~~the artist in the art, and why it's important to have the love, baby.

[reenka]

so i'm thinking about the fact that out of all the smallville fic out there that i've read (not -that- much, but still), the only writer who makes me fall in love with them and -want- to read about them is thamiris. and the thing that strikes me the most, when thinking of her, is just how much -she- loves them, how blindingly clear that is. and that maybe this love (and love-based understanding) for characters is essential to me, for my own enjoyment of the fic. i mean, definitely, a distant narrator and an unsentimental style can win me over also-- but really, the best stories of that type rely heavily on emotion as well-- just, supressed, sublimated emotion. they -imply- rather than -evoke- directly.

so maybe i'm just extremist in that i want my fiction to be mainly an emotional outlet for me, and i respond best to things where i feel that emotion informing the narrative. i feel that affectionateness, that lightness and ease, that -investment-. i don't mean that it's within the romance, but within the meta level, where you feel the attitude and path the author is taking with their own characters. that's similar to the way silvia and aja and ivy and maya make me adore h/d-- right along with them. that's blatantly clear, even though i couldn't pin it down, in anything they write. just, that -presence-, that sense of emotional weight.

i don't know, really, if my own love for harry & draco seeps into my fic. some of it, i think. i mean... i think it's more evident in the fluff, really. i seem to either write snarky fluff or really angry smutty angst. gar. i think the trick for that "love" button is (for me) humorous drama with smutty bits. heh.
    it seems obvious, i guess. if you don't love the characters, you're not likely to understand them as intimately. love-- i don't mean some shallow interest, i mean, love-- breeds understanding, i think. at least it does for a large number of writers, anyway. i don't know about "real people"-- i'm tempted to say in general, true love breeds understanding, but i'm sure a lot of people would argue with me.

i think a failure of understanding is really a failure of love.


and yet. it's so easy to brush over things, make the characterization in the story smoother, more sympathetic, in fiction-- especially fanfiction, which is all an act of character worship, a lot of the time, basically (it's just-- people worship different ideals, and what's ideal to one person is just painful to another).
    it's often said that to write a "true" draco or harry, you'd have to let go of your need to make him sympathetic.

so many people have called for pathetic-loser!draco, one closer to canon, someone who's unlovely, someone whom harry wouldn't necessarily like even when they're together. no one really says such things about harry-- we assume his basic character is basically lovely. pairing them together is... well... an act of perversion as well as idealism, really, in a way.

interestingly, in olympia's `shining prince' series-- both harry & draco are re-made into both loveliness and unloveliness. harry never dislikes draco, really, in `the shining prince'. the argument could be made that he dislikes himself, much more than draco. he can't really face love, or face himself, or face draco for that matter. draco is the artist-- he can face things without facing them. he can be honest and lie at the same time. he can look inside himself and see all the things he's doing wrong, and do them anyway. his self-reflection is a work of living art, sort of-- the lists, the diary-keeping. he lives two lives, and so does harry-- so does everyone. and the two never meet except in what art they could find within themselves to create, and in those rare moments of shared, expressed love.

while i can see this, i am still uncomfortable with it, and that is just me being honest. it makes me squirm. sure, i like unlikeable!draco-- as long as he's unlikeable -my- way. as soon as he's unlikeable in another way, i balk and sputter and start to have second thoughts. this sort of places me within the fic, actually.

but anyway.
     what was my point, again? i think i contradicted myself a few times. i like characters to be likeable my way and unlikeable my way, and basically i like things to go my way (big surprise). but yes. likeable or not, i think a great writer can make you invested in the fic, can make you entranced and possessed, because -they- are invested. it's like ishuca says-- she can always tell when i had fun writing a fic-- because those are the good fics, the ones i had fun with, and the good bits -within- a fic, if it's uneven. and it's true. my better work is my most sincere work, whether is plot-driven or a plot-what-plot or an angsty, pointless ficlet. the flow and the quality of writing itself seems to change. like, that pwp that people said seemed better-written than some of my stuff? well, i -really- had fun writing it. heh. it wrote itself, practically. i just saw it-- like a movie in my head. i was just writing it down.

