@mercuryfoam Woah, that was one insightful nap you took there! Because if this is you on limited sleep, phew!
I think the conclusion I've currently (you know how flakey I am) come to is that while the story is being written, the author should really put their own intent above reader interpretation, because otherwise they’ll likely end up presenting a story that’s not particularly cohesive… and from a reader perspective, interpreting that would be messy and unsatisfying. But once the story is finished, I think it’s totally the readers’ prerogative to assign whatever meaning to all of it that speaks to them personally.
Why I’m saying this applies once the story is over and not throughout is – using your example above, maybe the kind of coffee Curtis likes is really essential to the plot for some weird reason, but you only introduce that information to the story halfway through, at which point it would take precedent over whatever the reader’s idea of Curtis’s preferred coffee was up till now (wow, I feel like I’ll now always think about what kind of coffee Curtis likes lol :D ).
So I’d agree about what you said about the reader’s ‘Truth,’ unless it’s a question of something that’s plot critical, which in an unfinished work is harder to pinpoint. But that would apply to more tangible things like what you said above – definitely less so about character traits, because like you said, there’s a different interpretation of our reality for every person out there, and in real life, we can’t see the inside of anybody’s head either – so how could their be an absolute about a character’s personality, if we can’t even fully have that IRL? But of course I'd say that, because I'm not a fan of absolutes in general.
Death of the author ties in with my philosophy of life that there are many different interpretations of reality. Each reader has their own construct of reality, so each reader will interpret the story using their own narrative. There is no ‘right’ reality -- no one’s interpretation is better than the other, not even the author because everyone interprets events with their own personalised lenses so the body of writing in question is already skewed.
You've put this far more eloquently than I ever could! *bows*
If you caught my story in the earlier stages I used Author notes to explain a lot of theoretical concepts or workings of the story.
Oh I think I remember that! I can see how there would be a merit to that kind of thing for more factual context, like say, history specific to your Universe. Kind of like how Tolkien wrote the entirety of Silmarillion to explain all the weird books and myths his characters referenced. Crutial to the story's enjoyment and finding something of meaning in it, not necessarily, but some people love extra lore (full disclosure, i could not get past two pages of Silmarillion)
I think the lore side generally is tricky, at least I know I struggle with it, because I don't necessarily want to shoehorn it in - it's not something that feels like it would come up in conversations, but it does bear relevance to the plot. I am actually thinking of something specific in my story here, that I have only said in comments but has not been directly referenced anywhere in the story, since it never fit, and that sort of bugs me because it does have some importance - and it's not one of those open to interpretation characteristics, it's something more "factual". Hopefully I'll find a way to squeeze it in somewhere without making it seem out of place haha. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent!
Each character I’ve written are (to me) representative of real people out there with the same challenges and adversities. With what authenticity do I have that I write their story?
Foof, that's a big burden to take on. And exactly why I decided to write a story about elves and spellcasters and vampires and fairies :)
I'm definitely not going to comment on Anne Rice’s works after that video haha!
Lol I found that so funny, because I had no idea, and I'm pretty sure Anne Rice's books have been a big influence on me since I read several of them countless times and I love them. But in case she's somehow lurking around here, this does not equate to fanfiction, my characters are my own, and they're their own kind of weird :joy: :joy: :joy: