Exploration
The risks and rewards of breaking new ground as a writer
Last week I spoke briefly about the problems of certainty in writing fiction - how the reader can end up feeling sandbagged by the author’s urgency to express a particular point of view - and I then undertook, rather innocently, to look this week at the notion of exploration in art in general and in writing fiction in particular.
I say innocently because, having embarked on it, I have increasingly realised just how vast and tricky a topic this is. Why tricky? Because it touches on the entire subject of what writing fiction is or can be in today’s world.
Every generation of writers, it seems, or at least every generation since the rise of Romanticism, appears to have been driven by an imperative to break new ground, to make writing that is fresh and that communicates a different, more truthful vision than those that’ve gone before. Wordsworth and Coleridge wanted to write ‘in the ordinary language of men’, Eliot and Pound wanted to ‘Make it New’ (the shouty capitals are Ezra Pound’s). And indeed, so inculcated are we with this view, that there seems very little point in writing - or reading - anything that doesn’t provide us with a fresh insight into some aspect or other of the human experience.
But you really can’t be truthful in fiction, can you? Laurence Sterne demonstrated that in the very early days of novel-writing when, in Tristram Shandy, he couldn’t even accurately describe a single day in his protagonist’s life without veering from one subject to another and then another, and even, occasionally, taking to drawings and other visual input, because words were simply not up to the job. At the other end of an exceedingly long spectrum you have Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, again an attempt at vast inclusivity, and making uncompromising demands on the reader. Perhaps, at the end, you reach some sort of an understanding, but maybe not an understanding which will help you communicate with a bank manager (if you can find one) or a bus driver, or, I’d suggest, your loved ones.
And that raises the whole question of what we are writing for - if I’m objecting to being harangued by authors like D.H. Lawrence, what am I suggesting as a preferable relationship between writer and reader? There is a tendency, in today’s marketing-driven taxonomy of book publishing, to categorise fiction into ever-finer slivers of type and topic. Literary fiction stands at one end of the spectrum, and then countless proliferations of genres, from YA to Black Romance and beyond, all enabling accurate keyword searches and easy placement on bookshop and library shelves. It’s a cosy arrangement - writer and reader both know where they are, and so long as expectations are met, and the rules of engagement are respected, then a very pleasant time can be had by all. But that’s not exploration or breaking new ground - it’s rather more, if it’s done well, like very artful gardening. You might surprise with an unexpected pergola, or a rare display of Japanese quinces, but the structure and bounds of the garden will always be maintained.
And that brings me to the elephant in the room - where does the human writer stand when AI could do so much of this as well or even better? I thought I’d ask AI itself for its take on the subject, and here is what ChatGPT almost instantly provided:
“Writing fiction in the contemporary world is increasingly shaped by the presence of artificial intelligence, both as a tool and as a thematic concern. AI-driven writing assistants can generate text, suggest plot points, and refine prose, offering new possibilities for creativity while also raising questions about authorship and originality. At the same time, AI has become a compelling subject within fiction itself, reflecting broader societal anxieties about automation, consciousness, and human identity. Writers today navigate a literary landscape where traditional storytelling techniques merge with digital innovation, challenging them to redefine the boundaries of narrative while ensuring that human imagination remains at the heart of the creative process.”
Which is pretty plonking, but not entirely stupid. What we seem to be left with (apart from copyright infringement and being put out of a job) is ‘redefining the boundaries of narrative’, or, in other words, exploring.
The balancing act, the paradox, is, of course, to explore safely - staying in contact with base camp, and leaving enough markers along the way so that you can still be found if you stray too far off your expected route. Or, to abandon the metaphor before it gets entirely out of hand, to write as excitingly, imaginatively, insightfully as you can and want to, but always keeping your reader in mind, so that they don’t get lost in a thicket or stuck up a mountain (okay, so I didn’t quite abandon the metaphor). Writing fiction is, surely, an act of exploration, but it’s also, importantly, an act of communication.