I’m 31 episodes in and I’ve just posted my first Mural Gazer story, based on Harry Sanderson’s initial entry into Mural#1 – Steam Donkey at Work. By now, I think readers will have a sense of how this book will unfold – how character, theme, plot, voice and structure can be sustained through I’m not sure how many more episodes. But it’s a story working itself out in the telling, which means as an author, I have to feel my way forward, even though no direct route has opened up for me.
If you detected a tincture of doubt in my voice, good on you. You have to keep your clay moist the whole time you’re working on your sculpture. The Mural Gazer as a process and story has to remain fluid right up to the end. And when is the end, my friend? In truth, the writing of a story’s never finished; we type ‘the end’ at the bottom of a manuscript because we’re done, not because the story’s done.
Fiction especially always presents infinite possibilities, right down to the nuances that exist in the spaces between lines and words. That’s one of the things about literature that makes it exciting for readers as well as authors – the creative act of imagining not only what the words are saying, what they could be saying from a thousand different perspectives.
Dynamic Writing
Which brings me to the first facet of The Mural Gazer’s unfolding as a direct-to-web, dynamic story in the telling. I want to open this writer’s closet door and let in influences from my communities of interest. For example, I am of European ancestry; I can only guess what it’s like to have grown up as a First Nations person in the place I now live, Chemainus. Why on earth wouldn’t I reach out to the people around me who know that part of the story – the Penelakut, Stz’uminus, Halalt and Cowichan – and ask for their help making my fiction real?
That, in brief, is one of the most important capabilities direct-to-web writing brings to my creative process. It’s exciting! More examples: I’m male, not female; Old enough to have forgotten what it’s like to be in high school… There will be many scenes in The Mural Gazer that I will have to construct from research and speculative imagination; having readers’ insights to make those passages more real can only add to the story – and the inspiration derived from writing the story.
That aspect of direct-to-web hasn’t kicked in yet. But supposing Steven Hawking asked me to comment on his descriptions of astronomy and physics – which, arguably, are no less fictional then mine about love and life in this corner of the universe – would I be quick to offer alternative perspectives? Probably not. I suspect there are many out there who don’t identify as writers… let’s switch modes then, reach out to readers, listeners and viewers as well. Most everyone can comment from some perspective on how to improve a tale. So we’ll keep trying. Patience may be a virtue, but only if it runs in tandem with persistence.
Structure & Plot
The Mural Gazer will actually be many stories woven into one. You could say that of any novel. Buddy’s anguish over his separation from Leanne; Harry’s failing health, which compromises his drive to discover the stories Chemainus murals have to tell; the irreconcilable views of history from the perspectives of age and occupation… The plot-line of The Mural Gazer will be driven by those types of interacting narratives.
There are added dimensions to The Mural Gazer, though, which will make it fun. As I see it, each of the chapters will contain ‘a story within the story.’ The premise of The Mural Gazer is the ability of an old man to enter the murals of Chemainus via the perspectives of historical characters in each of the paintings. In The Cape – where he has his second such encounter – Harry finds himself in the mind-space of the ‘native princess’, watching the HMS Reindeer sail into Horseshoe Bay. He’s as bewildered as the reader by this metempsychosis.
It’s these psychic episodes will tie present to past in The Mural Gazer. They are intended to overcome to some extent the revisionist slant to history, to show that the past is part-in-parcel of the present, and that it is important for us to examine the history – without flinching – if we want to fully understand how we got to where we are and project a future that works.
Character
I know I’m getting my characters down when they surprise me – do things that make me laugh, or groan, or mutter as I write. So far I like all the characters I have met in The Mural Gazer – there’s no temptation, up to now, to introduce any heroes or villains – caricatures, rather than characters, used as a sort of lazy, literary (and political, and commercial) shorthand.
It’s as dangerous for an author as it is for a parent to pick favorites when it comes to the cast of his story… so I’ll keep my biases to myself. But my hopes for this novel are pinned on Harry Sanderson and Buddy Hope. They have a lot of working out to do as their friendship develops: First Nation – European; female – male; able bodied – physically challenged.
Ironically, and naturally, it’s as much their similarities as their differences that will generate tensions. They are both intelligent, driven by vision, and determined to make meaningful futures based on social and ideological commitments. How do the roots of friendship take hold in that psychic environment?
Keep reading The Mural Gazer, and commenting, and we’ll find out!