the un-said
What makes an interesting book are not always the things that are included but the spaces, hesitations and things left out. I have been reading a lot of Hemingway lately [.....] where he is talking about his writing craft, he says he wants not to explain the story to the reader but to have the readed experience the emotion for him/herself as the story is unfolding....the story moves forward with our (the readers) emotional involvement moving with it....This is a topic which always makes me slightly uneasy. I'm not sure why, except that back in the days when I was workshopping stories and chapters, the constructive comment I heard most was that I am too subtle.
Now that you've stopped laughing. What my readers meant, I think I can say this with some certainty, is not that I am particularly subtle in my social interactions. They meant that as a writer, in trying to establish balance between what is told and what is left for the reader to figure out, I err on the side of the un-said. I have had people tell me this repeatedly about various plot points in Homestead, about specific themes and backstories in the Wilderness books, and just about everywhere else. The thing is, I couldn't tell you how to do this. I couldn't teach a class on the writing of the un-said. Un-writing. I know I do it; I can even admit that, in retrospect, I have over-done it on occasion, but it's a very subtle thing.
I had one professor (a linguistics professor) who told us that the key idea, when writing a lecture or paper for presentation is: never underestimate the ignorance of your audience. I liked this professor a lot, as a person and as a teacher, but this particular bon mot of his drove me nuts. My approach has always been: assume the best of your audience. They'll get it, or they won't. If I did my job well enough, most of them, the ones who are really reading, will get it. I hope. Clearly, this must mean that some readers won't like my work, because they are in the other camp, the camp that likes to have things spelled out.
So now to the topic of Hemingway. Another touchy topic. When my editor called me, way back when, to say (basically) hang on to your hat, Homestead won the Pen/Hemingway award, one of the very first things that went through my head was: oh no. does this mean I have to stop being snarky about Hemingway? And then the thought: Will they take the award away if they find out that I am snarky about Hemingway on a regular basis?
So I came to a number of resolutions about my relationship with Hemingway.
First, it's okay that I don't like his work; I can still recognize the value in (at least some) of it. For example: the only story of his I ever had my students read was "Hills Like White Elephants" -- precisely because it is a masterpiece of the un-written and un-said.
Second: My dislike of Hemingway is not his fault, it's mine. I'm not the right reader for his work.
Thus, my conclusion: you can be on the same side of the un-said fence, and still not get along. That probably makes no sense to you, but it makes me more comfortable.
So, there you have it. A series of confessions, and material with which to blackmail me, if you like. Although I doubt they'll take the PEN/Hemingway award away at this point. I still wonder what Jack Hemingway would have said to me if I had told him the truth before he handed me the award.