Thoughts on writing
I'm constantly working on becoming a better writer. Although there are very tangible challenges such as spelling, grammar, and structure which I still struggle with, especially when writing in English, I also try to understand written communication on a more profound level.
The main challenge to overcome with writing is the incredibly low bandwidth of the medium. A thought or story gets translated with an extreme loss of resolution when put onto paper. When speaking face to face, the whole body, and the face in particular, assists the speaker in delivering the subtle details of the subject at hand. When greeting somebody in person we can conclude large amounts of information from the tone of voice alone, while a written "hi" leaves almost everything to the imagination of the reader.
So the art of writing comes from understanding how the reader will "decompress" the information in their head. This includes understanding what certain words evoke visually and emotionally in the mind of the reader. A written text is merely a seed that the brain will then decorate with details from their own experience and world view.
So paradoxically the most important high-level concept in writing is exactly what is not written, namely the parts the author tastefully leaves for the consumer to freely interpret. What makes a text widely successful is that it produces consistent hallucinations across a wide variety of differently configured brains.
A practical example; when writing about a dog the writer has a choice to either specify the breed of the dog or omit that information entirely. Depending on the context of a story, the individual reader might "unzip" (i.e. upscale the resolution of the packet) the dog to look widely different. It might become a chihuahua or a german shepherd. This is very apparent and needs no further explanation — omitted details will increase the room for interpretation.
Subsequently, the reverse is also true — the more detailed something is described the less the writer has to rely on the artistic kinship of the reader to conjure an image similar to the author's initial model. An increased level of detail also comes with the drawback of making the text more cumbersome to read, which introduces a need to prioritize which parts of the text that are most suited to be delivered in low fidelity.
When it comes to longer fictional works, as opposed to for example text messages or letters, the objectives of the writer become slightly different. Instead of sharing information in high fidelity, the author now wants to captivate the reader by continuously trigger some emotional response. We judge books by their ability to give us sensations of different kinds, be it interest, fear, beauty, awe, or lust. If it does not, we consider it completely inert and stop reading it almost immediately.
"But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. Sam's plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue."
Knowledge of the human condition can give the author power to affect the upscaling process. Knowing what chain of events will evoke strong emotions, when simulated by the brain, might give the story an undeserved amount of realism by abusing the emotional luggage of the reader. One could say there are certain "keys" to unlock these emotional states, and the writers that intuitively know the keys that unlock the most doors are the ones able to produce a story that sways a nation. Great storytelling involves a sort of milking of emotion.
"Then one night as I listened at the door I heard the shrieking viol swell into a chaotic babel of sound; a pandemonium which would have led me to doubt my own shaking sanity had there not come from behind that barred portal a piteous proof that the horror was real—the awful, inarticulate cry which only a mute can utter, and which rises only in moments of the most terrible fear or anguish. I knocked repeatedly at the door, but received no response. Afterward I waited in the black hallway, shivering with cold and fear, till I heard the poor musician’s feeble effort to rise from the floor by the aid of a chair. Believing him just conscious after a fainting fit, I renewed my rapping, at the same time calling out my name reassuringly. I heard Zann stumble to the window and close both shutter and sash, then stumble to the door, which he falteringly unfastened to admit me. This time his delight at having me present was real; for his distorted face gleamed with relief while he clutched at my coat as a child clutches at its mother’s skirts."
In fiction and emotional writing, the low resolution of the text becomes a tool rather than a limitation, since the reader's imagination will render a far more detailed, more tailor-made, and personal internal vision than a detailed explanation could ever provide.
Another thing that I keep struggling with is choice of words. I think a common method of trying to appear smart is by using cryptic and overly complicated words. This is something I did often in my teenage years, which is above all cowardly and betrays a lack of substance in an argument or person. Conversely, a text that is too bland will lack character and not sufficiently stimulate the reader's ego while not giving the writer enough artistic expression. The sweet spot of complexity is when both the reader and writer get a sense of accomplishment and vanity from both expression and impression. The motive of the author and their target audience must dictate the level of complexity for a text to be well received.