- Annie Wilkes, from Stephen King’s Misery
I refuse to prove that I exist, because proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing.
- God, From Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Before reading this essay, I suggest going back and reading Other Worlds Part 1: The Far Seeing Eye and Other Worlds Part 2: Cerno & Ingenium – The Doors if you haven’t yet. It’s mostly bullshit anyway, but the few kernels of truth will be easier to separate if you have the full story.
However, since some of you won’t go back and start from the beginning no matter how much I nag, here’s a quick summary.
In part 1 I slung a lot of bullshit about seeing other worlds through the Far Seeing Eye, which, as esoteric as it sounds, is the simplest part of the creative process. It is for me anyway. Boiled down, the Far Seeing Eye is something everyone on earth possesses to some degree, but which is especially strong in people with a creative bent. The Far Seeing Eye is nothing more or less than Imagination.
In Part 2 I really laid it on thick. I told you about two doors, Cerno (determination) and Ingenium (talent and direction). Cerno is a regular door, the one you step through and close behind yourself when it’s time to get to work, the door you close between yourself and the rest of the world.
Ingenium is pure metaphor; it’s the door you step through to join the players in your story. Not to interact with them or guide them, but to watch them interact with each other, and to learn about them. I’m a big believer that good stories, and good characters, take on a life of their own. Once the game is on you are not there to push, bully, guide, or lord over your characters. Just leave them alone and they will do it all on their own. You’re just there to watch, remember, and record. The worlds your Ingenium opens on, or how easily it opens for you, depends upon your talent, discipline, and the direction (genre) you are naturally drawn to. It’s a product of who you are, not what you want.
Now, to the new business.
Ever wonder how God can let so many people do so many bad things? How he/she/it can let so many bad things happen to so many good people? I think everyone who acknowledges the possibility that there is a God has thought that at some point.
I’m going to offer a theory and simply hope I’m not damned to Hell for it.
I refuse to prove that I exist, because proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing.
That line from Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy in mind (it’s probably in the Bible too, somewhere, but I’m not motivated enough to look it up, so I’ll take Mr. Adams’ word for it) pretty much sums it up for me. When God created us, he gave us free will and free reign to use it. It is that free will and a long enough leash to do what we will with it that makes us human. Sometimes we do good, despite our temptations and flaws, sometimes we fuck up royally. Sometimes we commit small sins (mistakes) and sometimes we commit monstrous ones.
As much as some of us would like God to pop on down here and take matters in hand, to clout the bad guys and shake his fists in righteous furry at the whole wicked world – Shape up or ship out! – to do that would take away our free will to be good or bad. If he/she/it proved him/her/itself to us, I’m sure most of us would straighten up and fly straight, but it would be out of fear, not the desire to do good. Proof denies faith, fear denies love, shackles deny free will. Without faith, love, and the free will to try to do good, we may as well be drones scurrying around a giant ant farm, and God may as well break out the looking glass and go to work on us.
Also, and I’m making another leap here, I think the point of it all is that he/she/it wants us to do good (or at least try to do good) on our own.
Still, he allows the occasional miracle.
…A writer is God to the people in a story, he made them up just like God made us up…
Is that true?
I think it is to a degree, but even allowing that, we are only little gods, flawed ourselves, and much more likely to screw our creations up. So for them to have any chance at all of becoming “real,” we have to hold ourselves to the same standards I’ve outlined above. At least I try to hold myself to them.
I think my best stories and characters are the ones I created, set in motion, and then left the hell alone, in a manner of speaking. Know your characters, trust them, and set them loose.
Consider this:
How would Stephen King’s readers react if Randal Flagg was forced to start organizing church bake sales? How about if Roland of Gilead became a pacifist?
They would call bullshit, because they know better, and so does Mr. King.
Still, I think we are allowed a miracle every now and then.
Deus ex hominum, Deus ex machina, it’s all the same thing. Sometimes God really does come down in his chariot to help out a hero, or even just a regular sinner, in need, but he knows not to get too carried away.
Neither should we.
Brian Knight
10 Comments, Comment or Ping
Sully
Bold thoughts, re: creator vs the created. Think you’ve laid out some wisdom everyone can spin to their own thesis. Thank God I’m still trying to figure mine out. I only know that my favorite characters — both those I’ve created and certain pure archetypes I’ve stumbled across in other works — are indeed those which seem to have taken on a life of their own. The author (or artist) has sired/birthed them but then lost them to the external circumstances of their lives. Maybe that’s inscrutable. I can only give you examples, like Herman Melville’s Billy Budd or Stavrogin in Dostoyevsky’s THE POSSESSED. I’ll go you one added dimension, though: the characters of my own that I’ve liked usually have a built-in contradiction, some maverick element that rescues them from cliche. Free will, to put it in your terms. Thought provoking. Thanks, Brian.
