The Myth of Immortal Prose

by | November 18, 2013 | General | 10 comments

by Donna George Storey

Write what you want to write instead of what you think you’re supposed to write.

That’s what I’m hoping to do, as I discussed in my last column here at ERWA, but I know there’s no quick and easy way to make the big switch. It takes time to discard old habits, to trust inner voices, to take risks. As part of this process, I’ve been thinking back to the messages I’ve gotten over the years about “good” writing from teachers, how-to books, famous writers, literary critics. Or in other words, the specifics of my supposed-to’s.

Back when I first started writing seriously, about sixteen years ago now, I was talking with a friend who had signed up for a pricey writing workshop with the former editor of a national magazine that published fiction. She mentioned that this teacher’s highest praise for a student’s story was “this is writing that will last.” And indeed, he urged all of his students to aim to write “something that will last.”

At the time, I took this as simple wisdom from an expert. After all, wasn’t that the dream of every writer—to be so amazingly talented that we attain immortality like Shakespeare? That guy lived four hundred years ago and everyone still knows his name! Of course, as I became more familiar with what the writer’s life really involves in our commercial age, I realized that “lasting” means your book is reprinted many times or that it’s taught in high school or college classrooms year after year. Unfortunately, authors who achieve either of these goals are rare, and in the latter case, most are already dead. Gradually my goals became more modest. I was satisfied—in the best way–if someone told me that my story lingered for a day or so after s/he read it. Perhaps I would never be immortal, but whenever a reader confessed that s/he read a particular story of mine many times for erotic inspiration, I knew I’d made a true connection, the highest praise an erotica writer can hope to hear.

Yet I still believed that there were “important new voices” up there in Literary Land, penning gorgeous and unforgettable literary prose that would earn them a throne next to The Bard for all eternity. I didn’t really question this (I’m now somewhat embarrassed to admit) until very recently when I happened to read a book by Leslie Fiedler, a renegade English professor who both entertained and scandalized academia in the latter half of the twentieth century by embracing popular literature as worthy of analysis. (He is also credited with coining the term “postmodernism” among other things). I originally sought out his book What Was Literature? for an essay on Rhett Butler as a symbolic Black Stranger in Gone With the Wind, but I ended up reading the whole book with great enjoyment. 

I was hooked at Fiedler’s opening redefinition of the classic distinction between literary (high) and popular (low) fiction. He wrote that literary fiction could in fact be seen as “minority” literature, read by few and penned by tormented, introverted male artistes to stimulate the intellect, whereas popular literature was “majority” literature, mainly scribbled by female hacks to drug us with cheap sensationalism. More amusing was his description of popular fiction as “optional,” whereas, for most readers, literary fiction was “compulsory,” as in school assignments that needed professional explication to be understood fully.

But what really struck a chord with me was Fiedler’s insistence that “writing that lasts” is not about the quality of the prose. It is what he calls the mythopoeic power of the story, with characters that live on in our minds long after the beautiful metaphors (if any) are forgotten. This got me thinking about which stories have indeed lasted over time, stories our culture returns to again and again in modern riffs and movie remakes. My Anglo-centric list would include the Bible, some of Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth), Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, A Christmas Carol, Huckleberry Finn, Dracula, The Great Gatsby, and Gone with the Wind. Harry Potter, Twilight, and Fifty Shades of Grey certainly define contemporary popular tastes, but I’d need to reconsider their lasting impact in about 30 years. By this measure, all the towering literary figures of my youth—Hemingway, Faulkner, Bellow, Updike, Roth—are still reasonably famous as names, but rarely read except in class or by a small minority of literati with historical inclinations.

I know my particular list is open to argument—maybe you’d delete Macbeth and Huck Finn and add King Lear and To Kill a Mockingbird–but the specific examples are less important than the redefinition of “writing that lasts.” Because I now see it’s not about the world’s admiration for a writer’s brilliant prose, fresh metaphors, and carefully structured chapter breaks—although many of these works are beautifully written and a pleasure to read because of it. The immortality belongs to the story for its power to connect deeply with readers across cultures and time.

As a writer myself, I was also very interested to learn that Harriet Beecher Stowe was inspired to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin when she had a vision during a church service of an aged black slave being beaten to death by a cruel master. The image rose up in her mind, demanding a novel to be written around it. I also remembered that Charles Dickens was planning to write a political pamphlet about poverty and injustice in the fall of 1843. However, inspired by the rousing response to a speech he gave to a workingman’s club in Manchester, he walked the dark streets of the city, possessed by images of a redeemed miser. In a few short weeks of feverish work, he wrote one of the most retold stories ever, A Christmas Carol.

So what does this mean for a writer who seeks to create works that linger if not last forever? For me it means taking one more step away from writing as ego gratification, as proof of my worthiness or cleverness–because really, let’s face it, no one cares if I can turn a phrase or not. It also means taking one step closer to stories that move me, that draw me in to their magic, that beg to be told through me.

Which stories beg to be told through you?

