Professor? Oh, You Mean Me! - It Took A While to Get Here

 As it says in my profile, I retired at the end of 2019 after 27 years as an academic and 20 years before that in software development. I am now embarking on an encore career in which I plan to write. It is something I love to do. But this point was a long time in coming. Perhaps a little background is in order.

My first teaching job was at the University of Florida, in the mid 1970's, where I was a graduate teaching assistant. I don't recall how many courses I taught there but it was more than 6 and less than a dozen. And, I had a lot of really interesting experiences. One's perception of professors, adjuncts, or graduate teaching assistants is very different from the experience of being any of the aforesaid. For example, students in the class often feel that the instructor has all the power as they assign grades. However, with some rare exceptions, the instructor perceives the students as having all the power as they fill out evaluations and talk to other students and faculty. Further, the students often perceive the instructor as all-knowing whereas the instructor, especially adjuncts and graduate teaching assistants, often feel inadequate. This experience led me to consider writing a book to reveal this gap of perception. So, this was my first inspiration to write something almost a half a century ago. But, at this point, it was merely a dream.

About a decade later, the idea came back to me again. By then I had taught several courses as an adjunct at several different universities while working full time during the day. So, my first book attempt, started in the late 1980's, but never finished, was to be called Professor? Oh, You Mean Me. I had planned to write a memoir of sorts about my days as an adjunct professor. I thought it was a good idea because people who have never done adjunct teaching have no idea what it is really like. Sadly, I only got a couple chapters written. But I had realized how much I love to write. So, I didn't see it as giving up on the book. I saw it as postponing my writing until I had more time and a better idea.

Another decade later, I had already become a full-time academic and had written several scholarly papers. But writing scholarly papers is not fun and I wanted to write something fun. One of my research topics was the role of stories in computer ethics and it occurred to me that I should develop some skills for writing fiction that may dovetail with this other research.

So, I came up with an idea which was way too ambitious and started writing chapters which I emailed to some colleagues for comment. The title of the novel was Dybuks in the Portal and was based on the unworkable premise of some specially chosen spirits getting misdirected between lives and landing up in my imagination. I got about six chapters into it before I realized that I just didn't have what it took to make it work.

Being sufficiently chastened by my experience with Dybuks, I decided to try something in genre fiction which was a little more constrained. I created a detective named Thaddeus Wentworth and used Foggy Bottom University as a setting. This was more my speed. I, again, emailed the chapters out once a week to colleagues who read them primarily because the characters were based on people on the email list. The book was called Identity and I managed to finish it. I continued in this vein for two more Wentworth books which I finished but did not publish at the time. They were Along Came a Spider, and Confidence. All three of these are available on Amazon (see my website a DrJohnArtz.com ). 

I put Wentworth aside and wrote a manuscript which I called The Ghost of Socrates exploring philosophical issues in information systems. I made the manuscript freely available online and did not publish it until after I retired.

Then, as luck would have it, I got an opportunity to teach a Writing in the Disciplines course called Writing Stories to Explore the Ethics of Technology. This opportunity was a godsend, and I spent the next five or six years developing the idea and my writing skills for fiction. Much of the foundation work for Writing Stories to Explore Possible Worlds was developed during this time. Possible Worlds will be available in late 2023.

The first three Wentworth books were written in the late 1990's and early 2000's. I am currently working on a fourth called Hamartia which will also be out in late 2023. I have one more Wentworth book called Closure scheduled to come out in late 2024. 

Possible Worlds and Closure mark the end of my current phase of writing. I have some more ambitious fiction planned for the next phase. When people hear that I retired four years ago and will have ten books published in that time they think that is unbelievable. But, in reality, it took a lot longer.

Some people ask me if I love writing so much why did I wait so long to do it seriously. The answer is simple. I had bills to pay and a family to take care of. And the work I was doing and being well compensated for was not horrible. There are some jobs that I think should be pursued by people with more experience. I won't get into my theory about young people’s jobs and jobs for people with more experience. But I will say that putting off writing was a good choice for me. I don't have to worry about paying the bills. I have a lot more experience. And I have had a lot of time to read and think. So, here I am Lego, Cogito and now Scribo.

