November 2, 2020
Finding Connections in Writing Fiction: Why It Is Important
The title of this post claims finding connections in your writing is important. Actually, it’s more than that: It’s crucial. Indeed, I’d go as far as calling it critical. If you can’t find connections in your writing, you’re in serious trouble.
I’ve mentioned this before, in my post on imagination and creativity: “Creative writing is a connection game, and that’s where imagination plays a major part; in helping you see the connections”, I then said.
In today’s post we will expand on this concept. I will show you
- why finding connections in your fiction is crucial
- how to find such connections
- what to do with them
As a sneak preview I could mention that finding connections in your writing has to do with the bigger picture and the affective power of your novel.
Finding Connections in Writing: What Are “Connections”?
First, the basics. We haven’t even defined “connections” yet! Chances are, you might intuitively or subconsciously understand the concept. Still, it’s important to have a strong theoretical foundation, so let’s be clear.
Finding connections in writing fiction refers to the way two elements are connected meaningfully, although no cause-and-effect connection exists between them.
If your protagonist’s dog died in chapter 2, the fact that the protagonist is sad in chapter 3 is a cause-and-effect connection. Such a connection is self-evident, and is not what we’re dealing with in this post.
On the contrary, if your protagonist struggles with deciding on something and – perhaps to distract himself – watches an adaption of Hamlet on TV, the two elements are connected meaningfully, though no cause-and-effect connection exists between them (assuming the decision on what to watch was random).
Parenthetically, if the definition of connections above sounds familiar, take a look at the concept of synchronicity.
Why Connections Are Important
Finding – or, rather, creating – connections in your fiction is important because it allows you to enrich your narratives. Finding and creating connections in your writing helps you improve the symbolic power of your text and, by consequence, its affective impact.
Take the Hamlet example I mentioned above. Most experienced readers know that Shakespeare’s play is a story of inaction. Having a protagonist watch Hamlet if s/he struggles with deciding (and is perhaps paralyzed by this indecision) helps your readers understand the bigger picture.
Essentially, you use this meaningful, non-causal connection as a shortcut of meaning. This connection allows you to communicate a ton of things to your readers without actually having to spell them out. Remember, the less you explain, the better.
How to Find Connections in Your Writing
Well, I’ve already hinted at this. The best way to find connections in your writing is to create them!
To be fair, sometimes books take over and will steer you in the right direction. Semi-subconsciously, you will write such connections and only then see them. But even if it’s a happy accident, if you end up finding the connection rather than creating it, it’s up to you to take advantage of it.
Remember my post on concept fiction. Once you have your concept in place – in our context, once you have detected the connection – it’s up to you to help it evolve.
Let’s see how
What to Do with Connections in Your Fiction
Let’s revisit our Hamlet example. It’s a happy coincidence (or not, if you created it) that your protagonist, struggling with indecision, ended up watching Hamlet.
But why stay there?
Besides indecision, Hamlet is also a story about loyalty and duty versus self-preservation, madness versus eccentricity, and all sorts of timeless issues. Take advantage of those by manipulating your readers accordingly.
For example, if there is a love interest involved, how about if she were caught between the protagonist and her father’s wishes? Pair this with a couple of other similar hints – say, returned gifts or flowers and water flows – and you’ve just made your audience believe she will have Ophelia’s fate.
Finding Connections in Your Writing Is about Going Beyond Linearity
Few things bother me more in literature than a story that goes from point A to point B, then to point C; one second, then another. I’ve talked about this in the post on linearity.
Once you create connections – or take advantage of them once you find them – you have created a timeless connection.
You see, avoiding linearity is not only about flashbacks or foreshadowing – though, of course, they’re a major part of it. To avoid linearity and enrich your narratives you can also use non-causal connections, such as the ones I showed you.
To go back to the Hamlet example once again, by creating such a connection you don’t just create a narrative anchor – that is, an instance where each iteration of related symbolism will make your reader recall the scene where your protagonist watched it on the TV.
Much more than that, you actually create an atemporal, repetitive symbolic echo that pervades your narrative. Basically, you will have your readers reinterpret everything through the prism of this connection. It’s atemporal because it’s not just a mere back-and-forth, but it’s ever-present through the narrative.
Essentially, creating or finding connections in your writing helps you create a multi-layered narrative that can create multiple meanings and interpretations. This is the very opposite of linearity.
4 Comments
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I spend most of my writing time creating and reinforcing those connections – fiction should not be full of coincidences.
AND you can get away with a coincidence when you need one – if the reader knows you usually connect things. So if you have a really good whopper coming, this makes it look far less implausible.
True; life can be full of coincidences, fiction should not. Or, as they also say, fiction – unlike life – has to make sense.
IF the author makes it make sense – some don’t.
But real life is never tidy; fiction can be, and that sense of isolating a part of it and giving it a resolution is why I read fiction.
I’m no longer personally interested in the unfinished (deliberately or because the author is no longer with us – or both).
Connection is itself a linguistic structure: verb-noun agreement, verb conjugation, noun-adjective agreement, tense-mood-aspect, etc.
Being able to reinterpret the text out of its inner connections, out of its inner symbolisms, is due to how language is: pure surface, no depth (otherwise, which is the same: all depth, no plain surfaces). To say it in one voice: language is the sovereign of man (not the other way around). Poetry – not maths – measures.