when i push and prod and -try- to come up with something, it tends to reflect on the quality of the piece -and- people's reactions to it. if a fic really seems "sent" from... i dunno, the "muse", or my heart or what have you-- it flows better, the characters are more alive, there's more humor and love and distinctiveness. that's also why i say i can "feel" the writer in my favorite fiction and why i sort of develop a sort of strange relationship with the writer through the story. if it's intense, flowing, -real-, then it seems to resonate with the artist's touch. i know it's true of my own writing, and i don't mean that in any autobiographical, obvious way. it's not that i'm mary suing draco, necessarily, and it's not that i'm writing out my own fantasies and ideals. i am simply channeling emotion, and feeling out the edges of what might be considered truth. and in the end, it's my truth, because it passes through me. certainly it's not what's commonly referred to as "Truth", or even commonly thought of as possession of something, as in, "i possess this truth". i've argued over this with ishuca a lot, eheheeh.

i always want to be able to see the artist in the art. i believe that art is what it is -because- of the artist, and they're inseparable, really. art=artist=artwork, in a self-feeding loop. maybe it's just that i've been reading too much (or any) heidegger, i don't know. it's just-- they're all expressions of each other-- the artwork of the art, the artist of the art, the artwork of the artist. any artwork or conception of art itself removed from the artist seems... like a lie, or at best a barren sort of truth. you can point at say, a school-desk-- placed in a museum-- and say it's art, and many people will believe you. but it's not the -desk- that's the art. it's the intention and emotion behind the desk's construction and placement within its environment that's the art-- that mark of the artist. sigh. and now i've managed to sound way too pompous to be allowed to live. ahahahah. yes well, at least i don't take myself -too- seriously, except i've had too much sugar and. um. yes, excuses, excuses, i know -.-

... i should really have an icon for, `ponderous', shouldn't i ....
~~

and for everyone who (doesn't) care -
my reaction to last night's buffy:

guh! guh!
argh! argh! ARGH! nooooooo. *sniffle* wah.
THEY ARE SO EVIL... they can't do this to my widdle spikey-kins
*siiiigh*
*relief*
oh yes. i um... liked the flashbacks. ahahaha, oh, the glories of jossification >:D< *dances*

Comments

a long reply...

[starlitefaerie.livejournal.com]

I think you're completely right, that you need to feel/see the artist in their art because otherwise there is something phony about it, something that doesn't ring true. it's like, a person can write the same cliched plotline as everyone else, but it's all about what they bring to that cliche- the energy and emotion that they can put into the piece.

you can point at say, a school-desk-- placed in a museum-- and say it's art, and many people will believe you. but it's not the -desk- that's the art. it's the intention and emotion behind the desk's construction and placement within its environment that's the art-- that mark of the artist. sigh.

Yes! Completely. Art is subjective and so dependant on the emotions behind it. Like, some fanfics are written beause the author maybe wants to imagine Harry&Draco having sex and that's all- they'd never written before in their life, never had the desire, but they want to give it a go now so they can visualize and reread the two boys having sex. And you can tell about those stories because there is no emotion there, not really, just a lot of- well. Not very well-written smut, just a lot of profanity and the movements of sex but not the genuine desire and longing and affection that goes into it. Very basic stuff. Whereas I, for example, can't go a day without writing something, even if only a paragraph in the notebook I carry with me everywhere. I view the world in a way so that I can write about it later, I take notice of details that can make the worlds my characters inhabit more real. I think in poetry, a lot of times, I let emotions reveal themselves in short bits of prose in my head. I would guess, by reading your stories and lj and the like, you view the world somewhat like that as well.

Okay, I have just posted much too long a reply in your journal now. You got me babbling too. And it's early and my head hurts so none of that may make sense to you. If it doesn't- sorry.

Re: a long reply...

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

oh yah, it totally made sense to me~:)
i do babble/write/think like that, like all the time. i mean, i don't know if any of it makes sense either, so i'm always v. relieved when it does, to like, -anybody-. i mean. not that it matters in terms of-- i'll babble anyway, but. it's nice to be "on the frequency". some... sane, sort of frequency.

heh. but like... all this has been argued a lot in my aesthetics class, so i feel like a dork claiming it so blatantly, but eh. although, i was talking about more complex cases-- not just, badfic vs goodfic-- but fic that makes me fall in love vs fic that doesn't, both written by talented authors.

it just seems like i can sense the emotion and it transmits itself. but some people don't need it and are looking for something else, so i dunno.
but yes, i can't go without scribbling -something-, whether art or prose or what have you. i think it's a tick, really >:D