The Mythical Mind or Who are you writing for?

 In an earlier post on the Triune brain, I asserted that we have two brains, which I referred to as the Neo-cortex and the limbic system. These two brains result in two consciences and two interpretations of the world. I am simplifying things a bit as I am not teaching a class in brain science. Rather, I am laying some foundation for storytelling. For our purposes we can think of these two brains giving rise to two minds which I will refer to as the rational mind and the mythical mind. This is not exactly correct for reasons I will eventually explain. But, for now it is good enough. And I didn't just make this up. Jordan Peterson makes an observation very similar to this.

 "The 'natural' pre-experimental, or mythical mind is in fact primarily concerned with meaning - which is essentially implication for action - and not with 'objective' nature." [Maps of Meaning pg. 3]

The rational mind is concerned with what is 'out there' and what its properties are. The mythical mind is concerned with what we need to do about it. Our mythical mind has been around a lot longer than our rational mind and has been refined by millions of years of evolution compared with thousands of years for the rational mind.

Consider the following two options for an opening paragraph for a story.

Option 1:

Beth awoke at her usual time, made a cup of coffee, and began tidying up the living room. As she worked, she quietly sung to herself the Paul McCartney song, It’s Just Another Day. And indeed, it was. Just another day.

Option 2:

Beth awoke at her usual time, made a cup of coffee, and began tidying up the living room. As she worked, she quietly sung to herself the Paul McCartney song, It’s Just Another Day. Little did she know that it would be anything like just another day. Nor did she know that by the end of the day she would be wondering if her life would ever make sense again.

Overwhelmingly most people would prefer Option 2 as it suggests and anomaly in the pattern of life and our mythical brains are attuned to anomalies which they pass on to the rational brain to deal with. Or, in simpler terms, anomalies get our attention. 

The most famous line in the Wizard of Oz is when Dorothy steps out of the cabin and says, "We're not in Kansas anymore". To emphasize this the earlier part of the film was in black and white. But now it is in brilliant technicolor. OK! You have our attention!

The unexpected gets our attention while the slow (but not too slow) revelation of explanation keeps it. When somebody enjoys a story, it is because you got their attention and then kept it. Both are important. I wrote a post last month about tell don't show. Showing engages the mythical mind as it helps capture the emotions (i.e., the limbic system). But telling engages the rational mind (i.e., the Neo-cortex) by providing rational explanations. If you do too much showing and not enough telling the reader may lose interest in your book and certainly won't want to read it again. I know a lot of people who read a lot and often read a book more than once because they had forgotten that they read it. These are books that focus on emotional engagement but fail to engage the rational mind. They show too much and tell too little. Do you really want your book to be that forgettable?

 

Tell Don't Show and Why Rules Must Be Violated

It seems to me that a lot of writing advice is reduced to soundbites appropriate for college sophomores in a writing class. Here are some examples: 1) Write What You Know; 2) Kill Your Darlings; 3) Create Characters the Reader Will Care About; and, of course, 4) Show Don't Tell. I am not saying this is bad advice. It is perfectly fine advice. But it becomes bad advice if you take it too seriously.

I am an incurable contrarian. If too many people accept something without question, I am likely to question it. If somebody asks me my opinion on a hot topic in the news, I will ask "which side do you want me to argue." I actually do believe that both sides of any argument have merit and you really can't come up with an authentic opinion unless you give both sides their due and then decide which side you favor. More often than not, I will not accept either side but come up with a moderate opinion instead.

Several posts ago, I was ranting about the folly of following popular trends. We have numerous catch phrases that are very popular, and I have to say that I am suspicious of them. I think the motives of people who push these ideas are suspect. I should mention that I do not know anybody in the writing industry. So, I am certainly not going to insult any friends. Perhaps some people will refuse to talk to me. But I will not know unless they tell me which they cannot do if they are not talking to me. So, if the entire writing industry hates me, I will be none the wiser. So, I am going to go ahead and do whatever it is that people do to sacred cows.

