a personal manifesto

For a long time I have been talking (not on this site, but out there in the real world) about what sort of fiction I don't want to write in very concrete tewrms, and what I do want to writew about in very abstract terms. I think its time to firm the latter up.

But first, a caveat: this manifesto is for me, not you.

I have my own vision for what I want speculative fiction to be, but the world would be a very boring place if everyone just wrote what I advocated, What's more it would soon stultify and die. The life blood of speculative fiction (and really almost every creative endeavor) has to be change--mutation and evolution. New ideas must come along and the existing ones must react to them, develop from them, be in a dialogue with them, until they themselves become something different and are the new idea. With that in mind, I intend to revist this document about once a year, not only to see where I have succeeded and failed in my goals, but also to updaye it with any additional thinking I may (and hope to) have had.

So, please, takie thias as it is intended: a purely personal manifesto.

1. Everything that is in my stories will be there for a reason
This is the golden rule. When someone asks me why I did something, why I made a particular choice, I shall have an answer/ Asking "why" should be a critical element of the editing process. The answer "because its cool" is not good enough. Everything should served either to build on the themes of the story, or to move the plot forwards.

2. My stories will attempt to leave the world a better place than they find it
As I have stated before, the least a story should be is entertaining. This is the minimum point of success. Stories should move beyond the point of entertainment and also engage in a discussion of the world in which they exist. This world is far from perfect, there are many flaws, problems, and areas of misunderstanding. Stories should engage with these issues, raise awkward questions, expose unfairness, and, where applicable, suggest solutions.

3. My stories will be entertaining
While I have stated that this is the minimum point of success, stories do have to be entertaining in order to succeed. Boring stories fail. Of course, what is entertaining vs. what is boring is an ambiguous area. What I, personally, mean here is that my stories should contain conflict, action and resolution (the latter may well be open-ended but it will offer some sense of completion to the story). I am less and less interested in 3-Act structure and the monomyth, but I recognize the need for rising and falling action, and that I enjoyt stroies that contain these elements. While I strive to experiment with structure, if the story loses a sense of forward motion, then it is likely a failure.

4. My stories shall be clearly written and not confuse the crap out of the reader
This is not to say that I will abandon narrative structure, sentence structure, or language, or that I will abandon the depth of ideas for the breadth of appeal, simply that I shall regard these experiments as failures should they render the story and the ideas unintelligible to anyone except me. Stories are a frm of communication and should thus communicate their theme(s) and plot(s) as clearly as possible.

5. I shall push the language of my stories to be as poetic as possible
That said I am not interested in writing prose poetry. As much as I admire her work, I am not Catherynne Valente. Still, I want my stories to sound good when read aloud, the language to be rich and vibrant and to add to the reading experience. I want the languaged used to add to the emotional tone and meaning of what is written. And I want to do all that without sacrificing clarity.

6. The structure of the stories I tell shall refelect the themes of the story
The monomyth is increasingly less significant in the modern age. I shall not blindly fall back on three-act structure. Instead, the shape of the narrative should be influenced by, and attempt to reflect, the themes of the story.

7. I shall attempt to offer more questions than answers
To be honest, this is likely to be the hardest for me. My desire to influence the reader can lead to preachy endings, and, as I don't like reading that sort of thing, I don't see why I should inflict them on others. Instead of forcing my own opinions onto others I shall strive to simply get people thinking about issues, so that they can, at least, make up there own minds rather than simply accepting received wisdom.

8. When I create secondary worlds (and I shall) they shall exist as reflections of this world
Secondary worlds should not exist as places to which the reader can retreat to and escape from the real world. As previously stated, stories should deal with real world concerns. As an extension of this thought, and secondary world should reflect/mirror/be a metaphor for this world. It should be a tool with which to examine this world. The reflection, of course, will be imperfect. Certain aspects of this world will be distorted or warped to further develop the themes of the story. Otherwise why bother with a reflection?

