Is it true that you can't force a novel? >What if I

what?

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You ever notice how it's easy to get your idea across if you're talking to someone you know? That's because you know your audience, and can communicate your idea in a manner that best suits them. You know their qualms, their feelings, their stances on a variety of things, and with these things in mind, you unconsciously construct your story for them with those qualms, feelings, stances in mind. Consider them pathways, or a maze of sorts through which you traverse on the way to making your point.

When, however, you're writing on a word doc, on a white sheet of paper and you have no concrete audience in mind, consequently you also have no pathways through which or around which your mind has to unconsciously traverse. You're left with an idea and no way of knowing the best way to communicate it.

My advice is to internalize an audience, perhaps only a friend, or your mom, or your professor, or a historical figure. Whoever it is, you must know them well. You must have battled with them, and lost and won some of those battles; you must have experienced some instances in which they were left confused by what you said, or unconvinced (depending on what your goals in writing are), and you must have experienced some instances in which they got it, in which they were convinced.

Let me give you an example with pic related in mind. When I play pool, I don't aim down the stick at the cue ball in such a way that it will hit the 8-ball (let's say) at the angle I want. No. I imagine in my head hitting the 8-ball at the exact spot I want WITH THE STICK. I do this all the while I'm aiming at the cue ball, but because my focus is entirely on the 8-ball, my body unconsciously positions itself in such a way on the cue ball that I end up hitting the 8-ball where I want.

In short, what I'm saying is don't focus on WHAT you're writing. Focus instead on your audience. Make sure they're alive right there in front of your mind as you're writing. This is what you do when you SPEAK anyway. Think about this. Do you really rehearse what you want to say in your head, and then say it? Maybe when you're in class, you do, but then you know that what you do end up saying sounds contrived and you're never satisfied with your performance. When are you satisfied with your performance. Chances are it's when you're having an interesting conversation with a good friend, when--because they're a good friend--you can focus entirely on them instead of partly or entirely on your own thoughts, on what you should say and how to say it.

Likewise, with writing, let your mind do the work of constructing the message on it's own while you focus on an audience.

why bother reading someone who couldn't even live with himself. the only sincere moment in the life of David Foster wallace was when he kicked away the chair. the rest of his life was a lie, the new sincerity was a joke whose punchline was the creaking of a leather belt around the rafter.his literary career was a menagerie of self help lies told to keep his depression at bay. the audience pussy and drugs were the ghosts at that feast of hypocrisy. the depression was warranted because behind all the gimmicks and the self awareness and the bandannas was no discernible talent

>>9751472

eh I still liked Infinite Jest

>>9751453
Very interesting post, thank you anon

>>9751453
This post is completely wrong but people will agree with it because it has an agreeable TedTalk tone and a pool picture.

It's much easier to get ideas across by writing them down than by talking to an audience. It's much easier to understand ideas by reading them than listening to them.

The only thing your post proves is that you will get a portion of idiots agreeing with anything (or thinking they arrived at some enlightened understanding) if you superficially adjust your message so as to cater to them.

>>9751644
Now I want to die...

>>9751644
Everyone else will get duped by my post, but not you. Yes, yes, but why was that something you needed to communicate in your response? Why did you need to add, "oh, and by the way I'm better than you all," on the way to letting everyone know you disagree? Did it help your point, or just your ego...in an anonymous forum. It would be pathetic enough to see your post on facebook, but the fact that you wrote it on an anonymous board...well, you belong here. As do I, desu, because I recognize I'm being petty, too.

>It's much easier to get ideas across by writing them down than by talking to an audience. It's much easier to understand ideas by reading them than listening to them.
How does one discern whether your own message is clearly stated? Ok, you wrote it down, and now you're looking at it. It certainly makes sense to you, but that's because you already know what you want to say. Those ideas in your head which you're exporting onto the text in those moments when you re-read it, and which help make sense of it, are not necessarily in the mind of your audience. This is why you overlook spelling and grammatical mistakes when you re-read your own stuff. Your eyes glance over the text and perceive not the text itself, but what you yourself intend with it. And so you overlook small grammatical errors, and spelling mistakes, as well as some background info which would have been useful.

Without asking someone else to judge your writing, doesn't one necessarily have to, in a sense, judge it from the perspective of someone else? Someone who is not familiar with your ideas, someone who doesn't have all that background knowledge you've left outside the text without the context of which the text fails to carry the message.

My point is that by having internalized the perspective of someone you know, you are better able to evaluate your writing both after you jotted something down, and as you're jotting it down. But to know what to write next, after having postulated some new idea, for instance--whether you need to clarify that new idea, whether you should add an example, what sort of example, the choice of words to use, the tone of voice, etc.,--requires that you know your audience and their limitations.

I don't explain my thoughts about Nietzsche in the same way to my undergrads as I do to my grad school friends. The message may, more or less, be the same, but how I get it across is different. Yet, as I'm explaining the ideas to various audiences, there is no inner monologue planning things out. I don't take a second to think how much I may need to simplify the point, what aspect I should emphasize, what technical term I should linger a bit on, etc. It just comes out as it does.

The mind is a radio which gets tuned by the audience with which it speaks. A radio that's not attuned (by an audience) will produce only static, gibberish.