“Writers
and readers sometimes describe the thing that makes a text 'sit' with them --
the themes, images, scenes, and ideas from a story they can't shake -- as a
'narrative kink.' What kind of story moments tend to be 'narrative kinks' for
you? What makes them resonate with you?”
No, I Actually Can’t Relate
Daniel Marten
The
narratives that resonate with me, the ones that stick with me long after my
first reading, tend to be those that offer me an entirely different perspective
on the lives and experiences of others, or those that offer me a wholly new,
strange, and horrifying concept. For me,
this means that these unforgettable works are not going to be based in the
established world that I regularly inhabit or interact with, even if given a
fantasy aspect. Primarily, these is because I have the ability to guess how the
“cast of characters,” fantastical or realistic, would react to the set given
circumstances in the modern world, as well as a reasonable expectation of the
outcome. Even when my predictions turn out false, as they often do, that same
set of preconceived notions and guesses guides me through the story. To roll
with some tropes, I’ll use vampires thrown into domestic 21st
century life. Granted, this can be done in a variety of different ways – from
your actually fantastic “A Kiss with Teeth” to Twilight. As with any set of different written works, some stories
will be significantly better than others. I’ll legitimately enjoy some of the
works of a given set, and others less so. However, no matter how compelling the
characters or intriguing the plot, I’ll carry with me those conceptions of how
things are supposed to go in our own
world or how this sort of story usually winds
up, distracting and disconnecting me from the piece itself.
In
you want this reader’s recognition, for your story to resonate with me, or my
absolute patronage, throw me into a world or situation where I have no
reasonable idea as to what is happening or how I would even react. Give me
characters, likeable or not, that don’t have to be extremely relatable. Going
off notable examples from my favorite books, give me Patroclus fighting and
dying in Achilles’ armor on the dusty beaches of Troy – a situation that I
can’t begin to imagine myself in or any side of it. Immerse me, a middle-class
high school student in the states, in the midst of a personal saga about yams
and imperialism, as in Achebe’s fantastic Things
Fall Apart. Or rather, give me a surrealist parable about a doctor whose
reality and entire existence is only dependent upon how his patients – and
society – view him, like in Kafka’s mind-bending A Country Doctor. In these situations, make me empathize with a
character or choice that I had never given a single shred of thought to before.
Make me wracked with anxiety or giddy anticipation; make me scared or make me
happy. In other words, make me care about something I’ve never cared about
before, or ever even have had the capacity to.
In
summary, going outside of the expected and making me connect with a previously
totally foreign concept would be the closest thing to a “narrative kink” of
mine.
Dear Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI'm pleased that you put such a high premium on NOT being able to immediately relate to the circumstances characters find themselves in. The ability to relate to a character has a tendency to get boiled down in simplistic terms. "Relate to" must mean "be like me" or "come from a situation I understand," as opposed to "behave in ways I can empathize with" or "represent values and concerns I share" or any number of other things. There's nothing relatable to a modern high schooler about The Iliad, if you're only looking at the level of plot, yes. But pride, ambition, in-fighting, treachery, isolation are all things Homer heaps on his characters, and all things we can at least understand from a humanistic perspective, even if we don't feel them so acutely at a personal level.
Thanks for responding to Max's question!
Best,
TT