Wed 29 Sep 2010
The Purpose of Purpose
Posted by Gay Degani under advice, craft, life experience, Process
[24] Comments
A while back, a friend asked if I write with a specific purpose in mind, “purpose” as in “What is my aim, my point, my theme?”
I wanted to say “no.” A first draft is about exploration and discovery and I have no idea what the purpose of anything is at that point. My purpose at the beginning is to get words into the keyboard, up on the screen. Once they’re up there, I can figure “stuff” out.
I realized this answer was misleading and making that statement, especially to anyone new to the craft, might lead him or her to think that “meaning” magically seeps into the writing without effort on the part of the writer. Or that the writer sits down to write a story in which “Love is Blind” or “War is Hell” and creates situations with characters to prove his theme.
Most of us aim for middle ground. We know that to hammer away at theme will lead to a story that is obvious and preachy, but we also know that often stories offered up by writers as puzzles rarely work either. Readers want to feel they are in good hands, that the writer knows what he’s doing, that if the reader lets the story unfold, she will learn something, have an aha moment, an emotional response. It’s difficult for readers to count on writers as guides when the writers don’t know where they’re going.
But the choice isn’t about whether the story has purpose, but rather when the writer discovers that purpose. Purpose becomes apparent in the act of writing. More often than not, what happens is a story comes from an image, a character trait, a pet peeve and it is in the act of sitting down at the keyboard and wrestling that image or character into certain circumstances that theme emerges.
There’s no pinpointing when this happens. On a first draft, a sentence might appear on the screen and the writer thinks, “Oh so this is what this is about!” Or when reading over the third draft wondering why the story doesn’t quite work, the writer asks, “What the heck does this shit mean?” Or maybe a possible theme pops out with the last line of the piece. “Ah, now I know why I wrote this.”
Purpose can be tiny, tiny, especially in flash. It can explore IMPORTANT IDEAS, but in a moment, briefly caught for examination, freezing the climax of a story and revealing only the immediate emotional impact, hinting at what came before. Flash is that upclose moment the reader is allowed to share.
For longer stories, the need for purpose–not just the stringing of pretty words together–becomes essential. It gives the writer something to explore, think about how he feels about it, and then conveys it to the reader in an effective way.
However, the theme or epiphany that emerges in the first draft is usually not enough. It must be tended to. Once the writer understands what the theme is, another edit through is necessary to find opportunities to underline and enhance that theme. This is especially important in the writing of flash where every word counts. The character’s name, his job, the nature of his problem, the setting, the title, all the details can be used to support the theme as well as tone, voice, and structure. These elements need not be too overt or too subtle in their connections, but just knowing and thinking about meaning can help a writer to deepen his work.
What we write comes from who we are and what we want to say to the world. Sometimes that purpose goes outward toward the big events, the societal worries, but just as often it goes inward to personal insecurities, failings, and successes. The author aims to give his work universal meaning by creating a world that is engrossing, surprising, and possesses some form of truth. By questioning her own text, the writer can come to better understand her view of the world and share that view with her readers.
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Gay Degani has published in journals and anthologies including The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008 and TWO (2009). Nominated for a 2008 Pushcart, her online stories can be read atSmokelong Quarterly, Short Story America, Metazen, Night Train, Paradigm, andEmprise Review, as well as other publications. Her chapbook of short fiction, Pomegranate, came out in December of 2009. She’s a staff editor at SmokeLong Quarterly, edits EDF’s Flash Fiction Chronicles, and blogs at Words in Place.
Flash Fiction Chronicles is listed in the 2010 November/December issue of Writers' Digest as one of the 25 Best Online Consumer Magazine Markets for writers. 
This is an excellent post, Gay, and a topic I have not yet seen mentioned. It is so true. This is why a writer can’t wait to have it all done in his/her head before sitting down to write. It’s such a process, and that blank page is a scary one. It’s an amazing thing that happens during the writing process, when you discover what it is you’re writing about ~ the purpose ~ and it reveals itself. As you said, once you realize what it is, you need to go back and tend to it.
