On Writing

Recently, I read a review of a book that was critical of it because the story contained too many trigger warnings. I was ignorant of the phrase, possibly because it is a hot topic more within the culture wars context. But since such warnings were claimed to be something that the author of this book had used too frequently to the detriment of her work, I wanted to understand what she had done wrong. What I learned was valuable to me as a writer and thus, perhaps, to you too. 

What are Trigger Warnings?

Trigger warnings, according to Merriam Webster, are admonitions that an author,  speaker, or third party like a librarian or activist provides to caution some audiences that they might find content that follows objectionable. Thus, a trigger warning would likely appear as a preface to a narrative to warn of upcoming offensive material or prior to a TV announcer switching to a graphic scene. With respect to such a warning within the body of a literary narrative, the warning would need to be placed in brackets ahead of the  offending material. In the context of writing versus speaking, no author would want to interrupt their carefully crafted narrative or dialogue with such a bracketed warning,  

I concluded that it had to appear as a preface—perhaps on the book cover, a forward, or similar section of a novel, but never as part of the narrative or dialogue itself. Thus, it was hard to imagine how an author could have used too many of them in the body of their text to have earned a negative critique.    

But since the critique was clearly objecting to too many trigger warnings within the narrative, the use of that phrase in the context of a fictional writing made no sense. To illustrate, imagine being deep into reading the Godfather and then suddenly the narrative stops to warn you that the next scene will involve the head of a decapitated horse. Whatever the reviewer of the book meant to identify that had occurred too many times within the body of the text is unknown.

Perhaps the reviewer was thinking of different literary device like a literary trigger, a flashback, or even a  foreshadow. Let me explain.  

Conflation with Literary Devices

Trigger warning as a preface was defined above so we now turn to related concepts of trigger, flashback, and foreshadow. Trigger has two meanings. The first relates more to psychology than to literature.  A trigger is an event or occurrence that reminds a person who has been traumatized of a previous trauma.

An example would be that when a person sees a man shot in a movie it triggers the re-experiencing of a similar traumatic event in their past. Such triggers are a common feature of people with PTSD. Although such triggers relate to psychological phenomena, nothing would prevent an author from depicting a character who suffers from this malady.

Use of a psychological trigger in this way would facilitate an author’s exploration of a character’s past to explain her present state of mind. Its use can also serve to segue to a scene of violence, action, or adventure that is interesting unto itself and adds texture to the story.

When an author goes back and forth through time, that literary device is called a flashback. A flashback does not necessarily require a horrible psychological trigger to provide a segue back in time. It can be nothing more than visiting a past non-traumatic event that helps the reader understand the present state of mind of the character. For example, a father’s use of a pocketknife to slice fruit for his five-year-old son. This scene from the past, or flashback, can lend meaning to the boy as a grown up when he inherits the same knife on the death of his father.

The second meaning of trigger is literary but is similar to its meaning in psychology. In addition, it is not widely recognized and may not be a true literary device. The literary trigger is said by some to be a wound or a false or negative belief that the character has about himself or the world around him. It is not used as a wound from the past to explain his present, it is what the character struggles with as he develops in the story.  In other words, it relates the arc of the character’s growth—her journey or transformation into a changed person. It is the internal conflict about herself that she must resolve (or not resolve). And it is what triggers the reader into being interested and invested in the character.

It is similar to the meaning of trigger in the psychological sense in that it involves a negative:  a wound, a false or negative belief that came from such a wound, or perhaps a burden of guilt from a prior event that the character must resolve. However, it goes further because it is used not only to explain the inner workings for the character’s mind by looking to his past but also what the character is trying to resolve in their life—in his arc as a character.  

There is a related concept that may have been conflated into our book reviewer’s mind—foreshadow. It is very unlike the psychological trigger which refers to a prior traumatic event to explain the current state of mind of a character. And it is also distinct from the literary trigger which is a character fault, a burden of guilt, or a false belief that the protagonist must work through to change and grow. Instead, foreshadows look forward not backward and are usually not explicitly significant things that point obviously to events still to come. Instead, the foreshadow is just clear enough to tease the reader’s expectation about something that may be coming later in the narrative.  Or it can be an obscure fact that serves later to reinforce and explain some future event.

The main purpose of a foreshadow is to hint at where parts of the story are going. For example, will the boy’s skill at shooting wolves in Siberia lead to him becoming a decorated military sniper (Enemy at the Gates)?  His early skill with a rifle sets an expectation. The writer must have put it into the story for a reason. Thus, it builds suspense and tension as the story moves toward its climax—the day that Ivan becomes a sniper.

Might any of these literary devices be overused?  Yes. Overly repetitive use of any literary device is likely to have a detrimental effect on the reader. Discretion in how much or how little a literary device is deployed in writing is what makes some writers good and some bad. So far as how an author could overuse a trigger warning in their writing goes, it was a red-herring. It was simply a misuse of the phrase which belongs in a preface to the narrative—not inside the narrative.        

Mute Inglorious Miltons

Philosophers and literary critics alike have used the idea of a mute inglorious Milton as a vehicle to explore literary fame as a defining measure of literary worth. Thomas Gray coined the phrase in his poem—”Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”   Milton, of course, famously penned “Paradise Lost,” a classic of English literature. Gray’s poem introduces the idea of a mute inglorious Milton in his elegy upon observing a church cemetery and wondering who might be buried there. Might there have been a person buried in the churchyard with talent equal to Milton’s who simply never produced such a noteworthy poem, he seems to ask? Or might a person interred there have produced an epic poem of equal worth to Milton’s epic, but for some obstacle or failure of process, was never published or recognized in the same way as Milton was?  In that instance, can we call that unpublished person a “mute inglorious Milton”?

