Encyclopedia of Ignorance

[dmboogie]

Daniel raised a hand in farewell as Naomi left to replace the books, though his  concentration remained mostly on his conversation with Rachael and Arthur. He was happy that he had been able to help Naomi learn more about sign language, and he hoped that she would seek further knowledge. It is a nice thing when Michael can actually speak directly to a person, after all. "Goodbye." He turned back to Rachael and Arthur.

"That's actually kind of funny Dan, the story I'm trying to write is almost the complete opposite. You don't really get where the protagonist is going and why this is happening to her. That is, until I can find a good answer."

"Stories where everything is a mystery can be pretty fun to read, Rachael. I especially  like it when you are given clues as to what is going on, but are left to figure out most of it for yourself. Sort of like a puzzle. I would like to read it when you finish it." Daniel smiled at her. It was pretty cool that Rachael wrote stuff. Pretty good stuff, too, from what Daniel had seen. Always a sweet talent to have. Daniel had dabbled in storytelling before, but his attempts never resulted in anything very good. Eventually he gave up entirely, content to view the work of others.

"That's actually something fun to discuss: is it better for some stories to not have answers to their tales? The Lady and the Tiger makes it possible to go either way without making it easy for the reader to know which door the man picked, but I think it is better than having him open the door only to get mauled or married."

Ah, it was time for the debate power hour! While Daniel usually wasn't much of a debater, he rather enjoyed discussing literature. Sort of an inherent trait, considering that he was the co-founder of the book club. It came with the job description. "It really depends on the tone of the story, I think. It is-" Hang on, how long had he dropped the contractions for? Dagnabbit, Daniel, wasn't that a habit you were trying to get rid of? Removing contractions from your speech when nervous? You've known Rachael for years, you have no cause to be alarmed! Prom plans change nothing!

"Er, sorry, I lost my train of thought for a second. As I was saying-" C'mon man contraction contraction contraction "It's" YES! "usually better off when used in short stories, especially ones that are ambiguous about things in general. In a long series, when you've come to know and care for the characters, it sort of feels like a cop out to not know their final fates, though I guess it would work if it was a continuation of the story's theme. A Series of Unfortunate Events, for one. Almost nothing was answered in the final book, but because a major theme of the series was not being able to solve all of life's mysteries it worked."

Good job, Daniel, that was a mostly intelligent answer, you managed to avoid looking like an idiot like that one time in English class. John ValJean? Really, past self? Sleep deprivation was a powerful drug indeed.

After stopping for a second to catch his breath, he saw Chris head over to their table. Daniel didn't know him very well, except that he was a member of the book club. "Ah, hello, Chris! Feel free to join the discussion!" He turned his attention to Arthur, who mentioned a similar example from The Stand.

"Honestly, given the choice I would probably prefer the author be vague and ambiguous instead of ham-fisted with the foreshadowing. That way at least they're assuming we're smarter than we really are, instead of dumber."

Daniel nodded. "It does feel sort of insulting when authors feel the need to spell every single thing out, though admittedly in some cases a bit of explanation would be welcome. Some things just end up being so overly-complex that you need a bit of a recap on occasion." Arthur then went on to describe a book that he was currently reading.

...I'm not making much sense, am I?"

Daniel shook his head. "I understood what you were trying to say pretty well, actually. It's sort of a metafiction thing, right? That sounds pretty interesting. What's the name of the book? I'll have to check it out once I'm finished with The Dark Tower." Ah, more material for the reading queue. Wonderful!

[Laurels]

"Oh, hey Chris. Yeah, feel free to join. Just discussing ambiguity in stories."

Rachael motioned for Chris to sit at the table with the rest of them. It sounded like everyone was interested in discussing the topic she brought up. Arthur rambled slightly discussing a book he was reading, as well as the fact that he preferred ambiguity to obvious symbolism. Daniel agreed, bringing up A Series of Unfortunate Events as an example. That pleased Rachael, since she really liked those books.

Daniel asked about the book Arthur was mentioning. Rachael tried to think about what the book was titled.

"Is it Naked Lunch? I know that book is quite difficult to figure out, but has some really great vignettes."

She then looked at the paper she was planning.

"But yeah, I'm writing about a woman who falls asleep and wakes up in another life. It continues to happen every time she falls asleep. Between each new life is a recurring section of her on an empty subway train, and this one kid appears in every new life she wakes up in. I think I'm going to try and observe how she can handle this sort of event more than present an actual answer. It's still a bit rough though, especially since I'm not sure how many worlds she'll wake up in and what they will be like."

"Any suggestions?"

