The Ickneild Way by Spencer Gore

As a brief follow up to my essay Context is Everything, I would like to discuss my favorite insight that came from thinking about the importance of context and the way our minds work. I believe that authors purposefully use the power of association to improve the experience of reading a story. Let me explain.

A book belongs to its readers. A story is something that an author imagines and then tries to convey in words to share with others. Much is lost in that process of sharing. Language is an incredible and expansive tool, but it has limitations. I think of it as a problem of bandwidth. Trying to broadcast the thoughts in your head to another person via language is like trying to explain the experience of eating ice cream with nothing but a walkie talkie and a polaroid camera. There is just no way to get all of the data in your head — the thoughts, emotions, images, colors, and connotations — across to another person with mere words.

That clearly does not stop people from sharing the contents of their minds, and many authors are able to communicate with great success. However, the story that the reader experiences will always be different than what the author intended. Every word the author uses has a connotation specific to the author. It has the flavor of every association that has ever been tied to that word in the author’s mind. That connotation was molded over a lifetime by the context in each instance the word was heard or read. Every smell, taste, thought, or sound that the author experiences changes the author’s interpretation of that word.

When an author wants to convey a mental image, they might choose a word that fits perfectly with what they are imagining. They are picturing a sunset where the sky bursts into a multitude of colors, and the word opalescent comes to mind. Unfortunately, the version of the word that works so well for them (iridescent, rainbow-like, prismatic) has a different connotation to you. Opalescent brings to mind the picture of an opal for you, and your associations (milky, pearly) do nothing to help you picture the sunset from the author’s mind.

How does one overcome this inherent limitation of language? One way is to spend more time on descriptions. If you use enough words in the right order, you are able to paint a detailed picture in the mind of the reader to get them closer to what you are imagining. You can even anticipate the problem of differing connotations by using a variety of words that fit your mental image, increasing the probability that the reader ends up where you want them to go. You can use similes and metaphors that paint more unambiguous pictures. You can even crush the uncertainty altogether and put a picture in the book to take out any guesswork.

While all of those methods are fascinating and useful, what has intrigued me the most is the possibility that what the author leaves out of their book is actually more important than what they include. An author can intentionally omit a detailed description or an explanation of what is going on, forcing the reader to populate the gap with their own mind. In my experience, the best works of art do not tell you exactly how a character is feeling at every moment. They leave you a trail to follow, take you most of the way, and then let you come to the conclusion yourself. In doing this, the author bypasses much of the limitations of language discussed before.

When you read a scene and view the way the characters interact but are not given insight into their thoughts, you will helplessly project out their emotions and motivations. These will come from you, and not the author. There is no way for you to misinterpret the author’s words because they are letting you experience the scene through your own web of thoughts, emotions, and connections. In doing so, the author risks having a reader come to conclusions that the author did not intend. However, if done skillfully, the author can set up the context well enough that you helplessly fill in the gaps in just the way they envisioned. I think this is a key maneuver that sets a great artist apart from a good one.

An author can enmesh you in the narrative by making you add your own emotions, thoughts, and experiences. When you are able to transcend language, the experience is so much deeper. When you read a sentence, you can activate all the associations and contexts you have previously attached to the words. This can be powerful, but your interpretation is still limited by the structure of the sentence and the way in which those words activate your brain. Like the example of the word opalescent, you may accidentally go down a different path than the author intended. But with an omission, with an artful gap left for you to fill, there is an infinite amount of room for your mind to project its ideas onto a semi-blank canvas. You get to interact with the author in a beautiful and novel way. You get to be an artist.

Imagine an author setting up an emotional scene where a man gets tragic news that changes his life forever. The author could tell you, “this news made him feel sad” and rob the moment of all the nuance and depth that it could have had. But if the author leaves a gap, you are able to become part of the story. Maybe the author instead ends the chapter with, “he gazed out the window silently.” Your mind will populate this character’s situation with every piece of bad news you’ve ever received. Every tragedy you’ve experienced and every emotion tied to those events are activated by the scene the author has carefully set. This allows you to relate to the character. All the emotions he must be feeling resonate deeply with you, because you are the one providing them.

In the act of omission, the author provides more detail than they ever could with words.

This tactic is also evidenced in other forms of art, though I will maintain that its greatest usage rests in the written word. Understanding this extra level of skill and intention has given me a deeper appreciation for the artists who can wield the tool so well.

This concept also explains in part why we experience books differently when we read them again and again throughout our lives. If the book was written by a masterful author, there is plenty of room for you to put yourself into the narrative. As you change over time, the story changes as well.

As Paulo Coelho, the author of the Alchemist, said, “Sometimes it’s the things you don’t say that count.”