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Really interesting post, Rosalie, and the quotes fit perfectly. I think you're absolutely right about the importance of playing, or keeping the joy. I've been reminded of that since I started teaching a writing class in the community - they just love what they do, and having fun with writing (as opposed to seeing it as a sometimes agonising slog!) rubs off very nicely!

It's sad that so many of us - like you - have to learn this the hard way; and even then we forget and have to learn all over again. I hope you can carry on playing - whatever life throws at you.

So true that the creative ideas bit can't be forced. But getting the thing written and working IS work, and is supposed to be. Still, work can be fun, too....

Great blog post! What was your research area back then?

I find the same thing happens with ideas when you take the pressure on and look at it in a "let's have fun" attitude.

I'm glad things worked out well for you in the end - sounds incredibly difficult.

It's important for all writers, and particularly so for children's writers. If the spirit of playful creativity isn't there in the writing, it'll be hard work to read, too.

It's important for all writers, and particularly so for children's writers. If the spirit of playful creativity isn't there in the writing, it'll be hard work to read, too.

Oh dear, Ros, you've just given me yet another excuse to avoid my desk and take to my bed in order to recover my spirit of play!

Thanks for comments, all.

Freya, I did research in cognitive science, specialising in language processing, specialising further in temporal adverbs like 'then'! And, later, metaphor. But had to teach computer programming, which I did not enjoy.

Happy playing/writing everyone!

I think we should if we want to but not if we don't. I don't blame readers for wanting to know more, though - for me, one of the great things about a story is that you have so fully engaged with it that you don't want to leave it or stop thinking about it, and part of thinking about something often involves asking questions.

I am someone who wants to ask questions about the books I read and to offer answers for the books I write. Although of course I'm not preaching messages in my books, I am usually trying to say something or suggest something or create a specific meaning, and I'm happy when readers ask about that, either because they want to argue with it or because they want to know if their meaning is the same as my intended one.

But Philip Pullman is much more of your thinking - he won't be drawn on intentions and meanings, believing (I think) that what it means to the reader is all that's necessary and important. I'm too much of a control-freak to take that view!

As to the piece you've written - you should do exactly what you want with it! I'd be interested in it because I'm interested in how writers' minds work. And maybe that's the point: either the story is the story, regardless of the writer's thoughts about it, or the writer's mind adds something to it and is interesting. I think it's a personal response thing, not a right-or-wrong thing.

Really interesting post!

This is really interesting, and not something I've thought about before. So I shall go and ask myself some questions!

I think my knee jerk reaction, though, would be that I do want people to understand what I think I was on about - but I'm also delighted when they see something that I hadn't realised was there.

Brilliant post, and replies - a good discussion.

I do agree that readers can 'see' things in writing and make connections which the writer wasn't consciously aware of, so perhaps a writer is lucky, in that case, to be understood.

I have a vaguely uneasy notion, by contrast, that if my writing is not 'understood', then I have failed. I'm not sure that is correct and I don't think I ever will be sure.

What an interesting discussion! I am firmly of the view that it doesn't matter if what the reader values in a story is not what the writer intended to be there. Perhaps because I did my PhD on largely anonymous works, so there was no way of getting at the writer's intention or even influences. I think as long as a reader can support their reading of a text it is valid.

I once had a very touching email from Michael Frayn saying that I should have written one of his books as I was clearly much better qualified to do it than he was - I had found more in it in my criticism of it than he had intended to put there. But he didn't say it wasn't a valid reading, and I think every writer puts things into their books they are not aware of.

Rosalie you said... 'As a reader, my favourite works of fiction are the ones that leave me satisfied in one sense but, in another, not quite sure. What exactly was going on there?' I think when we are writing in a state of high energy and awareness, thoughts and feelings are quicksilver. And a reader might also be reading in a state of high awareness. So the transfer of what is being written and what is being read, can't be fixed. This is what makes a novel, a work of art, a piece of music so exciting. Great post.

Understanding to me implies cognition, or a thought process, which is one way of perceiving the world. Of course there are others, and I'd like to think that my writing can be appreciated by different individuals in different ways - and not just through the "thinking" mode.

Fascinating topic!

I don't think many people - especially not children, tax themselves over 'what the author's trying to say' - not with a novel, anyway. When trying to read nuclear physics textbooks, perhaps!

And I agree, the idea of being 'understood' at one gulp is rather alarming. When someone says "oh, I see," in conversation, I immediately worry whether they've 'seen' what I was trying to signal, or something else altogether. Secondly it's just no fun being that simple.

Explanations can be useful sometimes - I read 'The Exorcist' as a teenager (probably because I thought it was a suitably bad and dangerous thing to do). It was rubbish but I accidentally learned a whole lot of very important stuff from the introduction, which was all about the background and the symbolism and things like that so I suppose the 'explanation' was better than the book, in that case.

The books I love most tell me something different every time I read them. That can only be because I've changed since I last read them, which suggests that understanding is something each reader does, each to their own lights. I think there are probably three things to consider, before talking about 'understanding' a novel.

First, what the writer does when they're writing. I tend to do a first draft as a learning process for me. If, at the end of it, I feel as if I've understood something interesting, I'll develop the novel from there.

Second, what the editor does, which is try to get an accurate enough picture of what the author's thinking to work appropriately on the text.

Third, what the reader does which, really, is their own business and can (and probably should) be done without thinking about the author at all.

Fascinating post.
I am often amused when I hear people asking or telling others what the author meant by this or that, or what the author was trying to say. I have often heard authors saying that it was the furthest thing from their mind. They hadn't considered it.
When I am writing I am trying to understand my characters, their motives and how they would react in a certain situation. But it is my interpretation of their motives, not anyone else's.
People are so complex that if the characters in a book appear real it is because they, too, are complex.

Taking that as a start point it would suggest that each person reading about these characters might interpret their actions and motives slightly differently.
This is because we all bring to every situation in life our own opinions and our own experiences, which make us see the world slightly differently from everyone else.

So do we want to be understood?
I think mostly we do, we want people to understand us and to agree with us, to some extent.
But not completely and utterly, because that is probably impossible and it would leave no mystery or possibility to surprise and delight others when we act out of character.

Thank you, everyone, for your comments. You've given me lots to think about that there.