Quantum Storytelling

Popular creative advice will often tell you to “follow your muse.” I need to punch popular advice in the gut once again, for its shortsightedness and misguidance.

I’ve been reading some Van Vogt lately. Author of Slan and The World of Null A, Vogt was in the writing camp of following your muse. Slan is a very fun novel, and Null A is turning out to be more interesting than I initially thought.

I’ve read that Vogt supposedly wrote Slan in a single night. “Amazing!” some might say. But I say…

I can tell.

And it appears The World of Null A was written very quickly as well. There is a quality to Vogt’s writing that is difficult to pinpoint or summarize. The writing feels… rushed. From a plotting standpoint this would normally be a good thing. Vogt’s stories are certainly fast paced. On one page two characters might be quietly sharing dinner, and on the next they are whisked off into space on a rocketship, held at gunpoint by pursuers.

Yet, while this is entertaining, it also has a discordant, nonsensical quality to it. Vogt’s stories read like a dream. Things don’t seem to happen for any logical reason, and so you never really know what’s next. But this is not suspense. It is not a carefully planned twist for the reader to enjoy. It is a meandering twist, rather than a logical one.

For that reason as I read, I am entertained. But I am failing to find meaning in the work. I desperately want to understand how and why. I want to know why the things happening are important. I even trick myself, lie to myself, that maybe the author will explain why haphazard, random, wandering incidents have meaning. But deep down, I know the author won’t bother.

The author is just following the muse.

Authors often hold more obligation to their muse than they do to the reader. I can expect no explanatory satisfaction, and if I want to enjoy the work I just need to bask in the ignorance of whimsical nonsense.

It’s hard to create meaning with a Shoot-First-Ask-Questions-Later approach to writing. Meaning comes from thought, and following the muse clashes somewhat with the act of pensive analysis.

The lesson here is this; Know your tradeoffs. Follow your muse blindly, but only if you don’t mind sacrificing some sense and meaning during the process.