– Sully (Thomas Sullivan)
Jun 23rd, 2006
David Niall Wilson
If the old maxi Deus ex Machina is true…isn’t Bill Gates God? (:
To boil it down…I agree. Trying to force characters OUT of character is counter-productive, and would be too much like the gods of organized religion, whom I despise…
DNW
Jun 23rd, 2006
Rick Steinberg
Well whether God created man out of ennui, or man created God out of need, we’re still left with God. But would a God created by man - thereby making man a God - be subservient to man. Or if we are God’s children would not our parent wish us to one day exceed his accomplishments with our own? or would that just piss him off.
Same with our charcters. i think writers tend to force character actions when they get pissed off with something about them - probably reflective of sometihng about the writer that they don’t like - and thereby they begin “punishing” not only the character but the reader as well.
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote that he had played extensively with the reformation of Edward Hyde but then ” . . . realized that if I was to express my free will as a sovereign soul, I must also allow Eddie his liberation.”
Like a parent, sometime we have to let out characters make mistakes,
Jun 23rd, 2006
John B. Rosenman
Brian wrote: “I think it is to a degree, but even allowing that, we are only little gods, flawed ourselves, and much more likely to screw our creations up.”
Ah, I see that Brian’s been reading some of my stories. The comparison between God and writers has been made many times before. Scholars, for example, have said that William Faulkner created his own postage stamp of native soil, called Y– county, and he exerts Godlike power over each and every mortal who lives there. I like your saying that we are “only little Gods.” I know that I’ve bungled some of my creations through murky vision and inadequate talent. The best characters are those who acquire a life of their own, and sometimes they surprise their creators. Oh, is he (or she) really like that? Faulkner once said that he liked to create characters and then run after them with a pad and pencil to jot down what they said and did.
It’s also true that if God manifested Himself or Herself or Itself and explained everything on the six-thirty news that there would be absolutely no need for faith and self-transcendence. Is that why God lets bad things happen to good people? I don’t know, but if everything were spelled out for us, I don’t think there would be much reason to write or create.
Jun 23rd, 2006
Rick Steinberg
John Huston: “Writers are not LIKE Gods, they ARE Gods. The pity is that young beautiful women seldom recognize that.”
Jun 23rd, 2006
David Niall Wilson
Any of you who have read “This is My Blood,” or it’s newer incarnation, “The Temptation of Blood,” will know that half the point of that book was to show people that the apostles, who were RIGHT FREAKING THERE - with God among them - couldn’t keep their focus on it…and drifted into “how can it serve me” at every passing opportunity. It’s a sad facet of human nature to be fought at every turn…
DNW
Jun 23rd, 2006
Janet Berliner
Interesting topic, Brian,
A tribal African book I started twenty years ago came to a grinding halt when the two major characters, both female and powerful and one destined to kill the other, liked each other friom the moment they met. Too dumb to realize that I was being shown a far more interesting story, I fought with them, got nowhere, and put the manuscript aside.
Now they have called me back. I’ve written a third or more of the novel and hope to finish it during this lifetime.
Goes to show you….
Janet
Jun 23rd, 2006
Brian
Thanks for the kudos, Sully. I was unsure how people were going to take that. I know most readers are convinced that we are in complete control. I think they would be shocked if the knew just how little we controled our “Creations.”
Hey David,
I always thought Mr. Gates was second in comand down below.
Rick, well put. Thanks!
John, great examples. You guys are showing me up, and it’s starting to piss me off!
Rick, once again very well put!
David, I haven’t read that, but it sounds very interesting. Is it still in print?
Janet, good luck taking on the story again! Please let us know how it works out.
Jun 23rd, 2006
Mark Rainey
Fine and thoughtful essay, Brian. I’ve often thought virtually the same thing about God and his creations. And if we reflect God in any way, it’s in our desire to create and become small gods. I’ve found, though, as I grow older, I am becoming larger. At least around the middle.
–M
Jun 25th, 2006
Brian
And if we reflect God in any way, it’s in our desire to create and become small gods. I’ve found, though, as I grow older, I am becoming larger. At least around the middle.
LOL! Nice
Jun 25th, 2006
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