Over the last decade the meaning of the verb to share has been perverted. Look it up in the dictionary, and you’ll find words like apportion, divide, distribute, take part, receive equally. All those definitions make sense. Friends sharing a meal are taking part in a common activity. Two kids sharing the last cookie are dividing it (hopefully into equal parts) so that both can have their treat. There is also the sharing of a burden. Again, a task is divided into different segments and those involved pitch in to make sure the task it completed. Sharing is voluntary. Sharing means the creation of a community even if it’s just for the moment it takes to divide the cookie. It implies mutuality.
Last Friday, June 26, Ed Battistella and I interviews mystery author Darrell James on Literary Ashland. Darrell is a recent transplant to Ashland, OR, moving here from Tucson, AZ, via Los Angeles. He is the author of the Award Winning and multi-nominated Del Shannon series of mystery/thrillers that include: Nazareth Child, winner of the 2012 Left Coast Crime Eureka Award for Best First Novel; Sonora Crossing, and Purgatory Key, which was nominated for both the Anthony and Shamus Awards. In addition, his more than thirty short stories have appeared in numerous mystery magazines and book anthologies, and have garnered a number of awards. His most recent Little Earl short story appears in the MWA anthology, Vengeance, edited by Lee Child. For more information, visit his website.
Last November, Ed Battistella and I interviewed Clive Rosengren, Ashland mystery author and creator of Eddie Collins, part-time PI and part-time actor. Since the interview, the second Eddie Collins mystery Red Desert has been published. You can read more about it on Clive’s website.
Listen to the interview again and get some great background on Eddie and his cases. Clive is a retired actor and his insight into the Hollywood scene is a crucial part of his novels.
Early Islamic Portrayal of Aristotle with Alexander the Great. Wikipedia
In this, the last blog post on Aristotle’s Poetics, I’ll focus on the remaining aspects of his treatise. The most important of those is character. And here, contemporary writers have to pick and choose with more care. Some of Aristotle’s points are straightforward, “any speech or action that manifests moral purpose of any kind will be expressive of character: the character will be good if the purpose is good” (Poetics, chapter XV). As are his statements that characters must be true to life and consistent in their behavior and reactions.
But ancient Greece was a patriarchal and stratified society. One of the reasons its democracy worked was that slaves did all the work so the Greeks could engages in politics. The role of women was also seriously proscribed. So when he says, “Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless;” or “There is a type of manly valor; but valor in a woman, or unscrupulous cleverness, is inappropriate;” we should actively disregard his advice (ibid.). Although our society has by no means rid itself of the kind of mindset represented by Aristotle, we as writers have a responsibility to nudge our readers toward a world where status, class, or gender are no more important than the color of one’s eyes.
The last post ended with a summary of what makes a good plot–arouse fear and pity in the reader through reversals of fortune from good to bad caused by error or personal frailty rather than vice. But how is the writer supposed to achieve this?
Aristotle grants that fear and pity can be aroused through spectacular means, but he considers that the weaker form. “A superior poet” will achieve the same result through the structure of the plot itself. Or, to use a modern example, movies can achieve this effect through massive explosions and CGI, but it’s a weak substitute for an intricate series of events that cause the protagonist to act in ways that cause the reversal of fortunes. That’s the heart of Greek tragedy, the unfolding of individual actions, all seemingly logical on their own, leading to an outcome that is disastrous. Of course that takes good writing. No wonder many films take the cheap way out.
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