Singers

thefisherkingsbard

If you are a singer, permit me to give you a word of advice. Composing or song-writing or performing may not be my craft, but what I have to say is valid.

So dear singers,

You are a storyteller. Not just a performer. Not just another entertainer. Not merely an artist. You are a storyteller.

Do you know what this means? Do you know the stories that you are telling? Do you know the pictures that your lyrics are creating for those of us who are listening? Do you know the tales the flow as the chords of your words travel the path of the notes you string together? 

Because, dear singers,

You are a storyteller. Not just a performer. Not just another entertainer. Not merely an artist. You are a storyteller. You are a bard, just as those of us who use words as thread as we weave our…

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Slant

Try and write straight English; never using slang except in dialogue and then only when unavoidable.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Okay. So here’s the thing. I’m a little split over this quote. It popped up on my twitter feed and I felt conflicted over it.

Why? Well, let me try to explain.

You see I think that there is a place for slang in storytelling. While I do not think that slang is useful in every story, I think that it is a tool, that can be used well. The question then becomes, how, or perhaps where is the use of slang best used.

Shakespeare has been credited with creating vast amounts of new words for the English language. You can find lists of words that he created all across the internet. Now, I’ve always theorized that Shakespeare used the slang of his time to write for the majority of those who heard him. I’ve always wondered if these new words he created, simply were ones that were used commonly be those of the lower class, but considered improper by court standards. This way those who watched his plays standing understood the story and could enjoy it just as much as those who sat in expensive seats in the Globe.

Why do I bring up this flimsy idea? I say this, because I think slang can be used to accurately depict the society you come from. It can be a way to bring your listeners in to the story you are crafting. And isn’t that an incredibly important job as a bard? Shouldn’t a bard attempt to bring the world you know into the world you craft in your story?

Of course, this still doesn’t answer the question of where is slang appropriate to use? But nonetheless, I think that Hemingway may have gone a bit too far by completely denying any use of slang.

But what do you think?

Slang

Try and write straight English; never using slang except in dialogue and then only when unavoidable.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Okay. So here’s the thing. I’m a little split over this quote. It popped up on my twitter feed and I felt conflicted over it.

Why? Well, let me try to explain.

You see I think that there is a place for slang in storytelling. While I do not think that slang is useful in every story, I think that it is a tool, that can be used well. The question then becomes, how, or perhaps where is the use of slang best used.

Shakespeare has been credited with creating vast amounts of new words for the English language. You can find lists of words that he created all across the internet. Now, I’ve always theorized that Shakespeare used the slang of his time to write for the majority of those who heard him. I’ve always wondered if these new words he created, simply were ones that were used commonly be those of the lower class, but considered improper by court standards. This way those who watched his plays standing understood the story and could enjoy it just as much as those who sat in expensive seats in the Globe.

Why do I bring up this flimsy idea? I say this, because I think slang can be used to accurately depict the society you come from. It can be a way to bring your listeners in to the story you are crafting. And isn’t that an incredibly important job as a bard? Shouldn’t a bard attempt to bring the world you know into the world you craft in your story?

Of course, this still doesn’t answer the question of where is slang appropriate to use? But nonetheless, I think that Hemingway may have gone a bit too far by completely denying any use of slang.

But what do you think?

Emotional Translation

There are many ways to create atmosphere for a story. You could say that I am talking about the setting, that important function of storytelling that so many English teachers unknowingly paint as boring rather than beautifully magical. But really I’m talking about that murky quality that transports you into the world of a story.

You know what I mean. Or at least, you should know what I mean. Without it, horror movies simply do not scare you. If they don’t have you scared of the knives in your kitchen or searching for terrifying entities underneath your couches they are not doing your job.

In my house I have a couch which I tell my guests if they sit in the center they will journey to Narnia. I tell them this because of the time when I was watching the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I found myself slipping into the cracks between the two kitchens. Moreover I was so engrossed in the movie that for me, there was no distinction between that world and my own. As I said, a brilliant story should and must translate you into its text.