A very popular piece of advice is "Kill your darlings." The idea here is that the sentences or paragraphs that you like best in your story are likely going to make other people vomit. Shouldn't you say that if you really, really like something that you have written, look at it critically and try to understand how the reader might perceive it. Well, that doesn't make a very good sound bite, bullet point or book title. Perhaps, "Kill your darlings" taps into the inner serial killer that exists in every writer. Maybe this just makes it easy for people who teach writing. 

Perhaps, thin skinned Johnny in your writing class has butchered an idea beyond recognition with a mixture of flowery prose and mixed metaphors. So, you suggest that Johnny delete and/or rewrite that paragraph. But Johnny protests saying this this was his favorite paragraph in the whole story. He managed to say what he really wanted to say. What do you do? 

You can remind Johnny that good writing advice suggests that you kill your darlings. Perhaps he will accept it. If not give him an A and let him be somebody else's problem next semester. Or you can be more straightforward and tell Johnny that he must be a brain damaged moron if he thinks that is good writing and he would be better off if he dropped out of the writing class and signed up for a class in auto repair instead. Well, that might not be politically correct.

On the other hand, maybe Johnny wants to write in the ornate style of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. Maybe he shouldn't kill his darlings. Maybe he should learn how to present them properly.

Here is another stock phrase that irks me - Show don't tell. Where did that come from? I actually know where that came from. It is attributed to Anton Chekhov who said, "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." But let's take this apart. What, I think, Chekhov was suggesting here is that you can turn something from a fact or observation into an experience. Perhaps the reason why this bit of advice is so popular is that a lot of popular fiction makes an emotional connection with the reader rather than a cognitive connection. After all, it is much easier to feel than it is to think. 

But it isn't just easier for the reader. It is easier for the writer as well. Telling can be very economical whereas showing will take a lot more words. Yes, a lot more words. And who is going to complain about that? You can take a 50-page told story and turn it into a 150 page shown story. The reader gets a longer book that is an easier read. And the writer can crank out words of description while ignoring deeper themes and symbols. Telling is more economical but requires more effort on the part of the writer and the reader. 

In Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book he wrote that the "main purpose in reading books is to gain increased understanding". Compare that with those whose main purpose is entertainment or emotional engagement. Showing is inefficient but increases emotional engagement. Telling is more efficient and leads to better understanding.

 Going back to Chekhov, I would have to ask were the writers before Chekhov bad writers? There was a lot of telling in Victorian novels. Did Chekhov mean for you to do this every time? Or was Chekhov just providing an alternative to tedious telling? It seems to me that both showing and telling have their place and it is up to the writer to decide which should be used when.

But I have to ask again if all these catch phrases aren't just making it easy for people who run writing workshops and classes. Suppose Johnny has written a piece for the class, and everyone has a copy. Let us say, for the sake of argument. that the plot line is a complete tangle, the setting could be anywhere from the London Underground to the dark side of the moon, and the protagonist, as described, could be anybody from your drunken Uncle to the kid down the street who tortures cats. What do you do? Well, you look for an instance where Johnny told you something rather than showing you and let the guillotine drop on that sentence. Due diligence is done, and your thoughts turn to the chocolate croissant that you are planning to have with you latte during your free period.

 I am wrapping up this blog with this stand for authenticity. I will not lose any friends because I don't have any. And I won't make any friends because sometimes I am a little too honest about what I think for the sensibilities of most people. I will close with this piece of advice for aspiring writers. Authenticity is the most important thing to develop. So, if you choose not to kill your darlings don't kill them. And if you feel so moved, tell don't show. If you have made mistakes learn from them and try to do better the next time. But, to the extent that you are able, always be authentic.

 

A Deeper Look into the Variety of Stories

As the New Year arrives, I am working on a new book entitled How to Write Stories to Explore Possible Worlds which I plan to have out later this year. The premise is that it is difficult to evaluate the ethics of emerging ideas from technology and social policy because we tend to evaluate these things in terms of the world as it currently is rather than the world that will be brought about. How do we get a better handle on the possible worlds that may be brought about? My answer is by writing stories to explore the possibilities. In order to make a little more room for these stories, I thought I should look at the variety of stories that we have today and wedge in stories to explore possible worlds.

