How I Learned... #1: About the Meaning of Writing

Why My Writing Doesn't Mean Anything

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Author Intention

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Why is Ray Bradbury Flipping Me the Bird?

Of all the useless things I learned in high school and college writing classes, the crowning gem in that collection of cliches is without a doubt the idea that fiction has to have a meaning—or even better, a hidden meaning. The concept of subtext has been a godsend to many an undergraduate groping for a thesis.

Anyone who's ever sat through a creative writing class or attended a book discussion group or read through a pretentious blog has probably heard these questions before:

"Why does this character symbolize?"

"What is the significance of this scene?"

"What is this choice of words/quotation/drapery color meant to tell us?"

And the biggest wallbanger of them all: "What does this story mean? What message is the reader meant to take away?"

So for this, my first offering of knowledge unto ye masses, I've decided to let you in on a little trade secret (if you've been paying attention, the first title of this post should have given it away):

It doesn't matter.

That's really it. The symbology, the significance, the messages—none of it matters.

I exaggerate, of course. Naturally, all that stuff has screeds of meaning to You, The Writer. But to You, The Reader... not really important.

In the 1968 Mel Brooks film The Producers, Franz Liebkind insists maniacally that "You are ze audience. I am ze author. I OUTRANK YOU!" It's been one of my favorite quotes for years, but with great reluctance, I've finally had to let it go. Because what the writer wants to convey during the composition of a novel or a short story or a screenplay or a comic book script no longer matters once the work is complete.

That's why when people ask me what a story means or what moral I was aiming for, I usually say "You tell me. What did it mean to you?" For me, that's the important thing. I already know what the book means to me. I need to know how it affects someone else.

To use a personal example: I vastly prefer the movie version of Alan Moore's V for Vendetta to the graphic novel version. It's not a question of technical brilliance or improved story. Like any movie adaptation, the story had to be modified and slimmed down, and in a lot of ways suffered for it. Cramming a 12-month story into 2-1/2 hours of screen time is not an easy thing to do. But to me, the story and the message of the movie was much more powerful, because it was more personal.

The story of the graphic novel deals with anarchy, but the underlying thread of the movie was a condemnation of censorship. To me, the movie is about freedom of speech, probably the one thing a writer values above everything else. I know that wasn't the intended message of the novel and probably wasn't what the movie was going for, but I paid full price four times to see that movie when it was in theaters, so I doubt my misplaced interpretation will cause the studio any grief.

Sometimes it's not an entire book; sometimes it's just a character, one who no matter how often you try to explain one way, some readers will insist on explaining him/her/it in a completely different way.

My sister-in-law is a huge Harry Potter fan. Over the holidays, we got to talking about the books any the movies, when a surprising revelation came up: she refuses to accept that Dumbledore is gay.

Our conversation went something like this:

"Dumbledore's gay."

"No, he's not."

"Yeah, he is, Rowling said so--"

"No. No, he's not."

That's right, my SIL was trying to strike down The Word of God (warning: TVTropes link!). I was genuinely pissed, and just as genuinely shocked. As students of literature, we're often taught that the author's word it law, but how true is that? My SIL was sincerely upset at the thought of Dumbledore being gay—not out of any homophobic tendencies, but because that was different from what she'd been imagining for the last thirteen years. If Dumbledore had been portrayed as gay from the beginning of the series, she'd have been fine with it, but as it stands, she's struggling with the revelation. It's as though her grandfather just came out of the closet, and it's too much for her to handle... so she decided not to. She doesn't want the character to change, so it never happened.

And nothing J.K. Rowling ever says will convince her otherwise.

Still don't believe me? Here's a famous example: Ray Bradbury has college students tell him that Fahrenheit 451 doesn't mean what he thinks it means. (Scroll down to #5; Mostly Not Safe for Work)

The art of storytelling is a finicky, subjective animal. One story means many things to different people, and the author's intention often has very little to do with that. As authors, we have no control over what meaning our readers assign to our work or what may happen when that work is adapted into something new. We can only do our best to craft our words in such a way that the message me want to convey, if we have one, comes across intact. Because if a reader wants to take away something quite different from what you intended, there ain't nothing you can do about it.