So, it comes down to what I call "authorial blinders". It's hard for me to have a clear perspective on my own work. The surprise at the end of the chapter isn't much of a surprise to me, since I've written it, re-written it, and read it three dozen times over. I can appreciate a nice turn of phrase or a clever bit of dialogue in my own fiction, but I see them "through a glass darkly". Then I read someone else's story, and it's all fresh and new, and the language jumps out at me, and I think, Wow! I want to make people feel like this when they read my fiction. Apparently, some people do feel like that when reading my stories. The paradox is that I can't read through their eyes.
You've captured so perfectly here the feeling I think just about any writer has, both in respect of their own work and of the work of writers they admire. I can name off the top of my head several writers whose work makes me react like that: dameruth, dark_aegis, rallalon (particularly with her At Thirty Paces series), to name just a few. And, of course, yourself.
And, no, we can't see our own work in that same light. The element of surprise is rarely there because, of course, we tend to know what's coming. We know if character A will be a villain, or if character B is going to make a decision that will shock readers (even if it makes perfect sense to us, because we've laid the threads leading to that decision, but often in a way that only makes sense to the reader in retrospect).
I think this could be a really interesting discussion and, with your permission, I may post about it on my own LJ :)
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branchandroot
Re: Rambling about writing and writers -- LONG
Date: 2008-10-01 10:35 pm (UTC)You've captured so perfectly here the feeling I think just about any writer has, both in respect of their own work and of the work of writers they admire. I can name off the top of my head several writers whose work makes me react like that:
And, no, we can't see our own work in that same light. The element of surprise is rarely there because, of course, we tend to know what's coming. We know if character A will be a villain, or if character B is going to make a decision that will shock readers (even if it makes perfect sense to us, because we've laid the threads leading to that decision, but often in a way that only makes sense to the reader in retrospect).
I think this could be a really interesting discussion and, with your permission, I may post about it on my own LJ :)