All Who Are Wise-Hearted

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I finished reading Exodus several evenings back.  Several weeks back, actually.  It's one of those deceptive books of the Bible that start out easy enough and then BOOM! you hit the instructions for the tabernacle and immediately slow to a crawl.  I confess to occasionally wondering why and wherefore as I moved through the minutiae, but from time to time something would spring out at me - often something more or less tangential.

"And I, indeed I, have appointed with him Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded you..."

exodus 31:6

The context, of course, is the construction and ornamentation of the sanctuary.  In the chapters preceding we see God laying out for Moses the blueprint of the tabernacle, then calling for "all who are wise-hearted" to participate in the actual building.  Two men were called out in particular and given special insight - Bezaleel and Aholiab - but it was the blanket description of all the craftsmen that struck me.  In other translations they're just "skilled artisans," but in this case I think the King James has hit on something.

all who are wise-hearted

That is probably the best description of real artists I've ever read.  You could argue that these men were wise-hearted because God especially blessed them, or that they were wise-hearted because they were the people of God, but I think it's far more basic than that.  These artisans were already wise-hearted; their work was the manifestation of it.  We've all read authors and found them unbelievably good - books where we reach the end and cannot fathom how a single mind could have held in all that complexity, let alone articulated it.  We've read poems that captured so much in so few lines.  We've seen paintings and statues and been left speechless by something.  

This isn't restricted to believing artists: we'd be foolish and bigoted to suppose it is.  Dickens very probably wasn't a Christian and I doubt Rosemary Sutcliff was.  I recently finished Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and that author gave me that wonderfully horrible feeling of inadequacy  every really great book should.  In the art field, I know very little about Bernini and want to know even less, but his "David" is one of the most amazing statues I've ever seen.  There's something in the heart of man that has this amazing capacity for beauty, even for glory, and I think that something is the wisdom of the artist.  It has little or nothing to do with form and rules, except perhaps in knowing how to break them.  I'm not sure I can put my finger on what it is, but I think that if you have some of it yourself, you know it when you see it in others.

wisdom is vindicated by her children.

Trinitarian Writing

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Some while ago, during her Friday Tidbits series, Anne Elisabeth Stengl wrote a post on the Rule of Three.  In it she talked about the frequency with which we see patterns of three cropping up in all forms of art: the triangle format in painting, drawing the eye in toward the main subject; the famous threes of literature, from three disturbing blind mice to Goldilocks and the three dinosaurs bears; and the three-pronged repetition in a story's theme.  She made the point that if something is mentioned only once in a story, it will seem of little importance; if it is mentioned only twice, it will seem a coincidence, a mistake on the part of the writer; but if it is mentioned three times, it becomes fixed in the reader's mind as a theme.

Since this is an aspect of writing I find particularly intriguing, her last point caught me most and has stayed with me longest.  Subconsciously, it was something I had recognized before; it appears in my own writing, both in themes and in foreshadowing.  And, upon consideration, it makes sense.  I have done several posts already on Sayers' The Mind of the Maker and won't bore you with yet another, but though I am not generally one for numerology or anything of that sort, it has occurred to me more and more since reading that book how often cycles of three do come into our writing.  Perhaps a very bold parallel cannot be drawn, but I do think there is a sense in which writing is trinitarian - little surprise, since we are made in the image of God. 

Anne Elisabeth's post and, more recently still, a reading of David Copperfield brought these thoughts out with greater clarity - for Dickens, consciously or not, was a master at conveying themes.  I can think of two instances in the book that followed the trinitarian cycle, the first exactly, the second with some latitude.  The first is when David tells his aunt how thoroughly he is in love with Dora, and Betsey Trotwood, knowing his foolishness, shakes her head and says, "Blind! blind! blind!" - which, of course, is also a repetition of three.  It springs to David's mind again at the end of that chapter.  It occurs for the third and last time when David, having lost Dora and being a little wiser now, realizes what he forfeited by his foolishness and recalls his aunt's words.

The second instance, I admit, is a little fuzzier.  There is a moment when the reader is given a glimpse of Steerforth asleep, "with his head upon his arm," as he used to lie at school - this is really a second-time occurrence, since it evokes the memory of the school-days.  It is brought home powerfully again after the shipwreck, when David is brought down to the beach and sees his old friend for the last time.

"But, he led me to the shore.  And on that part of it where she and I had looked for shells, two children - on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered - among the ruins of the home he had wronged - I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school."