First, let’s acknowledge that a mute inglorious Milton is a semantic conundrum. The famous Milton was a published poet who earned his literary reputation for writing by selling sufficient copies of “Paradise Lost.” A mute inglorious Milton is distinct from the writer of Paradise Lost precisely because he did not write, and publish, and earn fame for accomplishing those same feats. Thus, he is not that Milton. He may be some other Milton with equal talent and potential, but he cannot be a mute inglorious Milton because the real Milton was un-mute, was famous, and was published, which is precisely what makes him that Milton in the first place. 

Semantics aside, poignant observations raised by the idea of a mute inglorious Milton remain for us modern writers—writers who may see in themselves a modern variant of an inaudible Milton. Writers, for example, whose novels have been repeatedly rejected by agents or  publishers. Or writers who, but for their inability to find some well-connected influencer in Paris to act as their agent like a Gertrude Stein of old, are likewise unpublished and unsung.  Other examples might include self-published writers like T.S. Eliot, Zane Grey, Virginia Wolf, D.H. Lawrence, and Henry David Thoreau. By self-publishing, these writers managed to garner enough traction from their self-publications to move on to greater success with traditional publishing.  After all, isn’t the end game—aside from the pure joy of writing itself—to become an un-muted and unabashedly glorious Milton?

Going further with this little philosophical stroll through the churchyard, what is it about fame—particularly, fame as a writer of literature that attracts us? What is it that makes us protective of our work to the point that we resist the changes that others, say editors, might suggest to make the work better—meaning more publishable?  After all, isn’t part of the process to have a work that is worthy of publication, which leads to fame, which leads to glory?  Yes, you say, but at the same time, isn’t it also true that you want your fame to be about you, your soul, your creation, your expression, your imaginings untainted by the influence of others? How dare they, you grumble, suggest that you change the smile of your literary Mona Lisa just to get it through the doors and hung in the Louvre? Writers are a bundle of contradictions.

So, how does Richard Leslie Brock fit into this rambling tract about mute inglorious Miltons? As you can see from this website, he has three novels printed in the self-published category with a mere trickle of reviews—stellar and appreciated as they may be—traction still awaits.  He has a third that he is shopping to agents, but he has not yet found his Gertrude. Despite that, he endeavors to carry on with his search by polishing his query, writing this blog, managing his website, and working on his fourth novel.  Those of you who have some time on your hands (and if you are reading this screed, it’s quite possible that’s the case), consider reading The Sins of the Fathers, Laguna Diary and The House of Ilya. Oh, and please leave a review: (traction remember).  And if you know Gertrude, put in a good word.

Thanks for reading.

Richard    

Stuck on how to begin your best selling novel or short story? Another way of framing this challenge is to ask what thing, concept, person, experience, observation, idea, dream, situation, or event intrigues your soul and inspires you enough to write.  The operative phrase here is:  it intrigues your soul and inspires. The internet provides a plethora of ideas on the topic of finding something that you want to write about, but many are mechanical or impersonal approaches. For example, one site offers 365 story ideas (elsewhere called “story prompts”) which puts the aspiring writer in touch with characters in hypothetical situations. Here is an example: 

A lonely man finds a hand-written diary in a dingy bookstore in Paris and falls in love with the female diarist who is probably long-dead.

Now this example might intrigue your soul and inspire you. All well and good. But I would suspect that while most of us would find it to be an intriguing idea, I question whether it will touch your soul and inspire unless, perhaps you actually knew of such a person. If so, you would be more prone to investing further, because the story is closer to you and your soul—not just because it is a good idea for a story.  My point is that unless you connect emotionally to the story idea, it will be just that—someone else’s story prompt.

I have a suggestion. Keep a notebook or file on things, concepts, persons, experiences, observations, ideas, dreams, situations, or events that intrigue your soul and impact you at a personal level. These will become the personal story prompts that you can use when you are ready. Here is a personal example.

My novel Laguna Diary started from something I saw while taking a long walk on the beach during a driving rainstorm. Inside a sea cave carved into a sandstone cliff was the rusted out chassis of an old 1950’s car. The cave was only opened a few times a year when rainstorms would carve out the sand inside. This unusually stormy day left the chassis fully exposed. How did it get there, I asked? Was it pushed off the 100 foot cliff or did someone drive it off by accident or on purpose? Were the driver’s bones still in and around the car on the day I stumbled into it? When I took the next step of touching the rusted surface of the frame, I was hooked. It became my story to tell.

I keep a file of just such accidental encounters and ideas in a file on my computer. The brain works in mysterious ways, and one needs to capture these precious ideas as they are revealed. After all, these will become your story prompts.

How do they get into my file? In the past, I wrote them down on a piece of paper. If it was a dream, I would get up and jot it down even in the dead of night and then review it again in the morning. If it passed the morning test, it went into the file as a text document. Today I send myself a text message with an idea, test it after a day or so, and enter it into the file if it feels right. Today I don’t struggle with ideas for my writing. I only struggle with the time to write. To make this objectively clear, here is my actual file path:

C:\Desktop\Writing\AAA WRITINGS\PROSE\Story Sketches & Backgrounds\Story Ideas

I hope this tip helps with your quest for meaningful story ideas for your fictional prose. Stay tuned for another post on the same topic involving Poetry versus Prose and the idea of a getting out of the way of your muse.