✍️ Our Job as Writers
Or, the Joy of Things That Aren’t There
Have you ever tried to make a list of things that aren’t there?
I know. It’s a weird question. I tried making that list – just now, as of this writing. You quickly realize that not only is that an impossibly infinite list, it makes you question what really is there.
The reason I got onto this skewed topic is that I have been watching a documentary on Joy Division, the 1970s punk/post-punk band that eventually became New Order. In places, the documentary features overlaid type – chyrons I think they’re called in the biz – with titles like “Things that aren’t there. No. 3 – The Factory”. I don’t know what those titles mean.* But the idea gripped me: Things that aren’t there. What a wonderful, paradoxical, whimsical turn of phrase!
I’ll diverge quickly to say that I’ve always been fascinated by the New Order/Joy Division story. I borrowed heavily from them and Factory Records while creating some promotional material for my heretoforever unpublished novel, which you can see on the record label in the banner of this post.
I like the lore and ethos of the band at least as much as I do their music.
For example, at one point they show a clip from a live concert, grainy and oversaturated with distorted sound. The lead singer Ian Curtis is chanting a single line, over and over again (I’m not sure if it’s his voice or the recording, but he sounds a lot like Jim Morrison in this clip): “So take a chance and say you tried. So take a chance and say you tried.”
Seems almost cliché, doesn’t it? Yet, somehow fresh at the same time. And wow – that kind of sums up my whole philosophy to writing.
Which is probably part of the reason why I wanted to try to make my own list of things that aren’t there: it’s a fun challenge. But I quickly got bogged down. In a way, it’s like trying to prove a negative. How can you say, for example, that aliens don’t exist? How can you say that upside down volcanoes don’t exist? How can you say that the colour rumple doesn’t exist? How do you prove that?
Besides, it’s a big universe – or a big multi-verse, if you’re an orthodox physicist. Maybe everything on this list of mine does exist, but I just haven’t seen them yet.
And then my mind took another curious turn. What if they exist simply because I imagined them? Mordor doesn’t exist – at least, not as a place you can fly on Air Canada for a two-week, all-inclusive vacation. But don’t tell JRR Tolkien’s millions (billions?) of readers that Mordor isn’t real. He’s written at least five books that prove otherwise. One is even sub-titled, “There and Back Again.” You can’t go “there” if there’s no “there” to start with!
What definitively exists and doesn’t exist in the world is for philosophers and psychiatrists to debate. But creating the list of things that aren’t there and making them seem real – that’s our job.
At the very least, we need to take a chance and say we tried.
Over to You
Do you feel that the worlds and characters and stories you create are real? Why or why not? What’s the difference between reading about someone we never met walking the Camino, a place we’ve never been, and a hobbit walking to Mordor with a magic ring? Let us know in the comments below!
Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!
~Graham
*I’ve since learned – and this may have been obvious to you – that the list of Things That Aren’t There are places they showed in the documentary that have since been demolished. Perhaps “Things That Aren’t There Anymore” would have been clearer. But then, it wouldn’t have sparked this post… lol
email me if you get lost.
I have fallen in love with three different men in stories I have written. I dream about them. I remember things we have done together. They are real if I say they are real.
I wrote a period novel (1949) about a place in the California foothills that is not found on any map, but the town and characters are absolutely real to readers who have immersed themselves in "Bartle Clunes". They often tell me so. Just saying.
Things that aren't there ... people who don't exist ... I confess that my characters often feel more real than some people I know, and I certainly want to spend more time with them than with a few boring acquaintances - although the time pressures of writing with regularity have made me drop a bunch of time wasters. If anything, fiction makes me more selective in life!