9. I shall explore the use and updaying of mythic archetypes
While I am movinbg away from the monomyth as an archetype for stories, I am still interested in exploring mythic archetypes and seeing how they can lend power and width of appeal to a story. At the same time, they should should not be used purely for width of appeal, but should be explored for what they once signified and what they now signify, in order to add to stories depth of meaning.

10. I shall include stuff I think is cool
Steam powered suits of battle armour, cyborg monkey samurai, the word "behemoth"--hell yes. But at the same time, being cool will not be sufficient reason to include something in a story (see Rule 1). Still, whenever I can justify it, I will get my geek on.

11. My work shall not emulate or be derivative of Tolkein's work
I have no problem with TOlkein. I love his stuff and geeked out thoroughly to the Silmarillion. Yes, you heard me, the Silmarillion. What I take issue with is his cloying, clogging, stultifying legacy. I see no need to retread the ground which he so thoroughly covered. I will never write about anything with pointy frickin' ears.

moralizing, ambiguity and charles de lint

So I've been thinking about mythic structure. Two integral parts of this structure is that the hero learns a lesson (of course, this element is widespread in non-mythic stories), and that he/she brings back something (knowledge/an artifact) for the his/her society. These two elements ensure that most stories I write using this structure automatically have a slightly didactic quality to them. It certainly doesn't have to be the main element in the story but, overall, a lesson is learned by the protagonist. By extension, the story is teaching this lesson to the reader. And that's all fine and good. But...

What about when I don't have the answer?

Or when the answer is cloudy. What if its not an issue like racism, which has clearly defined moral boundaries. How does mythic structure deal with these topics? Do I have to make up an opinion I don't necessarily have?

One way round this is to have two storylines. Two characters could learn the opposite things and both come to similar fates, or they could both learn the same lesson and have totally opposite fates. Of course their fates are going to depend upon the type of society they enter so that would also play into the equation. In either example, it could easily be read as me making a moralistic statement about the two different societies. So, the two socieites have to be held equal. I worry that this would tend towards abitrariness.

And also, what if I want to have only one character?

Maybe here the ambiguity enters with the character's return to society - there is an ambiguous response to what the character has learned, and to what he's trying to teach. This would probably work better as it's the same society reacting to one lesson. But here the ambiguity is saved for the end. Still, it's a solution...

But it's not a solution inkeeping with what I see as the true intent of mythic work. The intent of mythic work does seem to be to provide some sort of solution, to provide a working answer for the issues in life. As soon as a story stops containing a message then it loses some of that mythic quality.

But is making a story mythic that important? The best I can do is this (long) quote from an interview with Charles de Lint:

JP: Since we're attending a conference on myth and imagination, why are those things important to today's society?

CdL: They're important because we don't have them in our lives. People nowadays grew up with, and the ideals that they have, are rock stars and super models and actors and sports figures. And they don't sustain the ideal because they're fallible. The characters of myth or the characters of legend are great ideals in terms of the right way to sort of live your life. Again, it goes back to that same thing about repercussions and how everything you do is gonna have an effect somewhere and so you should maybe pay attention to that. The idea of respecting everything that's around you, not just yourselves, your family, your friends, but also other people and the city you live in, your environment. To me, it's all connected. I find a connection in all that sort of stuff. And I find those kind of things in mythic stories a lot. I don't find it in the story of an actor addicted to heroin, or a sports figure who does these amazing feats then we find out that they were on steroids. I don't find that uplifting feeling in those kinds of stories. And because the old mythic stories are kind of getting far away from where we live, that's why it's fun to write new stories, new stories with a mythic feel that are set in the here and now. I get so much mail from people, or I go on a book tour, and people come up to me and they'll bring me a copy of my book Dreams Underfoot, for instance, and they'll say, "This is the book that got me through high school," you know, or "This is the book that got me through whatever," and it's very humbling, and it's a wonderful feeling to have, that you were able to help somebody you didn't even know, so indirectly. But it also reinforces that concept to me that the mythic material we're working with does have impact and does have some place in the modern world.

Now, I've just started reading some of de Lint's stories and I find them beautiful. They're hopeful. Not in a trite or contrived way, but in a simple, true way. They connect with the reader. And I think the above quote helps show the importance of mythic structure in writing.

