thematic concepts
Apr. 27th, 2006 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Recently, I wrote about three things that I love about writing fic: writing for others, writing for myself, and writing for the words. Last night I remembered a fourth one: writing around thematic concepts.
This is not something I do all the time nor do I only enjoy novels that are structured in this way. But when I do come across it and it is well done, I enjoy it immensely. Also, I sometimes forget how much I actually enjoy writing around thematic concepts. The closest I came to structuring an entire fic around one thematic concept was with the Arthropods series where the plot is structured through the thematic concept of arthropods. In that fic, the creepy crawlies were not only a recurring ingredient but the pivot around which all the events occurred. I didn't say much about the relationship between Karl and Dom. I didn't have to: the arthropods were saying it for me. There is something a little bit abstract and artificial about structuring a story like this, and I like that a lot.
Writing thematic concepts is very closely related to writing for words because thematic concepts allow you to explore such a lot of delicious and related and unfamiliar vocab. I got to talk about antennae and thoracic joints and spinnerets; I drooled over pictures of insects in my Beloved Illustrated Oxford Dictionary; I stared at every spider that crawled into my shower and every moth that fluttered through the open window at night (this fic could perhaps only have been written in summer!).
Another thematic concepts I have been wanting to write to is gemstones. I'm just waiting for the right plot bunny to come along but there are wonderful mineralogical names for all those gems out there, and then there is the vocabulary of cutting them and setting them, and of mining them. Plus they can all be made to have symbolic and metaphoric meaning -- not only their names (rubies, diamonds, garnets and ones whose name I don't even yet know) but also their qualities (hard but delicate, frangible, pearlescent, raw versus cut). Also, they are so visually beautiful and can infuse imagery into a text.
Some years ago I heard a report on BBC Radio 4 about an ancient lapis azuli mining town in the mountains of Afghanistan, only reachable by mule via a three-day trek across the Pakistani border. Mining still goes on there today and has been going on there for thousands of years; it is the oldest mining town in the world. The streets are paved with lapis lazuli. That place just sounded so impossibly romantic to me; I immediately thought that it would be wonderful to structure a story around a place like that (perhaps with a political plot intertwined -- this was during the Afghanistan war).
The bowtie fic I recced last night was structured around bow ties, and that was really very nicely done. I like more scientific themes myself, with baroque and OTT words, where I learn stuff. E.g., I loved learning about Rayleigh scattering for the Spiralling fic; these are the rays that cause the sky to appear blue, and red at sunset; I just love being able to write, instead of 'The sun sets': 'Rayleigh scattering colours the air particles red'. It is so strange-making!
(Strange-making is a concept the Russian formalists invented in the 1920s to describe what to them was one of the key qualities of literature as opposed to real life. Literary speech makes rl speech 'strange'. I can't now remember the Russian word for it. Must look it up for party-pretentiousness bonus points. *g* Oprashchenye or somesuch?)
Now I'm wondering what thematic concepts I could base my John/wraith fic around? I've figured out the plot more or less fully in my head now. I just need a word-scaffolding to make the actual writing of it interesting.
This is not something I do all the time nor do I only enjoy novels that are structured in this way. But when I do come across it and it is well done, I enjoy it immensely. Also, I sometimes forget how much I actually enjoy writing around thematic concepts. The closest I came to structuring an entire fic around one thematic concept was with the Arthropods series where the plot is structured through the thematic concept of arthropods. In that fic, the creepy crawlies were not only a recurring ingredient but the pivot around which all the events occurred. I didn't say much about the relationship between Karl and Dom. I didn't have to: the arthropods were saying it for me. There is something a little bit abstract and artificial about structuring a story like this, and I like that a lot.
Writing thematic concepts is very closely related to writing for words because thematic concepts allow you to explore such a lot of delicious and related and unfamiliar vocab. I got to talk about antennae and thoracic joints and spinnerets; I drooled over pictures of insects in my Beloved Illustrated Oxford Dictionary; I stared at every spider that crawled into my shower and every moth that fluttered through the open window at night (this fic could perhaps only have been written in summer!).
Another thematic concepts I have been wanting to write to is gemstones. I'm just waiting for the right plot bunny to come along but there are wonderful mineralogical names for all those gems out there, and then there is the vocabulary of cutting them and setting them, and of mining them. Plus they can all be made to have symbolic and metaphoric meaning -- not only their names (rubies, diamonds, garnets and ones whose name I don't even yet know) but also their qualities (hard but delicate, frangible, pearlescent, raw versus cut). Also, they are so visually beautiful and can infuse imagery into a text.
Some years ago I heard a report on BBC Radio 4 about an ancient lapis azuli mining town in the mountains of Afghanistan, only reachable by mule via a three-day trek across the Pakistani border. Mining still goes on there today and has been going on there for thousands of years; it is the oldest mining town in the world. The streets are paved with lapis lazuli. That place just sounded so impossibly romantic to me; I immediately thought that it would be wonderful to structure a story around a place like that (perhaps with a political plot intertwined -- this was during the Afghanistan war).
The bowtie fic I recced last night was structured around bow ties, and that was really very nicely done. I like more scientific themes myself, with baroque and OTT words, where I learn stuff. E.g., I loved learning about Rayleigh scattering for the Spiralling fic; these are the rays that cause the sky to appear blue, and red at sunset; I just love being able to write, instead of 'The sun sets': 'Rayleigh scattering colours the air particles red'. It is so strange-making!
(Strange-making is a concept the Russian formalists invented in the 1920s to describe what to them was one of the key qualities of literature as opposed to real life. Literary speech makes rl speech 'strange'. I can't now remember the Russian word for it. Must look it up for party-pretentiousness bonus points. *g* Oprashchenye or somesuch?)
Now I'm wondering what thematic concepts I could base my John/wraith fic around? I've figured out the plot more or less fully in my head now. I just need a word-scaffolding to make the actual writing of it interesting.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-27 03:07 pm (UTC)I find myself quite overcome this by this. I think you should write more about minerals. I am (weirdly) keen to read it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-27 06:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-27 10:27 pm (UTC)