Donna George Storey is the author
of Amorous Woman (recently released as an ebook) and a new collection of short
stories, Mammoth
Presents the Best of Donna George Storey
. Learn more about her
work at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com
or http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor

Donna George Storey

I want to change the world one dirty story at a time. When I posted this mission statement on my website, I hoped my cheeky ambition would make my readers smile. I smile every time I read it myself. And yet I’m totally serious. I truly believe that writers who are brave enough to speak their truth about the erotic experience in all its complexity—the yearning, the pleasure, the conflicts, and the sweet satisfaction—do change the world for the better. So if you’re here at ERWA because you’re already writing erotica, a big thank you and keep on doing what you’re doing. If you’re more a reader than a writer, I encourage you to start dreaming and writing and expressing the truth and magic of this fundamental part of the human experience in your own unique voice. Can there be a more pleasurable way to change the world? I'm the author of Amorous Woman, a semi-autobiographical erotic novel set in Japan, The Mammoth Book of Erotica Presents the Best of Donna George Storey  and nearly 200 short stories and essays in journals and anthologies. Check out my Facebook author page at: https://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor/  

10 Comments

  1. Lisabet Sarai

    A couple of years ago Louisa Burton did a great series on ERWA (when we still had the Smutter's Lounge!) entitled Fiction Craft. The posts are still archived (2009 and 2010) and I really must go back and read them, because she made great points (and expressed herself beautifully as well). I remember one column specifically, though. She challenged the notion that genre fiction, which exists to tell a story, was in any sense less than "literary" fiction (which more often than not noodles around doing verbal masturbation, rather than moving the narrative forward). With convincing logic, she roundly dismissed the popular conception that "just" telling a story was easy – at least to do well.

    I think you've come to the same conclusion. Nearly all the tales in the hallowed canon were written to tell a story, and to touch the readers in the process. I love words, but do we really remember the language itself? No – we recall how deftly the author pulled us into her world, and how she was able to keep us there, even after the covers had closed.

    • Donna

      Fiction Craft was a great series–and telling a story is well is very difficult and still pretty mysterious to me in a lot of ways!

  2. Fiona McGier

    I write the stories I want to read. I know I can't be the only one who thinks and feels like I do, but I find very few books that reflect my inner dialogue. So I write them.

    • Donna

      Writing the stories you want to read is really the only way for a writer to be true to herself. Those who try to write for money (and I've tried a few times myself) seem to end up burning out and hating writing, when it's really the falsehood that drains them, I think.

  3. Garceus

    Hi Donna!

    When I was reading your post I was thinking about Stephen King, one of the most popular and successful writers of all time. People will definitely be reading his stuff a hundred years from now. He once gave a speech at the National Book Convention in which he began by saying that this was the first time he had been invited to the convention, not only to give a speech, but to be allowed in the door.

    I think in the end we write the things we want to read if someone else had written them. We wish people would buy them, we wish we could hit the big time. But there is also a certain freedom in not being a big deal. You can take more chances when you;re hungry.

    We look at writers like King, or Charles Dickens or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and these were considered hacks in their day, writing for popularity, but their characters have stood the test of time. A lot of it is just luck, but I think like us, they wrote what they would have wanted to read if someone else had written it.

    Have you thought about my proposal?

    Garce

    • Donna

      I'm sure Stephen King enjoyed giving that speech! I am really coming to a place where I have to write for the love of it and give myself space to do that. And I'll make a reasonable effort to promote my work, but even with social media, etc, it's not as easy as some would make it (especially those who sell advice on self-promoting!) Why don't you email me at donna at donnageorgestorey dot com and we can talk about the kwaidan?

    • Henry Corrigan

      I'm sure King gave a great speech, but I don't think even he is above the penchant to write for the word rather than the story. I have enjoyed many of his books, Salem's Lot is still one of my all time favorites, but when looking at his whole body of work, the books I love are really a minority percentage. There are many books I can point to of his where he, as Lisabet put it, "noodled around rather than moved the plot forward". Both of you are right that much of his work will still be enjoyed a century from now, and it is better to write for the story rather than the word. But I don't think even he is immune from the urge to write for the latter. My humble opinion, of course.

    • Donna

      Henry, just to clarify my position, I agree with you on Stephen King's sensitivity to the market. He actually wouldn't be on my list of stories that will last 400 years in terms of being able to say "Romeo and Juliet" or "Scrooge" and have everyone know what you're talking about, but again time will tell and my opinion doesn't really matter right now. In fact, Shakespeare and Dickens wrote a lot that no one reads or knows today, so it's as if one or a few works just really hit the groove and become "our" story instead of the author's story.

  4. A. Silenus

    Descriptive writing is an art in itself I think, and can give a reader a new way of looking at things. But Donna writes very effectively about the danger of overdoing it. Bottom line: never lose sight of the plot – unless of course you're either a best selling literatus or a dead genius.

    • Donna

      Very true! Again I feel the urge to clarify–although I've been "awakened" to the reality of writing that lasts, I love excellent prose. It inspires and nourishes me. But so often I'll finish a novel with beautiful sentences and that beauty just seems to mock the weakness in the plot and bring up that deadly question "so what?"

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