Personal, Intentional, Effectual

I know this doesn’t have much to do with Thanksgiving (a topic seemingly quite popular this week among the other blogs I follow) but that will come, I promise. I’m going to step perhaps far out of the bounds of popular authors today, and more fully develop some thoughts I’ve discussed before. It has to do with author intention.

As I’ve sort of discussed before, there are two tracks I hear authors taking these days: 1, the “my characters usually end up telling me what the story is about” approach; and 2, the “I just write what I know I’d like to read” approach. Now, the second one might simply be a different way to couch the language I’m about to use; but I’ve never heard an author say: “I write so that my readers will understand what I’m trying to say.”

Now, there are some particulars that must be hashed out. What might the writer be trying to say, for instance? Are they just writing a story? Because, see, the first two approaches seem rather haphazard, like throwing darts blindfolded, or with precise aim at a covered target: “I know what I like; hopefully there’s some others who will like it too.”

But what makes great literature last so long? Is it because it’s just so well-written? Lovers of Dickens may say so; those with more modern tastes would disagree. Is there just a large enough contingent of Dickens lovers to keep him alive? Or is there something in his stories that does still speak to who we are as humans, even if his prose is difficult? I would argue the latter.

And how many Presidential speech writers, do you think, write the State of the Union, or any other address by the President, with the thought in mind: “Well, I know what I want to hear; hopefully the rest of America wants to hear it too”? I hope you answer none of them.

But should literature boil down to rhetoric? I hope you answer hesitantly “no.” And it shouldn’t; it’s literature. So it shouldn’t be as bold-faced as rhetoric. But I do believe the great writers had just as great an agenda as current rhetors, whether they admit it outright or not. They see something about human life wherever they are that they either agree or disagree with, and they write about it.

I can imagine this isn’t a popular notion – but I also believe most works today won’t survive past my generation. The ones that I believe will are the ones that also most clearly follow this thought-pattern. Twilight has certainly struck a chord in today’s society: do you think it’ll survive the test of time?