The impulse to write, to create, is different for each individual author. Though they may appear to be similar on the surface, the inspirations of those who create stories on paper have unique origins. Science Fantasy author Hal Duncan delves into his own inspirations and creative drive to share with Suite101 his own reasons for why he writes fiction.
Suite101: Why do you write? What is the impulse, the motivation?
Hal Duncan: That aesthetic impulse – I think it's more than just writing for yourself, writing the stories you want to read. It's more even than writing the stories that you think others would want to read. At heart, I think, it's about writing the stories that want to be written. What does that mean?
With non-fiction writing - reflective journals and philosophising notebooks - here's a large extent to which writing is a mechanism for figuring things out, thinking a situation through. You start with your raw experiences and your vague notions and you thrash them out in the writing, seek to *make sense* of reality. Just stop and consider the meaning of that phrase "make sense" for a moment. Is this is the fabrication of meaning or the fabrication of sensation? Isn't it ultimately both?
You're crafting a wholly new experience, a subtly-shaped stream of words that will flow through the reader's mind as they're read, integrated into their awareness. You're shaping a sensory experience for them. And hopefully that experience - the reading of the text - will convey what you're trying to say, articulate those raw experiences and vague notions into some relevant perspective on the world- focused, organised, encapsulated. How far is the process of making that sensory experience actually a sort of... navigation towards resolution?
With fiction writing the same process is in play, I think. For me the incredible potential of fiction is that we can make sense of things figuratively, in narrative, that we might be completely incapable of getting our heads round in the straight representations of an essay. You can make sense of the absurdity of war to some extent with non-fiction, but to really make sense of it maybe you need a Catch-22 or a Slaughterhouse Five. I mean, yes, we want to entertain - ourselves or others - with the rollercoaster ride of narrative dynamics, but for me the underlying drive is the desire to make the story manifest as a clear articulation.
A focused, organised, encapsulated perspective. It may not even be "my" perspective. A story idea, fantastic or otherwise, is a vague notion of something that could be said about the world, an intuition of relevance in a conceit. Problem, situation, the try/fail loop - it's all about navigating your way towards the resolution, working through the logic. Making sense of that intuition. And that logic may lead you in a direction you wouldn't have chosen if it wasn't for the fact that you realise, as you write it, that it makes sense.
You might end up with a thematics that's entirely at odds with your worldview, a downbeat ending with a message you really don't agree with. But that's the story that follows from the idea. It's the story that wants to be told, the best possible use of the raw material. So why do I write? I guess it's like everything I experience I want to make sense of, and I have the entirety of the English language as a big box of Lego bricks I can use to try and do so. How could I resist?
Read More of Suite101's Conversation With Hal Duncan HERE
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