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Sometimes There Is No Deeper Meaning
What you write isn’t always deep or loaded with hidden meaning.
I’ve been slowly reading my way through Chuck Wendig’s Gentle Writing Advice. It’s a clever and funny nonfiction work he put out to help writers write. I met Chuck Wendig at a small conference for writers I attended maybe a decade ago. We were introduced online, before that, by a mutual friend. I really admire him.
As I was reading Gentle Writing Advice, I reached the chapter about “writing rules”, and how nearly none are so hard-and-fast that they can’t be avoided, ignored, or outright broken. He alludes to the idea that they’re more guidelines than hard and fast rules. I’ve long been a proponent of this truth.
If there were just One True Way™ to write, we’d lack an enormous variety of genres and tropes. Hell, how you tell a story in parts of Europe is utterly different from storytelling in Japan, which is also wildly different from Sub-Saharan Africa storytelling, which is different from South American storytelling, and so on and so forth. No One True Way™ by any stretch of the imagination.
This all got me thinking about something a college professor taught me. He insisted that all character names have meaning. And it’s important to find and understand that meaning.
This is, however, some Grade A bullshit. What’s more, it goes further than that. Sometimes there is no deeper meaning.
What’s in a name?
I majored in theatre in college. Specifically, I was focused on directing and theatre sound design (I’ve also been an actor, but behind the scenes was more fun for me). Outside the theatre department, I wound up running my college’s extracurricular theatre club. As part of that, I got to produce and direct half a dozen plays.
As part of my class requirements, I took directing. Unfortunately, the professor and I butted heads frequently, and I barely passed either semester due to this. But it was this professor who insisted that all character names have meaning.
He’d insist that, for example, if the character’s name was Adam O’Brien, that was a reference to the Alpha and Omega. John Carpenter? That name references Jesus Christ. If the author’s name were Bob Harrison, the character of Ben Hardy was based on him.
Look, yes, sometimes character names ARE that deep or obvious. Or ironic. Or some combination therein, i.e., Hiro Protagonist in Snow Crash. But often, names mean nothing.
Know why I choose most of the character names I do? Because I like them. They sound cool. When I picture the character, they tell me that’s their name. Meaning? Not in something I, for one, place in every name.
Recently, with my sci-fi in particular, I have been using a naming convention for characters that means something, but not something deep and telling about the character. Onima Gwok and Sameer Yeager, from 2 totally different universes of my devising, have blended names representing diverse cultures. Why? Because I believe, hundreds or thousands of years in the future, human names will represent how our cultures will be blended after we leave Earth.
Sometimes names have deeper meanings. Other times, they don’t. Sometimes the meaning is subjective, based on what you get from it.
Maybe there is no deeper meaning
Certain writers are known for putting deep meaning into characters, scenes, and so on. Often, their nuance and underlying suggestion can give multiple meanings. I think some of that is utterly intentional. Some, however, isn’t.
For example, when you read the scenes in the Houses of Healing in The Lord of the Rings between Eowyn and Faramir, you could read it in such a way that it might seem Tolkien implied they have sex.
Is that one way to see it? Or is that merely how I interpret it? Was that the author’s intent or my imagination? Does it lessen my enjoyment of the story?
Maybe there is no deeper meaning to be found. And that’s okay. Some stories in and of themselves are popcorn. Lots of movies are like that, too. Some stories are allegories or meant to speak of injustice from a fictional perspective. This applies to all the elements of a given story as well.
What matters most, in my opinion, is what you, the reader, take away. For that reason, while I might ascribe no deeper meaning to something I wrote, you might. Maybe that notion that I wrote because it spoke to me, but had no in-depth, hidden meaning, impacts you differently. And if that is good for you, then it’s utterly good for me.
Deeper meaning doesn’t impact enjoyment
I read a lot. I’ve written a lot of books now, and I’m writing more, in a variety of genres. Mostly sci-fi and fantasy, but sometimes I branch out.
I also blog about mindfulness and positivity on my blog site every Monday and Wednesday. Some of that is deep, but how it impacts is going to depend on you, the reader.
While I write what I love, the truth is that you, the reader, are the one who will get something out of my work. Or not. It might just be the enjoyment of a fun story or idea. Perhaps something speaks to you, inspires you, or opens your imagination. Maybe what I wrote showed you how not to do what I did.
Deeper meaning, really all meaning, is what you, the reader, take away from the work. My main goal as an author is to inspire and empower my readers. If that means bringing you joy or helping you expand your imagination, that’s awesome. If it just means you read something and it’s a great distraction for you, and nothing more, also awesome. I write what I do not to be mysterious or put another nuanced, deeply meaningful story into the world. I write to share the joy the work brings me.
Thanks for reading. As I share my creative journey with you every week, please consider this: How are you inspired and empowered to be your own authentic creator, whatever form that takes?
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