Essentially, I believe that mythic stories comfort people. But at the same time, I enjoy reading ambiguous stories and I believe we live in an ambiguous world. They can ring more true and can reflect the world that surrounds us more accurately.

Comfort is a very important thing. Finding shelter in this world can be hard, and providing it in the form of literature is something I want to do. But at the same time I want to avoid the escapist notion that fuels so much of the Tolkein-lite crap that floods the fantasy/science-fiction shelves at book stores. de Lint manages, mostly, to provide comfort without the escapism, but he has little ambiguity.

So, again I am back to my initial problem: how to introduce ambiguity to mythic stories without undermining the shelter that they provide for people. It can't come at the end - that is where redemption lies, and to steal that is to steal the hope from the stories, and it is the hope that I find so enchanting in de Lint's stories. It must come before. It has to come during the struggle. It must be in the hero, in his problem, and in the forces that oppose him, exactly where it is in our lives.

some additional thoughts on the collective unconscious and also some new ones on the tarot

So I've been thinking more about the collective unconscious and I just can't imagine it being the result of some similarity in brain patterns, or some pool of collective psychic imagery. Rather, I have convinced myself that it must be some artifact of society. It is caused by society, rather than causing it. However, I also currently believe that it is an integral lynch pin of social human behaviour, and it allows society to continue to exist and to propagate.

The collective unconscious (there has to be a better term...) is then, I propose, a collection of the fundamentals of social existence. The archetypes and our relation to them is a universal bonding factor, something we can all relate to. This would explain the wide-ranging nature of these images. I have no idea if they appear in Eastern writings, and would actually expect them not to. I would pose that there are probably several collective unconscii (sp?) for cultures that developed with little interaction (e.g. East-West). My supposition would go so far to say that there are likely some areas of significant overlap (representing common ground between the two socities) but also some areas of significant departure.

The use of these collective images, images we can all relate to, in stories, art, etc. would therefore provide a certain glue, which holds society together. In my fictional writings, where I use mythic structure, I have noticed the stories become one of conformity. The hero, after his trials and tribulations comes to embrace the societal values that he formally ranted against. And, as I pointed out previously, the hero sacrifices himself (the individual) before he returns home to save society.

Thus mythic fiction is a force for society, against selfishness, and stimulating altruism. This is certainly not its only function, and I doubt the power of one individual piece, but as one, art using mythic tropes, tapping archetypes, acts to hold society together.

This sound all sorts of high and mighty but I think it may be true. It would certainly go some distance to explaining the creative urge. It would also explain the surprisingly positive response I have received to some of my stories (from friends and family only I would mention, I have only just submitted a piece for some more professional critique).

I am therefore going to continue to use mythic structure, and also to include more of these archetypes in my fiction. It strikes me that using fiction to try to knit society more tightly together, to increase the altruistic instinct is a decent goal in life.

But where to find guidelines on how to tap into the repository of images and thoughts that is the collective unconcious? Of course, by arguing that the collective unconscious is a universal feature of society, I am also bound to wander into the use of archetypes if I write unguided but I would prefer a more guided approach. However, Jung himself only mentions 4 archetypes (the self, the anima, the animus, and the shadow) and this is not enough to sustain fiction. Even when supplemented with other frequently mentioned archetypes (the mother, the mentor, the trickster, etc.) it seems there is more.

This is where I come to the Tarot. I want to make it perfectly clear up front that I don't believe that the Tarot can predict the future. That is new age, hippy bullshit--no more, no less. However, its reputation to do this impossible task is, I believe, tied into its relationship with the collective unconscious.

However old the Tarot is, it is pretty damn old. To have survived for so long it must be tapping into something pretty significant, and I am staking a hope on it being more than just human gullibility. People continue to find significance in these cards. A large part of this, certainly, is the human desire for causality. People look at the random assortment of cards and force connections to the situation they're contemplating. (Indeed, in this capacity, as long as the person using the cards is aware of this fact, I could see the Tarot actually being a useful way to examine a personal situation, rather than just as a way to fleece tourists out of $100). But, again I would point to the longevity of the cards. To have survived this long (at least 600 years according to wikipedia) they must have tapped into something pretty fundamental. Otherwise the old pictures would have lost their meaning centuries ago.