A story written to explore a Possible World may be like other stories in some ways and different in other ways. To make a little more room for this idea, I thought it would be useful to show that there is not a single generic concept of a story. Stories are written for a wide variety of purposes, of which exploring Possible Worlds is just one, albeit a small one at the present. To avoid confusion, I should mention that in an earlier post I asked why writers write stories. In that case we were talking about the writer's purpose. Now we are going to move to the story's purpose. This analysis of stories in terms of their purpose can be referred to as a teleological analysis. It is one of many ways to carve up the landscape of stories. However, it is useful for my purpose here because, although stories written to explore Possible Worlds may have a lot in common with other stories, there teleology is unique. So, in this post, I thought I would lay out some of that landscape to show how stories written to explore Possible Worlds can be the same or can be very different from other stories.

Let us begin with the easy case and ask - are there any things that all stories have in common? I think there are. First, stories provide imaginary scenarios in which humans are involved in some way. Granted some stories use animals instead, but those animals are anthropomorphized to represent humans. Second, stories provide something to the reader, listener or viewer that is considered to be of value. That could be anything from diversion to comfort, to profound insight. Finally, stories employ narrative reasoning (as opposed to logical reasoning) to achieve their goal. A story about robots or Vulcans would not be very interesting unless they were anthropomorphized or put into a human context. If you wrote a story about a mountain, or about a guy whose life was uneventful, it is unlikely that anyone would want to read it. And, if you wrote a story that read like a logical argument, it would not get many readers engaged. So, most stories are about people (that we care about) confronting events (that we are concerned about) expressed in a narrative (that we can relate to). Now, let us turn to differences.

A typical way, although far from the only way, to slice up the fiction landscape is to distinguish between literary and popular fiction. This is a reasonable dichotomy as it captures an important distinction between certain books. And, as with most dichotomies there are endless examples that don't fit. Nonetheless, I am going to use this to simplify things.

Generally, literary fiction is about personal growth and popular fiction is about escapism and enjoyment. I know that is a gross oversimplification but bear with me as I attempt to make a point here. Stories have purposes beyond the simple literary/popular dichotomy. For example, consider Grimm's Fairy Tales. Are they literary or popular? It would be easy to dismiss them as merely popular children's tales. But there is a significant personal growth factor to them. Fairy tales and folktales often do double duty in that they entertain, but they also convey important values. Little Red Riding Hood, for example, teaches children not to talk to strangers (the wolf) and to listen to her mother (don't go through the woods). Does this make them literary? Well, that is a stretch. All one must do is to read a few of these tales to see that. Today we have the benefit of children's stories that are told at two levels: one for the children and one for the adult. Examples include The Wizard of Oz and The Phantom Tollbooth. This was not the case with fairy tales. But fairy tales do convey important values which is a purpose that does not fit easily into the literary/popular dichotomy.

In fact, books are written for any number of purposes that do not fit neatly into the literary/popular dichotomy. There purposes may be to advance a political objective, provide an alternative interpretation of historical events, affect the direction of future events and so on. Stories are written for a purpose. This is not the same as the theme. The theme hopefully serves the purpose. But the two are different. And every element of a story must serve the purpose of the story. 

Going back to the literary/popular dichotomy, the purpose of a literary work may be to push boundaries in the art of fiction, and the purpose of a popular piece might be to make the bestseller list or draw attention to the author. These are not the only purposes, far from it. But there is a purpose behind every story because stories were created by humans and humans have motivations. And, that purpose may be implicit or explicit. It may be focused or fragmented. But there is a purpose. And the only way to judge a story is in how well it achieves its main purpose.

Getting back to Possible Worlds, the primary purpose of the story is to be a thought experiment about a possible future as opposed to a change in a character that occurs as the result of confronting a conflict. In this way, stories about possible Worlds are quite different from more traditional stories. But they are not the only stories that are different. For, example, while the basic structure of having a character confront a challenge is the basis for many stories, it is not the basis for all. Detective fiction has the protagonist resolve a mystery and may not be changed at all by the experience. And if they are changed, this is secondary to the resolution of the mystery. So, stories about Possible Worlds are different from some stories and similar to some other stories. Well, I guess that can be said of all stories.