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Authorial Intent is Dead: root assumptions
Mar. 5th, 2009 10:10 pmSo I've been following along with Racefail '09, from the sidelines, partly because illness and trying to get a show up have distracted me from the internet, partly because I don't know what to say that smarter people than me haven't already said better.
But after reading Elizabeth Bear's so-called apology, I tried to think about what would I do, as a creator of a published work, if someone who'd seen my work told me there were skanky race issues? Not prescriptively--not what should I do, but what would be my instant reaction if that happened to me right now?
And I realized that I have a fundamental, root-level disconnect in philosophy from all the pro sf/f people I've read here. I believe that authorial intent is dead. I believe that once you finish a work and publish and put it out there, it speaks for itself, and you do not speak for it, and if it what it says isn't what you meant to say, then an an author you were not communicating well. But you don't get takesies-backsies, it's out there, and it says what it says. And it says many different things to many different readers. And all readings of a text are equally valid.
I think a lot of creative fandom operates on this base assumption, whether or not they've had any background in literary criticism or thought about how they think about their fandoms at all. A lot of fanfiction and fanvids are based on the idea of I see a possible interpretation of this story that not everyone else sees, that maybe wasn't something the author was trying to put in, but it's there, let me show it to you. Classic slash fandom in particular exemplifies this mode of fannishness, but I think any interactive, interpretive, creative kind of fannish activity makes this assumption that there are more things in the text than the author knowingly put there.
And once you've incorporated into your thought process that what an author may have intended is not the be-all and end-all of what is there to be read in a work, then "But that's not what I meant!" as an authorial response to criticism of their work is not a statement that holds any water. You didn't mean it? So what? That's how it read to me, who are you tell me my reading is wrong?
But if you haven't incorporated that, if, as an author, you believe that you wrote what you meant and you meant what you wrote and there's only one correct way to read your words and that's as you wrote them--well then, all these people telling you that what you wrote doesn't mean what you think it means, they're all wrong, aren't they?
A story is like a child: you shape it to the best of your ability, try to infuse it with your values, and then you send it out into the world and let it interact with other people and you can't control those interactions. Your baby has grown up, your input is over, and if you did your job well, what you wanted to transmit will come through--but the story is not a perfect representation, any more than a child is a clone of a parent, words are slippery things, communication is informed by experience and people with all kinds of experiences will read your story and find things in it you didn't know you wrote. And they aren't wrong to find them.
ETA: 3/9/09 Screening comments because I am going into tech week for my show and am not able to moderate discussion in a timely fashion. Will unscreen as I respond.
But after reading Elizabeth Bear's so-called apology, I tried to think about what would I do, as a creator of a published work, if someone who'd seen my work told me there were skanky race issues? Not prescriptively--not what should I do, but what would be my instant reaction if that happened to me right now?
And I realized that I have a fundamental, root-level disconnect in philosophy from all the pro sf/f people I've read here. I believe that authorial intent is dead. I believe that once you finish a work and publish and put it out there, it speaks for itself, and you do not speak for it, and if it what it says isn't what you meant to say, then an an author you were not communicating well. But you don't get takesies-backsies, it's out there, and it says what it says. And it says many different things to many different readers. And all readings of a text are equally valid.
I think a lot of creative fandom operates on this base assumption, whether or not they've had any background in literary criticism or thought about how they think about their fandoms at all. A lot of fanfiction and fanvids are based on the idea of I see a possible interpretation of this story that not everyone else sees, that maybe wasn't something the author was trying to put in, but it's there, let me show it to you. Classic slash fandom in particular exemplifies this mode of fannishness, but I think any interactive, interpretive, creative kind of fannish activity makes this assumption that there are more things in the text than the author knowingly put there.
And once you've incorporated into your thought process that what an author may have intended is not the be-all and end-all of what is there to be read in a work, then "But that's not what I meant!" as an authorial response to criticism of their work is not a statement that holds any water. You didn't mean it? So what? That's how it read to me, who are you tell me my reading is wrong?
But if you haven't incorporated that, if, as an author, you believe that you wrote what you meant and you meant what you wrote and there's only one correct way to read your words and that's as you wrote them--well then, all these people telling you that what you wrote doesn't mean what you think it means, they're all wrong, aren't they?
A story is like a child: you shape it to the best of your ability, try to infuse it with your values, and then you send it out into the world and let it interact with other people and you can't control those interactions. Your baby has grown up, your input is over, and if you did your job well, what you wanted to transmit will come through--but the story is not a perfect representation, any more than a child is a clone of a parent, words are slippery things, communication is informed by experience and people with all kinds of experiences will read your story and find things in it you didn't know you wrote. And they aren't wrong to find them.
ETA: 3/9/09 Screening comments because I am going into tech week for my show and am not able to moderate discussion in a timely fashion. Will unscreen as I respond.