Lately, as I’ve been reading The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper, a book dealing with some deeply unsettling and eviscerating themes, I’ve become aware of what is so integral to this ability of narratives to capture your reality.

And that is by creating an atmosphere of emotions. The emotions of your characters must visibly be felt by listener. The painting must dance with it. The music must swirl around you and then inside and through your blood, raising it and lowering it. The words must drip with it. I know I’m talking in images, but I’m not sure else to how to explain it. Perhaps that is because this is something I’m learning to do as a writer.

But I know that if your character grieves, than I must grieve with them. If they feel ready to die, then so must I. If they desire to celebrate then so must I.

And if this is true, then there is one more thing that those of you who create must know. For you to honestly create emotional atmospheres in your art, so you must also be fully and completely aware of your own emotional reality. And that goes for creating anything.

Well, I suppose that is enough to think about. Thoughts? Questions?

The Imagination of the Listener

The imagination of the bard is key. I will not deny this. But, as every storyteller will, or at least should, tell you is that it is not the only imagination that is needed to lift a story off the ground. In many ways, the imagination of the listener is also of paramount importance.

Even in a Dickensian novels with its vast description, the listener (or reader) finely uses the notes given to him by the bard to craft the world of the story in their own mind. You could say that the story, or the words written down, become indicators of sorts for the listener.

Perhaps this is why so many writing manuals speak of showing rather than telling the listener. The imagination is a subtle being, and often soft pointers are of more use to mold the imagination than outright commands. Likewise, perhaps this is why providing questions for the listener is so much more important than answers. Questions prod the imagination. They are sparks that can create incredible forest fires.

Of course, all this makes the bard’s job a little bit more difficult. How do you weave your own imagination in such a way to pass it on to another person? How do you take your own emotions, and hand them over to another person to take as their own?

I’m not so sure, but it is an interesting exercise to hypothesize with.

Bards: As a Vocation

“Art matters. It is not simply a leisure activity for the privileged or a hobby for the eccentric. It is a practical good for the world. The work of the artist is an expression of hope – it is homage to the value of human life, and it is vital to society. Art is a sacred expression of human creativity that shares the same ontological ground as all human work. Art, along with all work is the ordering of creation toward the intention of the creator.”
— Michael Gungor (The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators)

It is voices like this, speaking out for art, that make me seeing the vocation as a writer, as a possible and valuable vocation. As I go into my last year of university, the thought of what is next has been on my mind quite a bit in the last few months.

Am I saying that I am going to become a full time writer? No. Well, maybe. I guess, I just don’t know.

But I think it’s good to know that it’s a possibility. That it isn’t just a pipe dream. Or something that could only happen if I won the lottery.

There is a place for art. Storytelling has a role. A very valuable role. When there were bard’s, there was no doubt about this. I wonder what we’ve forgotten.

Because we need them. For the way they see the world. For the way they bring teaching. For the way they can carry advice on the winds of their words. For the way they can be voices calling out for change, calling out for the Kingdom to come.

Stories and Grief

A friend of mine wrote about stories and grief. Take a look.

Grief

The Spark.

Often in the world of storytelling, we speak of the spark or passion that begins the creative process in a bard. What this spark is has never really been formalized and nearly every writer and artist will tell you of a different source for their inspiration. I can’t say that I have never asked such a question, but I have often been preoccupied with a different question. Or more so, with a different thought process.

As of yet I don’t believe that I can formulate a standalone summary statement of that thought process, but I would like to try and look at an aspect of it.

As I was reading Simon Morden’s Arcanum, I was amazed at his extremely subtle character transformation of his twelve year old prince character. It is not easy task to take a bratty, spoiled rich kid archetype and change him slowly into the tortured leader of his people. Trust me, I’ve read enough fantasy and adventure plots to come across enough young, angst-riddled heroes. But I diverge. As I was reflected on the Morden’s smart character development it occurred to me that every story needs at least one spark of genius.