[antonm1107†]

Chris spent the whole time just listening; he didn't have that much experience reading books like that. He read some books with a cliffhanger ending, but there was always a good idea of what was going on.
"Any suggestions?" Chris looked at Rachael thoughtfully.
"Don't show too many worlds? That's pretty important; endless unique worlds would just make a reader confused. Also, everybody loves some sort of closure, so while you can be ambiguous, don't go overboard." Chris went quiet for a few seconds; what else was there? "Um... Even if you never plan to tell the reader what's going on, you yourself should know. You should give enough hints throughout the book so that readers can begin to guess a sort of answer." Chris thought for a few more seconds before shrugging."That's all I've got."

[Solitair†]

Arthur couldn't help but smile. He was actually getting his friends interested in this book! Then again, that was no guarantee that they would finish it. He'd heard of people giving up on the book all the time after two hundred pages or less, since the book was pretty hard to get into. It wasn't there to impress the reader, as one snarky commenter had said, but vice versa.

"Actually, it's not Naked Lunch," Arthur told Rachael. "I haven't really read Naked Lunch, so I can't say how similar they are, except that they both have drug addiction motifs I guess. Seen the movie, though. It's pretty good. Anyway, I'm talking about Infinite Jest, but I gotta warn you guys, it's not an easy read. It's over a thousand pages long, at least a hundred of which are endnotes, and the prose is pretty dense. Imaginative and colorful, but dense all the same. Just stick with it. It'll be worth it, I promise." He realized that he was gesturing with his hands as he talked about Infinite Jest, and quickly sat on them. "Sorry."

Chris was bringing up another point, one that got Arthur curious. "Other worlds? That's pretty specific, isn't it? I mean, most stories just stick to one last I heard. But you could apply that to settings in general, and maybe characters. There are definitely downsides to broad, epic scope, and advantages to a narrow focus. And the author of Infinite Jest did say that you could guess what happens in the climax thanks to little details, and someone did." Another glance at Rachael. "Oh wait, sorry, he was talking about your idea, wasn't he? I guess that depends on how much you want to focus on this Slider girl and of course how long you want to stretch the story. I'd advise not going for too long, myself."

[dmboogie]

After listening to Rachael's explanation of her story, Daniel spoke, saying "I think it really depends on what you want the focus of the story to be on, the various worlds or the woman? Personally, I enjoy reading about characters exploring a variety of strange, alien worlds, but if that's not the point I'd say too many worlds would distract from the main plot." Daniel shrugged. "Just handle it the way that makes the best sense for what you wanna write, I guess."

Though he didn't really have any experience writing, Daniel hoped his advice would help anyway, however meager. Chris chimed in with his opinion, and Daniel thought for a moment before responding. "I sort of agree, but I don't think the tele-reality-sleep-thing should be explained. I mean, a lot of stories have something weird happen to kick the story into motion, and though the weird thing is never fully explained the characters reach a sort of personal closure by the end. Anything revealed should just cause more questions to be asked." He thought for a second, then added "Uh, not trying to tell you how to write your story or anything, Rachael, just stating my personal preference."

Arthur mentioned that his book was Infinite Jest, not Naked Lunch. Daniel wasn't familiar with either, though he had heard them mentioned. At the mention of the book's difficulty to read, Daniel smiled a bit. He was pretty sure that if he could make it through the unabridged version of Les Miserables that he had officially obtained his "Books That Hurt A Lot When You Drop Them On Your Foot Club" membership card. "I'll have to check it out, though it'll be a while before I get a chance to read it. So many thing to read, only one pair of eyes."

Daniel nodded in agreement as Arthur continued on, saying pretty much the same thing that he did about Rachael's story.

[Laurels]

Rachael listened intently to what the guys had to say. They seemed to be on the same page for the most part. She shouldn't make it too long, and she probably shouldn't have an answer. Rachael could understand why they would suggest those. She didn't even have many ideas for the different worlds her protagonist would end up in anyways. The worlds were mostly classified by various roles and positions, such as a mother, an executive, a vagabond, a lover, and a soldier.

Daniel then suggested she try to focus on either the supernatural elements or the woman herself. Rachael thought about it  for a moment.

"Well, I guess it would be a bit more about how the woman reacts to everything. I mean, yeah, weird stuff is happening to her, but it mostly deals with her having to accept the roles while she tries to figure things out."

Rachael looked at the paper she was planning the story on.

"Yeah, see, I've begun to think of what kind of worlds she wakes up in. She starts as Sofia, then awakens as Tara the executive, then Josie the housewife, Ashley the vagrant, Ariel the lover, and finally as an unnamed soldier in a war zone.  I had the idea that everyone sees her as another person, although she can only see herself as she originally was, Sofia the college graduate. She's Sofia again whenever she's on the subway train, which only adds to her confusion. She's especially confused when she discovers things in each life, such as why Ariel would bring a gun to a picnic."

"But, I guess I might be rambling a bit," she said. "Is anything neat going on with you guys?"

