Savory Story (TM): Now stuffed with meaning!

There's an (apocryphal?) story people have plied me with many times over the past decade. It involves Robert Frost. A woman approaches him at a reading, praising one of his poems for invoking such-and-such metaphor or allusion. Robert Frost is surprised and says he didn't think about that when he wrote it. And so, the people who tell me the story conclude, poets just write poems and writers just write stories and have no idea the multi-layered meanings that readers take from it.

I've searched for the source of this story and haven't been able to find it. But assuming it's true, I question the conclusion. Surely no one believes Robert Frost just threw a bunch of pretty words together with no thought about meaning. Of course there will always be unique connections and meanings a reader will bring to a piece of writing. Readers have their own experiences, beliefs, needs. That's part of the magic of reading. But that doesn't mean a writer takes no thought, especially not one like Robert Frost who poured and ached over each poem.

I was on an author panel once when a teen girl in the audience asked if writers really intend to put in all those symbols and themes and such that their English teachers have them ferret out. I had to respond, "Sorry, yes, some of us do." She seemed disappointed. Her English teacher found me after to thank me. I empathize with the students. I was such a student once and worn down by having to tear apart stories instead of just read for pleasure, but I think it was an invaluable exercise. The ability to analyze a text has been a huge boon for me, both as a student of any discipline and as a writer.

Many times I've been somewhere to speak and the introducer has talked about one of my books, outlining the themes and giving a really lovely review of the significance and resonance of the story. This is always very flattering, since most introducers just read my bio from my website or book jacket. But then so often she or he will turn to me and say congenially, "You probably didn't even know you put all that in the story, did you?"

But of course I did.

When I'm writing, I'm not thinking about what an English class might study. I'm not thinking in words like "symbol" and "theme." But I do take careful stock of the story. I study early drafts to see what motifs have started to occur, what ideas seem to repeat themselves naturally. Then I examine what the story needs and nurture those motifs into what an English teacher would call a theme, and I do that in order to make the story stronger, to add layers of meaning that will make the book more intriguing as well to give it an emotional connection. I am very aware of creating connections--with other works, with historical events unmentioned, with other ideas within the story. I do this all with a great deal of thought and purpose. I or another writer might be unaware of one of a reader's personal interpretations, but that doesn't mean we're unaware of any allusion or motif.

It's important for me to clarify this because I don't want anyone to dismiss writers as blind typists. That's unhelpful and unrealistic for the sake of budding writers. If all meaning is accidental, what motivation would a writer have for the hard labor of rewrites upon rewrites? And if writers don't do the hard labor, the quality of books deteriorates. Selfish of me maybe, because I'm a reader first and I want good books to read. As a writer, I aim to imbue my story with as much meaning as the seams can hold and yet keep it open enough to allow a reader to make her own personal connections as well. I suspect most writers do the same. Even Robert Frost.