You see, it is one thing for a bard to be uniquely creative. It is quite another thing, for that genius to spread into his creation. The bard’s work must shine through the story he brings forth, even if only in one place.

Think to Tolkien’s works. What makes his trilogy so brilliant? I would argue two things: his vast descriptions of middle earth and his creation of Gollum.

Even I look to poorly written works, but which have become widely popular, I can see that this is true. For instance Twilight (which I have not read) has garnered such a large readership, largely because of the way it plays on idealized passions that so many teenagers have. And while I may not agree of what Twilight is trying to do and say, it does, I will admit, what is is trying to accomplish very well.

And so perhaps the better question is, how to we do that? How does the bard transmit his genius, his ideas, his words, beyond his own fingertips?

“The tendency in Canada, at least in high school and university teaching, has been to emphasize the personal and the universal but to skip the national or cultural. This is like trying to teach human anatomy by looking only at the head and the feet.” Margaret Atwood, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Literature to Canadian Literature

There probably should be a lot that I could say, for certainly I have enough thoughts that I could tag on to this quote. And yet, those thoughts really do revolve around a simple sense of agreement of Margaret Atwood.

I say this because as I think about the literature I studied at my school, I see the same gaping hole.

I say this because as I have returned from Bangladesh, and as I have had chances to think on culture, I have begun to wonder about the place of culture in my own life. Canadian features little into my identity as I know it, and yet, I have begun to be captured the question of what of who I am is Canadian and what that means for my life, for my life as a storyteller.

I say this, because I wonder, as I often do, what needs to change.

It is said so often that what is Canadian is difficult to define, nearly impossible to pin down. Is it possible to say, and I dare boldly to make this universal claim, that this question of cultural identity might exist, simply because it is not not talked about?

And even though Margaret Atwood wrote this nearly four decades ago and Canadian Literature has become a place of academic study across our world, I wonder if the problem still exists.

I also find myself wondering, if what Atwood’s quote is missing, is that the cultural is not disconnected to the personal nor the universal. And if that is the case, than our self-awareness of either is blinded if we refuse to look to the place of culture and nationality and ethnicity in our lives.

“Is Still Happening”

You have heard all this before…But that was a century ago. That was in the time of your father’s father. Listen to what I tell you anyway, for I am speaking what happened in your time, and is still happening.” – Farley Mowat, People of the Deer

I often wonder about why I tell I write and tell stories. Or why the storyteller is as valuable as the man who builds your house or woman who gives your children needles at the clinic, or the man who manages to teach young teens algebra.

As one whose stories dwell so much in fantasy and high flung dreams and nightmarish terrors, the question has become a consistent itch. Are my stories just entertainment? Will they only be used and will there value be only in how they allow for a person to escape?

I hope not. I hope not because I don’t want my readers to be escaping from this world. I don’t want them to become ignorant of there surroundings. No, I hope for so much more.

When I tell tales of fairy women washing the clothes of the soon dead, I want my audience to contemplate with me the value of life and the close and ever cunning hand of death.

When I tell tales of a man, half fairy, half human, I want my reads to begin to understand the complexities of being biracial.

When I write of far of Kingdoms, I am writing of my own country or of kingdoms I have known. When I create monstrosities, I want my readers to look for the monsters in their own lives. I want them to imagine how they are monstrous. When one of my characters walks through the the alleys of a Medieval slum, I am using stock images from what I have seen of the world, from my time in Canada, in Mexico, in Bangladesh.

In Farley Mowat’s “The People of the Deer,” he writes of his own experiences in Northern Canada. As the fantasist joins in to the art of storytelling he does no less. for you see, every bard is always “speaking what [of] happened in your time, and is still happening.” Do you know what is happening in your time?

It’s why so often in my blog I asked questions like “Why is the trend of dystopian literature saying about our society” or “Why do we depict villainy in such a way?” The Bards of our time are trying to show us our society. Our Bards who calling out for change as they always have. Are we listening? Do we see as clear as we think we do?