You don't like Steerforth, since he's a cad, and yet the way the scene is evoked and the repetition of that line still manage to break your heart.  And that, I think, is one of the most interesting elements of a theme: if it is right, if it is true to the story and the characters, it gets down to the reader's heart.  It doesn't have to follow any particular rule - it's visceral, as most writing is - but I do find it fascinating how, in it, the pattern of three consistently reoccurs.  And I wonder, too, if it appeals to us so much because of that image of God. 

what do you think?  have you noticed the pattern?

Like Nobody's Reading

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I read a quote the other day.  It was probably on Pinterest - most quotes are - and I have not the least idea who said it.  (Which is good, because I'm going to disagree with it, and I hate disagreeing with famous people.)  I can't locate the quote now, but in essence it said

write like nobody's reading.

I thought, when I came across it, that is sounded good and pithy and like something we need to hear.  Most of us have had times where we get ourselves into a bind wondering if what we write will be appreciated. I know I've had panicked moments when I think, "What if people think I hate cats because Regina dislikes them?  What if they think I don't like to read because Tip doesn't?  What if people misunderstand these characters' relationships?  What if they twist my words and come out with something horrible?"  The questions range from the petty to the dire, and if allowed to grow, they could quickly become overwhelming.  In one sense, therefore, this "Write like nobody's reading" quote has a point.

But I believe there is another side to the coin, a side I had not particularly noted until reading Dorothy Sayers' book on the Trinity and the creative mind, The Mind of the Maker.  (I wrote something of a synopsis for this after I finished it back in September.)  In her work she draws a parallel between the economy of the Godhead and the economy of the mind of creative man - a reasonable object, seeing as we are made in the Image of God.  The first two "persons" of this imagining, creating mind are simplest to see and to explain; they are the Idea, that thing that exists in our heads before ever we begin to write, and the Energy or Activity, where the Idea is translated into something understandable to others.  But of course the third is rather more elusive, which to me makes Sayers' parallel more credible.

The third "person" deals, in essence, with the power that brings about proper communication and appreciation in the mind of the reader.  It is that thing which conveys the spirit of the Idea as expressed in the Activity.  It is that thing which, when present, creates the vital connection between the reader and the writer through the book.  And it is absolutely necessary.

In her book - which I continue to recommend for all writers - Sayers generally uses the example of a playwright, being one herself (as well as a novelist and an essayist, but that's beside the point).  It is critical, she writes, that when a man is penning his play, he keep in mind the perspective of the audience.  What is the audience going to understand by this wordplay?  How are these props going to appear?  Will the scene be conveyed?  She uses a humorous example of a play that failed to do just this; instead, the writer (who really should have been a novelist instead) substituted a long passage of "stage directions" - those sections in italics at the start of a scene in a Dover Thrift edition of Shakespeare.  Thunder.  Darkness.  Woman in bed, tossing and turning as if in pain.  Woman cries out, twisting sheets in hands.  End of Scene I.

This is an exaggeration, and yet it is an exaggeration that applies to all creative fields: whether you are writing a novel or a play, a failure to figuratively place oneself in the viewer's chair will result in a terrible disconnect.  At the heart of the matter, the fact is that mature writers, the ones not just starting out (and that is an important caveat), must write as though someone is reading.  Because isn't that the very thing we desire?

he that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

- john locke, an essay concerning human understanding

We want to be minded.  We want to be understood.  And in order to do so, we have to be able to have minds in two positions at once: that of the writer, designing and creating; and that of the reader, following and learning.   That is why, while we cannot allow worries about what others will think to paralyze us, we also cannot ignore them.  They have their place in helping us to convey our story, and the vital spirit of that story.

The Creative Mind

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Last week I finished reading The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers, a contemporary of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and best known for her Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels.  I can't say I'm much a fan of her mysteries, but this book I enjoyed so much that I gave it five stars and wanted to wave it in the face of everyone I ever met and scream, "Read this book, it's full of awesome!"  Which is not generally something I do; I try to keep my voice below a scream at all times.  Sometimes, however, I do feel that a higher pitch is justified.

The Mind of the Maker was once such instance.  It is a little hard to explain and do justice to it, for Sayers, with a kind of tongue-in-cheek, no-nonsense style somewhat typical of her generation, covers a great deal of ground in only 250 pages.  She is examining, or rather making a frank case for, the doctrine of the Trinity - and that right there is a monumental task.  She goes about it, however, not from the "top down," but from the "bottom up."  For she looks first at something very near and dear to every human artist, whether writer or painter, sculptor or musician:

the trinity within the mind of the human maker

This doesn't seem self-evident when stated like that, and yet it struck me because some time before beginning the book, I realized that in my writing I seem to have three different tracks or periods of thought.  There is the period where I seem to get the most concepts, where story ideas seem to be popping up frequently.  Then there's the time while I'm actively writing, where all my powers are concentrated on that single story.  And then I have my editing, as I polish and rewrite and convey what I want to convey, and during which I feel the need to edit everything in sight - whether it's mine or not.