I would argue that the tarot is therefore a repository of the western collective unconscious.

It is therefore a perfect guide for creating fiction. I indeed to experiment with it's use as a tool to stimulate my creative juices. If you see my name up in lights in a few years, you'll know I was right.

the individual vs. society, and the collective unconscious

Are human beings social animals? We live in large collective groups and have complex rules for our social interactions. Also, our close biological relatives seem to frequently organised themselves into social groups. It would certainly seem so.

However, our entire experience of life is limited to our own headspace. Every human being is limited to their own, fundamentally ego-centric point of view. We can try to imagine what others are feeling, but only by imagining what we ourselves would experience in a similar situation. What's more, it is far easier to simply ignore what other people are feeling. We are conditioned by societies rules to not do this, but we all do it, and we do it frequently. It is an effort to put ourselves in someone else's shoes.

It is easier to be selfish than it is to be altruistic.

Indeed, biologically speaking, this makes sense. If we look ourselves over others we are more likely to survive and pass on our genes. Law of the jungle and all that. (This argument is of course more complex, for example there may be situations in which helping others helps us survive, but I would still point that our theoretical ancestor is only helping others here in order to help him-/herself).

So, again, I would state: it is easier to be selfish than it is to be altruistic.

This, to me, does not seem like the nature of a social animal. Now, maybe my definition of social is unnecessarily harsh but when I look at the world around me I believe that almost all the evil in it comes from people being selfish, from people ignoring the negative consequences of their actions on others.

Often, of course, we can't help but hurt some in order to help others but I would argue that the moral position here would be to ensure that the majority benefit, and the minority is hurt. A truly social animal would even hurt themselves if the majority benefited.

This rarely happens.

So, by my argument so far: We are selfish by nature and it is from this that "evil" originates in the world.

I seem to have wandered dangerously close to something akin to original sin. At the very least, this line of argument seems to state that all people are integrally evil. And I'm not sure I believe that. It may be true, but I want to try to convince myself that it is not. After all, the majority of people do not seem to be comporting themselves in an evil manner. As I stated at the opening of this ramble we live in large collective groups (sometimes numbering in the millions) and we tend to survive. Evil happens, but it is the minority. There is a social instinct.

Where does it come from?

Before I enter tenuous territory, there are some obvious places that should be mentioned. Most importantly: we are more likely to survive if we all agree to certain social rules. If we load certain actions with a moral aspect, that society punishes, then they are less likely to happen, and the majority more likely to survive.

However, existence is possible in a fractured anarchistic, everyone out for themselves, environment, so, again, where does this social urge come from? If it is easier to see from our own point of view, why do we look from others? What makes us want to do as we are done by?

Here is the tenuous territory: the collective unconscious. I, personally, have significant doubts about the collective unconscious. It doesn't fit with my hard-won preconceptions about the world at all. However, the evidence is there. There are undeniably universal themes and archetypes, not only in world mythology, but in how we construct our own lives. These themes and archetypes are still important today. They have been transmogrified certainly, but they are still here.

Of particular interest, I think, is the hero archetype - the archetype that stands at the centre of the story, the archetype that we aspire to. The hero is defined by sacrifice. He sacrifices himself, an individual, in order that society benefits. That is why we call people like firemen and policemen heroes: they put themselves in danger so that society benefits.

So, I would suggest that the collective unconscious is, at least partly, responsible for the social urge in humans. What this answers, however... I don't know. The collective unconscious seems to be a symptom rather than a cause. Or maybe it is just a more fundamental expression of the social urge. Whatever... there must be a cause for the collective unconcious. I don't know what this is. Maybe it is something similar in the make-up of our brains. Or maybe it is a creation of society itself, a story made up by one randomly occuring collective that allowed it to survive and propagate. I don't know.

But it is there, and maybe by exploring it, it will be possible to find out a little bit more about that terminal case we call the human condition.