he is endlessly interpretable. We see him as he does, 'absurd' in his actions and suicide; we see him as committing a 'Christian suicide'; we see him as an opposite to characters such as Shatov as Orthodox Russians; we see him as a representative of political thought, as a figure of nihilism, a moment of inwardness, seeking kleos.
On this note we're going to conclude our week on Freedom - it's up to you now to decide why.
Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER
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