Excellent advice, Gay ~ thanks for sharing your insight.
Kathleen, you are such a wonderful support for me. Thank you for reading and getting it. It’s this comraderie between us writers, and the sharing of views into process that help us out when we get stuck…or think we’re stuck.
All I can say is that you have “arrived” at the introspective centre of your being and that all you need to do now is to continue with the endless exploration of the country of your mind – I’m not much different except I’ve found my long and arduous way to the same place through the pursuit of poetry
Thank you Stan. That inner part of us… yes, that’s where it all happens doesn’t it? But we don’t seem to get there unless we really spend time with the process. It took me a long time to realize that.
I think you’ll agree there are a multitude of reasons why a writer dives into an idea, hoping to come up with a 1,000-word gem. For me, I want to experience the discovery process, to find the end, to hear the punch line my subsconscious will uncover. That’s an ecstatic feeling.
I’ve heard that runners run because they’re addicted to the dopamine generated–a cheap high. That’s why this writer writes. And it’s legal.
It certainly is addicting. That little rise in the heart beat when I realize where I’m going, the lightness in my head, the excitement of knowing somehow out of nothing I made something that makes sense…at least to me. And then I try to make sure it makes sense to others too.
Good job, Gay! That creative process in the brainstorming/drafting cannot be short-circuited. You are so correct in writing to set what’s in your heart in that first draft. And as things connect with experience, a memory, an image,… then that magical theme emerges. I think it is safe to call it magical–the magic of the left-brain working with the right-brain.
John
Oh John, we are on the same wavelength. I have numerous lectures from teaching that talk about right and left brain duties when it comes to writing. You always make me feel smart.
I can think of a few stories that I thought I knew what they were about before I started writing. Too often my characters have other ideas and lead me to the real story after a rewrite to two. It is a process of discovery for me.
Jim, those characters always have a way of taking charge. And I love it when that happens. Then I know I’m doing my part.
I love the idea of the a-ha moment, Gay. Reminds me of haiku. I tend to write without knowing the purpose of a story, and let it unfold. It’s always there, you just have to let it come.
Isn’t that the greatest feeling, Deb. I tease my husband that it’s better than sex (but it’s not, well, almost. I don’t know….)
I personally am of the opinion that no real author in actuality knows what they are doing when they sit down to write.
This is I know a controversial statement but taken in the context of Id, ego, and super-ego, or even just in the light of conscious and subconscious though who really knows themselves that well.
Writing is like dreaming, sometimes when we cannot admit things to ourselves openly, we bring it out in our dreams or works symbolically.
Ever stopped typing and thought “Where the hell did that come from?” as a character you created in passing suddenly murders your main protagonist or comes out with the most profound aphorism you ever heard?
Ever passed a piece of writing to someone to read and they have gone red or white and mumbled something like “Did you really want me to read that.” Because they have seen in your work a reading you had no idea was there?
Ever gone back and read something you wrote years ago and refused to believe that you actually wrote it? Either because it is so good, so bad or so unlike who you thought you were.
For example a friend of mine who is now openly and proudly gay, once while still a happily married man, gave me a book he had written to read that was he said a treatise on the theme of loneliness. Reading it I found myself immersed in a desperate plea for understanding for people forced to live lives of sexual denial.
Years later he asked me if I had known he was gay before he did, I told him to go back and read that same book, shamefaced he admitted he had burned it because it disturbed him and he could not understand what it was about.
The text therefore I think is a battle ground between author and reader, even when more often than not both are the same person.
Rest assured id you are an artist and not just a wordsmith what you set out to write will never be what you end up with, even if you think it is.
Len, that’s for this. And thanks for all your continued support on the Genre Safari. Proud to have you as a fellow traveller.
I usually think I know what I’m writing when I sit down to write, probably because before I write I carry things around in my head for a very long time. Even so, the Muse frequently slips in something I didn’t expect.