[antonm1107†]

Chris continued listening to the group, waiting for something in which he could provide his own input. "Infinite jest? I've heard of that... Didn't people make competitions with that book? I remember something about "Infinite Summer", or something that challenged people to read it in two months."  Rachael continued talking about her short story then. "Huh; those are pretty contradictory roles; it'll be interesting to see the reaction of Sofia when she sleeps a housewife and awakens homeless. But how do you plan to get a soldier on a subway train?"

"Is anything neat going on with you guys?"
"Well, I'm almost done reading Ender's Shadow. I think we read Ender's Game once, right? It was a book about a little kid called Ender who was sent off to space to learn how to command for an upcoming invasion. Anyway, Ender's Shadow is basically that book from Bean's perspective. It's good, but I didn't really like Bean's change in personality. Otherwise, though, I'm loving it so far. Besides that, I'm trying to write my own six word story." He frowned then; making a six word story was very difficult. "You guys ever tried that? Because I have no idea where to begin."

[Solitair†]

Arthur tried to follow along with Rachael's explanations of how Sophia would quantum leap into all of these other people from fantasy worlds, but he got the distinct impression that he'd missed a crucial detail or two. "Whoa, hold on," he said, looking at Rachael. "Could you go back a bit and spell out how this whole worldshifting thing works? I thought that she was just reincarnated through the multiverse or something, but if she ends up being regular Sophia on a train that can't be right, can it?"

But thankfully his spirits were alleviated by Chris having actually heard of Infinite Jest before. "Yeah, yeah! Infinite Summer! That was a few years ago, right after the author died. I read the book later than that, so I couldn't really join in the discussion, but I liked reading all the blog posts and stuff. It really helps get you through the book, having the sense that you aren't reading it alone and there are other people doing it with you. Even if they're technically not." He shrugged.

"Dude, I've never even heard of six second stories," Arthur continued, changing the subject. "Is that even possible? Just six words? I think I'd need to see an example because otherwise I'd just assume it was a synopsis for an actual immersive story."

He sighed and nodded at Daniel. "Yeah, don't even get me started on my to-read list. There's so much that people recommend and here I am trying to actually write and draw stuff on my own." He neglected to mention that he was writing fanfiction and drawing cartoon characters for the past couple of days. Somehow he doubted that would go over well with his friends.

[Laurels]

((Skipping order to leave thread.))

Arthur was a little confused about an aspect of Rachael's story and asked for clarification.

"Oh, well, I meant that in each respective world, Sofia saw herself physically as another person. On the train, she is physically herself again. That's all."

Chris then mentioned six word stories, with Arthur asking what those were.

"Oh, I heard of those. You got to tell a whole story with just six words. Hemingway wrote one that is usually considered the best. He wrote 'For sale: baby shoes, never worn.' That tells you enough in six words. It's pretty genius."

Rachael's eyes moved around the room, catching the clock on the wall.

"Oh, class is about to start! Well, this has been fun guys. I'll see you all later."

Rachael pocketed her planning sheet and grabbed her bag, making her way to the exit of the library. She was glad she had the perspective of her friends to help her plan the story.

If this novella gets published, they get the dedication.

((Rachael Langdon continued in Rachael, Retail))

[antonm1107†]

Chris nodded when he heard Rachael's explanation of worldshifting; he hadn't understood it that well before, so this helped clear things up a bit. He then heard Arthur ask about six-word stories, but before he could explain it himself, Rachael beat him to it.

Then, Arthur made a comment that Chris perked up at. "Huh, drawing? What kind of stuff do you draw?" He was about to ask more when Rachael got up and said that it was almost time for class to start. He looked at the clock himself and found that it was indeed class time. "Huh, it is. Damn. Guess I'll be seeing you guys later." And with that, Chris stood up and left for his next class.

[Solitair†]

((Skipping dmboogie because it's past time to bail.))

Arthur shrugged and looked away from Chris. He had his sketchbook with him, as per usual, but did he want to risk actually showing it to him and giving him a peek at something self-indulgent and embarrassing? Maybe if he could actually organized his drawings better like he did the ones on his computer, he wouldn't have this problem. Or maybe he could just reserve a special section of his sketchbook, or perhaps a new sketchbook entirely, for drawings he wouldn't be embarrassed to show off to real life friends. Otherwise known as the boring ones.

Before Arthur could really get into the age-old question of how much he should cater his artistic tastes to other people's interests, the bell rang and he looked up at it like a startled deer. "Oh shit, class, yeah," he said as he unzipped his backpack and slid everything back inside. "Uh, see you all later, I hope. Bye!" He started walking away from the table and to the door, squeezing through a small crowd of other students along the way.

((Arthur Wells continued in Pretend This Title is a Witty Lyrical Reference))

[dmboogie]

Everyone was leaving, class was starting soon, it was time to go. Daniel gathered up his things, satisfied with a lunch period well spent.

((Daniel Whitten: Continued in The Anime Nerd and the Band Geek))