Objective Correlative

November 13, 2005

In literature there’s something called the objective correlative — a useful device that helps you avoid talking about messy things like emotions. Thus, instead of talking about melancholy, you could talk about sad things like raindrops falling on window panes, cats screeching in alleys, or kids eating ice cream. This build up of images, then, would allow your readers to use their wonderful analytic minds to unpack emotion in your writing.

Needless to say, I think the objective correlative is shit — I’d rather talk about raw reality. But sometimes it’s just goddamn impossible to describe how bleak everything is each time I return home. All I can tell you is that the wind is howling outside and that somewhere in an alley, someone’s kicking a dog.

Posted by Tudor at 05:19 PM in Various Positions | TrackBack

Comments

The warmth inside this room is insidiously converse to the chill just beyond the window panes. The falseness of it is measured only by vaugely human sighs of the radiator spreading the warmth about, a sound that makes me sympathetic to things like artificial comfort, and objective correlative, and uncried tears, and pissed out beers, and the darkness of the night.

Posted by: Bryan on November 14, 2005 at 01:03 AM

hey dude,

i’m back from UK again. gimme a call

Posted by: Visionary Indian Friend on November 14, 2005 at 06:52 AM

You need to find a nice warm lap to crawl into and just be “loved up.” If I could I’d make cookies in your house. It would smell like cinnamon and sugar then I’d pet you until you stretched lazily like a cat who’s fat dumb and happy. :)

Posted by: Ponzi on November 15, 2005 at 02:17 AM

Ponzi, I’m already on it ;), although he has an aversion to cinnamon (which I’ll never understand). He makes a good cat and enjoys belly rubs and crawling in laps.

Posted by: Laura on November 15, 2005 at 11:38 AM

How did your writing course go, btw? I don’t remember hearing anything about it after the first couple of stories… Did you finish it or decide it wasn’t your cup of tea?

Posted by: spindriftdancer on November 15, 2005 at 09:53 PM

Oh, Ponzi, that’s the sweetest thing ever :). Nothing better than being fatdumb, happy, and petted.

As for stories, spindriftdancer, the writing course I took was better than I expected. I wrote five stories in a month and you’ll find them all somewhere in the archives.

Posted by: Tudor on November 16, 2005 at 01:07 AM

Hmmmm. Obviously I’ve been a bit out of touch. But I’m glad it went off well for you(: Send some good thoughts my way for final exams, etc.

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Posted by: Jatnika on January 02, 2010 at 05:34 PM