The Big Picture

I see psychological fiction focussing more on the thoughts, feelings, emotions and motivations of the characters than the external elements.  I focus on the interior as a way to highlight the human condition.  So far, I have eliminated any exterior aspects of narrative for Humanity’s Rage and The Malady of Love and have minimised it for Distortion.

The Malady of Love is the purest psychological fiction out there, unadulterated by the external and totally focussed on the internal.  It is a book of the interior in which the reader does not escape from the minds of the characters.

Furthermore, Distortion attempts to focus on the physical aspects of life through the internal thoughts, feelings and emotions of the two characters which are conveyed through the dialogue.  Basically, the physical representations of the interior via dialogue.

In all cases, the dialogue is the journey

Dialogue represents a conversation between two or more characters.  It moves the story forward.  By stripping out the exteriority (descriptions of time, place and person) it leaves the interior to be expressed through dialogic means rather the conveying it, for example, through mood by describing the weather and the darkness of skies.

Humanity’s Rage is essentially it is a monologue and a raw piece of early innovation.   Although the reader is not engaged in a ‘conversation’, they are part of it through active listening.  Where one character is talking the other is listening.  The reader thus becomes the second character albeit not within the text.

I also wanted to indicate the character’s frame of mind through the manner in which the dialogue is expressed and not merely from content.  Sometimes this may seem as outlandish and frenzied, but it nevertheless illustrates the rage through the voice.

For all the works, when one gets used to the rhythm and pattern of the dialogue and focus on what is being said, one begins to be drawn into the dialogue as if you are not separate from it.  You are there, not part of it, but involved. 

This style enriches the understanding of the characters and creates an intimacy for the reader where the pieces of the puzzle begin to build a picture in which the discovery comes from within the dialogue.

From my humble background, I make no pretence to know anything about art but when we look at a new piece of visual art for the first time, say a cubist painting or an abstract work, we mentally adjust or accommodate our existing understanding to the visual stimuli to see if we can find some resonance or meaning for us so that we can appreciate the work. The moment we redesign the written formula of a novel we no longer seek to want to do the mental work to find a meaning or resonance to it. Without description our enjoyment becomes less, not because what is being read is not understandable, but, because we do not want to adjust our expectations of the written word. Hence why being spoon-fed seems to be more important in the written world. This may have to do with the way we are taught, usually one way and only to pass an exam. Where would the literature of stream of consciousness be today? I presume that it would still be trying to get published.

I seek not to analyse why the written and visual worlds are different but there seems to be greater number of movements within the non-literary art world than within it, perhaps indicating more flexibility and tolerance. 

I hope to offer the reader a relationship to ‘what’ is being said, both in terms of the psychological and emotional, and not the context (i.e. the physical environment) it is said in.  For books that describe Africa remain in Africa by their ambience.  Books that use names fix these names to a particular country — a French man reading a Russian name will know that the language of the name is one step removed from him.  Indeed, this same alienation can be applied to the description of characters.  I would thus like the reader to fill in their own elements and focus on the ‘what’ that is being said.

I am aware, though, true portability can never be attained as the language that is used today will be outdated tomorrow.

I use some degree of artifice in the language to amplify and to also cushion the impact of some difficult themes, such that the artifice runs in unison with the themes rather than exacerbating them.  From the frenzied use of language in Humanity’s Rage to the more haunting, rhythmic style in The Malady of Love and, to a lesser degree, the use of language in Distortion, which is complemented by the imagined or artificial elements of the set pieces.

I wanted to obliterate the narrative voice in The Malady of Love by having the same voice for both the characters. Ideally the single point of differentiation I wanted was to be in the ‘what’ that was being said between the characters: one person’s story being different from another’s.  However, this might have become too difficult to follow as a character in a later chapter may reference a sentence that was said in an earlier one. I, therefore, placed the female voice in italics, to help differentiate the two. Without a change in the tone of their voice, an enormous burden is placed on the reader.

I continued with the character differentiation in Distortion.

I elected to use a self-declarative emotional or ‘confessional’ style of dialogue for the characters, which is similar to the therapeutic arena where the Socratic dialectical approach can be observed.  The dialogue is in no way trying to emulate a therapy session nor should the characters be seen to be in therapy.  In therapy, apart from co-counselling, there should be no disclosure by one member of the dyad, i.e. the therapist. In my work, The Malady of Love and Distortion, all characters disclose to each other.

Some therapeutic techniques, such as Sensate Focus Therapy and use of Masks, have been used as vehicles for the journey in Distortion.

Dialogue only has often been compared to a play.  However, for theatre, there usually are stage direction or scene set up instructions.  I proffer none of these.  Thus, one challenge would be to blend the actions and scenery into the dialogue, sometimes using chapter headings to identify the scene.  However, I am not satisfied with my use of chapter headings as these are used for purely for the reader and then only to give some sense of anchoring.

One of the key challenges in writing about a relationship is tackling scenes of intimacy – a space that is not consumed with verbal expressions.  This challenge was overcome by the positioning of the voice: a storyteller in The Malady of Love then as co-creation in Distortion.  The former involved one character whispering in the ear of the other what intimacy would involve, thus creating an intimate scene though a desired approach.  In Distortion I use the concept of a third voice, co-created by the two protagonists to replace an over-critical judgemental voice (of the world) with their non-judgemental voices to affirm their dignity and humanity of their private space.