Dizzy Gillespie used the word, vehicle, when referring to a song suitable for jazz improvisation. Fiction with a point or two refers to stories as vehicles to convey larger ideas. I classify most of my stories as light science fiction, more like what C.S. Lewis called, science fantasy. The SF elements are there for basically two reasons. 1. I like SF scenarios. 2. I think SF is useful to illustrate larger, perhaps more universal points.
Madeline L’Engle asserted that every story involves a search for truth, further that truth depends on who is telling the story. “History is written by the winners,” Orwell wrote. I used to tell my music students one reason we have so many great German composers – Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and the rest – is that German musicologists wrote their stories. Yet, the truth of music history, or any other body of work, lies between the lines, so to speak. The truth is not so much in the literal presentation of the story as it is in its metaphysical or metaphorical aspects.
The first person to tell a story tends to have a great advantage over later storytellers. The first plausible story to reach the public is often like a freight train – hard to stop, even when later stories include more facts or better nuance. Clearly, what someone puts in or leaves out of a story can make it believable to some and unbelievable to others. For better or worse, a story is a selected slice of reality, or in my case fantasy. It is therefore a piece of the teller’s mind. It is his or her vehicle for truth telling as well as offering other possibilities to consider. Characters say what they say and do what they do, not just to get from point A to point B, but to share some of their ideas, their beliefs about the way things are, or their aspirations about the way things could or should be.
It’s been suggested that like jazz tunes, there are relatively few original stories. The rest are variations or improvisations on these, exploring alternative roads in similar vehicles, so-to-speak. In the end, the author must decide what kind of vehicle to use, where to drive the vehicle, and the way people in that vehicle deal with the journey. I write stories to explore my thoughts on life. I hope some of my vehicles will take readers to places they otherwise might not go.
MurrayWorks 