These thought-periods very roughly correspond, I think, to what Sayers discusses in The Mind of the Maker, but outlining it her way is much more coherent and profound.  Her "trinity," based on experience, is that of Idea, Energy (or Activity), and Power.  Idea is comparatively easy to grasp: it is the overarching knowledge of the story, beginning to end, the story as it exists within the maker's mind.  It isn't always fully expressed even to the creator, not at first; but it is the guiding pattern of the work.  It is what allows you to say at the end, looking back at the beginning: "This is how the story was meant to be.  I didn't know it at first, but this is it.  Nothing else would have been right; this is the story."

This struck home to me, because it encapsulated my feelings as I stand at the finish-line of The White Sail's Shaking and The Running Tide.  I can't express how unprepared I was when I began the novel on November 1, 2010.  I had little more than the names of two main characters - Tip and Marta - and a setting, and that was all.  Charlie Bent and Josiah Darkwood came in of their own accord, one might say, but I found they were crucial to the story as a whole.  Lewis, only a bully at the beginning, appeared again to star as the villain of the piece - and it was right, though not wholly planned.  I look back over the story and I'm amazed at the unity of it, when I started with nothing more than fragments.  Sayers, I think, gives the explanation.  For The White Sail's Shaking and The Running Tide exist in my own mind as an Idea, and because the execution of it has matched that pattern, it feels right.

The execution, then, is the Energy.  I found the term a little odd, and hard not to confuse with Power; "Activity" works better, I think.  At any rate, this is the outward expression - in paint or words or music - of the Idea in the maker's mind.  For a writer, it's the act of writing.  It's taking the concept and giving it expression, so that readers can see that form and, through it, see the Idea in the mind of the maker.  Sayers comments that this is why it confuses a writer to be asked, "What did you mean by this plot twist, or that character?"  Because if the writer has done his work correctly, his "meaning" should be expressive in the plot twist or the character.  "Meaning" is part and parcel of the Activity.

This concept is mentioned at times, though not in these terms.  It is the same law that says that extraneous characters (no matter how vivid) and unimportant events (no matter how dramatic) damage rather than help a story.  Such goings-on are nothing but the Activity expressing itself, and not the Idea; for the whole purpose of the Activity is to present the Idea. 

Lastly in the trinity, there comes Power.  It is harder to explain than Idea or Activity, as Sayers concedes, but it is something like the conveyance of the Idea's spirit.  It is the invoking of feeling and understanding in the minds of readers - an exchange, as it were, from the writer's mind to that of the reader.  If this Power isn't present, then the expression of the Activity has failed and the Idea is not fully revealed.  I saw a quote recently (by Stephen King - go figure) that reminded me of this: "Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's."  I think you could accurately add to "description" characters, plot, foreshadowing, dialogue, and anything else that might spring to mind.  All must be planted in the reader's mind, or there is no Power.

I think by this point the analogy becomes quite clear.  For like the Idea, would not God the Father be, for all intents and purposes, unknowable if it were not for His self-expression in God the Son?  And does not Paul - and Jesus Himself - make it clear that the Son is the "image of the invisible God," that "having seen Him we have seen the Father"?  He does not do His own will, but the will of the Father.  And the Holy Spirit, proceeding from God the Father, then testifies of Jesus Christ.

It would be wrong, of course, to say this analogy is perfect; because of the Fall, the trinity of the human maker's mind is corrupted and tends to overemphasize one or another - as Sayers herself points out.  And yet, as God is the supreme Maker, is it not reasonable to see how we, made in His image, are makers after the same fashion?  I wouldn't say this is all that is entailed by the Imago Dei, but it is an integral part of human nature: the true, good human nature that God Himself created.  As we are all made in His Image, so we are all meant to be makers.  Not all writers, not all painters, not all musicians.  But all looking at the world and our work with the eyes of artists, expressing and taking pleasure in our creations.  Because if we don't, if we fall into the rut of ho-humming our way through life and taking no pleasure in our work (for God did design us for work), we are not living according to the pattern the divine Maker has laid out. 

And that's never a pleasant place to be.

in conclusion: read the mind of the maker.  end of story.