Does a purpose have to be A Purpose? Can’t we just write to entertain? To explore an idea because it amuses us and we think it might work as a story and amuse others?
Interesting article, Gay. Food for thought.
Elizabeth
I agree that the purpose could be to entertain, to scare, to amuse, of course. Those are all emotionally based and emotions are the point. A story is just stronger when a writer is aware of this and makes certain he’s gotten all the fun he wants, all the fright he wants, all the laughs he wants. I guess what I really want to say to writers is to reread and edit with an awareness of the story inner essence.
Wonderful article about a key component of writing that is not discussed as much as it should be, IMO. My poetry teacher brought this up about poetry, that many interesting poems start out about one thing, then twist themselves around to mean something else at the end. I am just learning to apply this to short stories.
I recently started a story and, like many stories, it had a wonderful hook, some great lines, but was going no where. In my reading of other stories, I found the purpose of my SS. I changed only one phrase in what I had written to bring it around to its new purpose.
Thanks, Gay, for an article that makes us think about writing in a new way.
Thanks Sue, It really is all about looking at things a different way.
It’s so easy to get lost in the language of the story. That’s always been my problem, but a friend of mine a while back talked about “shifting perspective.” We were talking about REAL LIFE but her exact of tackling a problem by taking a minute to imagine yourself standing on the edge of a circle–maybe she said it was a pie–and that you are in one of the wedges of the pie. Look around. The view is a certain way. Everything is fixed. What kinds of questions would you ask yourself in this wedge? You’d ask about what you see, right? You’d wonder what was behind a certain tree maybe?
Now move over to the next wedge. Stand in it and look around. The tree is in a different location because you’ve changed your perspective. You can see something is behind that tree. You ask yourself now not what’s behind that tree, but rather what is that red shape peeking around the tree?
My point is this whole exercise for me helped me understand that you have to change what you are noticing in order to find out what’s going on. Change your perspective and ask different questions. That’s how I figured out I had to stop thinking about my pretty sentences and think about something else: theme, structure, motif, etc.
Great article, Gay. I am in total agreement with it, if we throw in Elizabeth’s “muse” portion. Sometimes something outside of me, a “muse,” slips in with their two or four bits. Some of my favorite writing was done at the will of the muse and not my own.
So what is the point, the aim? To placate myself and the muse, I suppose.
An unhappy muse is not what I want hanging around… oh… story idea… gotta run…
The Muse! Autumn, yes this is true. Sometimes there is this trance I get in–something flashes in my mind and I sit down and suddenly stuff just pours out, the muse on my shoulder. The questions I might have for the text are answered as I work. I don’t really know how or why, but I assume it’s someone or something whispering in my ear.
Thanks to you and Elizabeth both for engaging in this topic. It’s so important for writers to realize that each experience is different for each person writing and for each time they write.
Sometimes I know exactly what I will write about, but have no idea how I will get there. Most often though, I have no clue. I only kow that at that moment, I must write. A word has me spellbound, or several words strung together make my heart ache and the only relief will be found in the writing.
So I write, and when the first draft is finished, I read it though. I may say, Oh, that’s the theme!” Or I may be clueless until someone else reads it and asks, “Did you mean to say…?”
It’s all so internal and part of the life found in it is the exposition, the unveiling.
Yvonne, this whole process is so complex and almost impossible to write about. As soon as one statement is made, the writer recalls a different experience. That internal thing though, that’s why we do it because the unveiling is where we get the juice.
Interesting post, Gay.
Mind you, for myself, I prefer to work out theme etc. in the outline stage. If I can’t decide what that theme is, I tend to trunk the idea until I can figure it out (though more often than not, I never do.
I can’t say I never think about theme at the beginning because sometimes it’s the theme that comes as my inspiration, but I do try not to focus on it until I have a draft written, then I can better judge if it’s possible to actual create a story that says what I want it to say. But usually don’t know what the purpose is. Everyone has to work in their own way. That’s why it’s so hard to explain how one’s own process works and expect others to get it. It just isn’t that simple.