Fiction Writing as a Path to Better Human Relations
It’s a pain in the butt dealing with people, isn’t it? You have dinner with a friend, and she says something that puzzles you. What does she mean by that? Does she really mean what I think she means? Oh, there she goes looking at her mobile while I’m talking to her. How rude! What, is she raised by wolves? And why is she not maintaining eye contact with me? Is she bored? What the heck is going on?
Along comes the waiter, and he doesn’t exactly project warmth and friendliness. How do they find these people to work in the service industry! The guy is just not cut out for it, is he? I hope he’s not expecting a tip.
It’d be so much easier if we were mind readers. Seriously. How wonderful would it be if I can know exactly what’s going on in someone else’s head. No more guessing. No more mysteries. Sadly, we have no such gift (unless you really believe you’re a fortune teller or something, or that such is a thing). So what do we do?
The thing is, we don’t like not knowing. So we pretend we know. We pretend we can read their minds. We act as though we know exactly why someone does what they do, and we behave as if we really know what they mean by their gestures and words. That’s just us being arrogant bastards.
We attribute reasons, don’t we, based on nothing more than our own conjecture. Oh, she’s looking at her phone again, this is just inexcusable. Why doesn’t she focus on our conversation? And where’s that waiter with our drinks? Forgot about us already, has he?
And we react accordingly. An eye for an eye, that sort of thing. So maybe I start checking my mobile, too. Hey, maybe take out a paperback and start reading if I really want to get my point across. The more assertive among us might even come straight out and ask what the hell’s going, why is she miles away? (This might not be a bad idea, in some cases). Maybe even accuse her of being ill-mannered. (Probably not a great idea, in most cases). And the spiral begins its downward trajectory.
Admit it, we’ve all done something like that. Making assumptions about others’ motivations. Presuming to know others’ intentions. Playing the role of the omniscient narrator. Unnecessary. Unproductive. Arrogant.
And here’s where I think fiction writing can help us navigate the ebbs and flows of human interaction. Let’s go back to when we read a short story or a novel. Let’s say a wonderfully absorbing tale spun by Stephen King no less (insert whatever author is your fave). Three hundred pages on and we’re still absolutely hooked. We can really connect with the characters, can’t we?
Most of the time, within a chapter or even the entire work, there is but one point of view. That of the protagonist. Sure, occasionally an author employs the omniscient narrator approach. But not many good writers adopt multiple points of view at the same time. The protagonist simply does not, and cannot, know what the other character is actually thinking. We read the story, and can see what’s motivating the protagonist, but we are as ignorant as she is as to what other characters are up to. We may share the protagonist’s suspicions about others’ motives, but like her, we ain’t sure, and our guess could very well be wrong.
If we are the writer, and we stick to a single point of view, we train ourselves to recognize the limitations of our knowledge and understanding of what’s going on inside someone else’s head. We are the protagonist. We can only know ourselves. And THAT is such powerful training. Once we are accustomed to such an approach, it compensates for our natural tendency to assume things. The single POV trains us to remember that we don’t know. That we can’t know. That we can only guess and assume. And that much of the time our guesses and assumptions are wrong.
Then we may begin to consider perhaps our dinner friend has something else going on, and we know not what. We won’t just assume she’s being rude. We won’t just pretend that we know she’s bored by the conversation. And perhaps that our waiter is having a horrid day. Who knows? Maybe he’s just had news of a major catastrophe in his life. And in doing so, we accept that we are not omniscient. And we accept that it’s not such a great idea to rush to judgement. And stop being arrogant bastards.
And everyone can get on better.
