#BTColumn – On writing fiction

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Jade Gibbons

This week’s article will be looking at what it is to write fiction. It will touch on concepts such as voice and the place of truth in fiction.

It will look at how one’s nationality affects the type of fiction produced and the writing process. Finally, it will touch on the issue of politics in fiction.

Al Alvarez in The Writer’s Voice states that imaginative literature is about listening to a voice and that voice is a vehicle by which an author expresses his aliveness.

People write because it is their way of being heard. For some, it is the way that they can best express themselves.

So, if writing is the expression of an individual, then that individual does not necessarily seek to tell lies. Instead, they are looking for themselves, their imagination, their dreams, their ambitions.

They are searching out the things that whisper in their ears and intrigue their cerebral membranes. The genesis of this uncharted exploration of the frontal lobe does not lie in a desire to mamaguy but in a desire to uncover that which is entangled in the labyrinth of the subconscious.

Therefore, its product is not the presentation a fallacy, but the promulgation of the treasures unearthed. Like an archaeologist who displays his findings in an exhibition, the author reveals his discoveries.

Additionally, one school of thought on fiction holds to the notion that an author’s work is linked specifically to said author’s nationality. What, therefore, would make a story uniquely Caribbean? Kenneth Ramchand in The West Indian Novel & its Background states that ‘Caribbean authors apply themselves with unusual urgency and unanimity to an analysis and interpretation of their society’s ills including the social and economic deprivation of the majority; the pervasive consciousness of race and colour; the cynicism and uncertainty of the native bourgeoisie in power after independence; the lack of a history to be proud of; and the absence of traditional or settled values.

Caribbean authors write about the whole society. They are involved in the quest for national and personal identity.’ Being a pluralistic region whose inhabitants are all in ancestral exile, what makes the work uniquely Caribbean is that the author ‘sets out to visualise a fulfilment, a reconciliation in the person and throughout society, of parts of a heritage of broken cultures.’

This being established, there is a fundamental difference between marking coherent words on paper and actively crafting intellectual discourse. The latter takes time, effort, and consideration.

Time, being the invisible fourth dimension which binds all humans to mortality, is never seen by readers as it is the area with which they least concern themselves.

No one cares if an author spends hours, perhaps days, combing through articles and books to ground his thought in scholastic works and proven conceptual frameworks.

No one sees it. They do however have an innate ability to perceive its absence.

Write garble and a simpleton will be able to identify the fickle constructs of the assertions. Time, it marches on; never ceasing to consume the ships of men. Effort is a vigorous or determined attempt. This means that something is
required of you.

This something being a great release of intentional work. Work here being that application of knowledge and skill in a direct manner to a specific task. Anything that is worth reading requires some effort. Anything that is ‘effortless’ is effectively empty.

Consideration is a simplification of the notion that nothing is written, only rewritten. Some argue though that prewriting can be reviewed as an act of rewriting and consideration is integral in the accomplishment of both.

One must consider what he is doing to preconceive it and in preconception is the ability to reconceive before the application of effort.

Finally, all fiction requires a certain amount of verisimilitude for it to be palatable to the reader. The characters and their conflict must be believable for the reader to invest their emotional and imaginative capacity in them. To accomplish this an author therefore needs to ground his characters in the reality that he understands.

It is therefore inevitable that the work produced will have some recognisable social and political aspects which the author uses to make the world he has created seem true.

This does not necessarily mean that his work must champion a political agenda. The author’s primary aim should be creating a piece which takes the reader on a journey.

Jade Gibbons is an arts and business graduate with a keen interest in social issues and film-making.