I got the following question from a friend yesterday:
What advice would you give novice writers to avoid becoming bogged down in attempting to be metaphorical or symbolic? I write poems: everything is symbolic because it is economic. I have no idea how to approach this for fiction or nonfiction.
Here was my answer:
Well, I feel like I might not be the best person to ask--my writing is not very literary and I'm not known for my symbolism. But what I will say is just let it come naturally and have faith in the process. I have realized that symbolism is largely in the eye of the beholder. Once I wrote a short story about one of six friends dying and used the phrase "Silence for five, six minutes" and a reader said "Oooh, good symbolism." But that was not on purpose at all. I feel like writers should trust their subconscious. Another example: I'm working on a piece about a writer who has lost her way, and in the story, she swims a lot, and happens to use an indoor endless pool--why? Because I was doing a lot of swimming while I was thinking about the story. A reader of mine instantly tied together endless swimming and writing. I didn't do it on purpose but my brain did it for me.
Long story short--don't force it. Say what you really want to say and the symbolism, if it's there, will come through. And better to have no/light symbolism in a story than to have it be forced and heavyhanded.
Is this answer correct? I have no idea. It's just my experience. I'd be curious to know what other writers (and readers) think.
erica
I have that with choreography. Dancers will be like "Oh, I get that we are doing this here because of [lyric in song, etc]. And sometimes they will be right, but most of the time, I'm like "...Yessss......exactly....."
People will make the connections that they want to make without you having to force anything.