Week 11:

Online Lecture for Default Assumptions

Default Assumptions

Reading Theory advances the notion that every piece of writing depends 20% on what the writer has written down and 80% on what the reader brings to the exchange.  The theory maintains that, for any reader to get new information from a piece of writing, the reader has to be able to supply this 80%.  In order to test the relationship between the reader and the material, reading theorists devised a thing called a CLOZE test.  In this test, a short selection of text is altered so that every fifth word is blanked out.  The reader is then asked to fill in the blanks, according to his/her understanding of the context.  To get new information from the text, the reader must be able to fill in EXACTLY the deleted words in at least 50% of the cases.  

All right, great, so what does that mean to us as fiction writers?  Well, first, we do want our readers to be able to process new information.  If we were intending to repeat what the reader already knew, we wouldn't go to all the trouble to write fiction.   But we also can guess, whatever the accuracy of the testing model, that there is something very important in the concept that the reader needs to find a very large percentage of the information familiar in some way.  (Of course, this shifts according to the intended audience - as we will see).  

If we think about the beginning of any story, we can see the application of Reading Theory notions to the writing of fiction.  First, we know that no matter what we do, we cannot give the reader all the information in the first sentence - or even in the first paragraph.  Our efforts all through the beginning of a narrative are directed at making sure that the story is vivid and engrossing - and that it has a sense of movement.  Also, at the beginning of any story, we need to ask the reader to only imagine up images that he/she already has in the brain - that is, we can't ask the reader to imagine up an inculabula* right away, if we think the reader doesn't have one at hand to bring to the exchange.  What we do, as a strategy to keep the story moving, is depend on the fact that the Reader will supply much of the missing information.  And, if the Reader is going to supply this information, we need to at least guess at what specific details the Reader will supply.  Great writers, I believe, owe part of their success to the fact that they are very good at estimating exactly what their readers are going to assume, given a fragment of information.  We can call this guesswork "determining the Default Assumptions."  Default, in this case, means the information that the Reader will supply in the absence of any other confirming data.  

There are two basic considerations for determining Default Assumptions.  The first is the presumed audience response to familiar information; the second is the presumed audience response to unfamiliar information.

Familiar information is easiest to deal with, so we can start with that.  Each writer needs to make a determination sometime early on in a story about the kind of information that may be familiar to the Reader and what might not.  That means that the writer needs to do some audience analysis.  (I know that in the old days, that was not considered germane for the "serious writer" - but times have changed.  No longer can a writer assume, as Fitzgerald does in his short story, that the readership is exclusively male and upper-middle-class!)

Let's say you are writing a story about a young woman named Kendra.  Let's say that you tell the reader that "Kendra straightened the nameplate on her desk, looked out from her tenth-floor window at the view of the blue Pacific, and sighed.  A part of her still wanted to be out on water, out with the surfers she could just discern in the distance.  But she brushed that fantasy aside, adjusted the jacket of her Ralph Lauren suit, and picked up her DayTimer.  Seven appointments.  She would miss the window of opportunity on the freeway and be stuck in traffic again."

Now, your Southern California audience would be quick to supply the framing details, here.  They would know that, first, Kendra is probably under forty but over thirty - just from the name and when it was popular.  Second, they would know that this IS Southern Calif. and not Northern CA because you can't see surfers from any office building in San Francisco.  They would also guess that our Kendra is in sales/management - the moderately expensive suit, the DayTimer, the list of appointments.  And they would know that Kendra is about to feel a sense of dissatisfaction with the isolation and limitations of the corporate world. (You can probably list several other things that can be deduced from this first paragraph!)

And all of this seems fine, both the story and the contextualizing of the story by the Reader.  But if, by some misclue by the author, our Kendra turns out a little later in the story to be a Secretary, over Sixty, and actually planning on retiring at the beach - well, the Reader feels betrayed.  The reader has gone to the trouble to supply the most likely default values to the picture of Kendra - and to find out that these details are wrong is to rupture the relationship between Reader and Writer.  The key to understanding the Default Assumptions is to try to figure out what the reader is going to assume from the facts at hand at that moment.

Now, the above first paragraph about Kendra could be entirely decoded by a resident of SoCal.  But a New Yorker would have more trouble - if the writer wanted to make sure that the placement of the office was right, he would hasten to name the place:  "Kendra straightened the nameplate on her desk, looked out from her tenth-floor window at the Newport Beach coast, and sighed.  

Again, the writer can't possibly get every single qualifying detail into any opening page - so the writer needs to be sure that what the Reader assumes about the context/situation/character is going to be re-affirmed as more information arrives.

No matter what you are writing about, you are faced with trying to analyze what your intended audience is going to assume.  Let's try another beginning.  "Rupert was certain that this was a lucky day.  He had carefully packed his shopping cart with the necessities, moved this precious cargo to the shade of a rare oak tree, and sat down in the shade to wait.  He understood that the odds were long, but he anticipated the moment that the doors would open and the winners of the lottery would be posted." 

Rupert, as you have already ascertained, might be a homeless fellow, older (since Rupert is not a common name, now), who spends his occasional money on the Lottery.  It's got to be a hot town, maybe Palm Springs, cuz the market isn't even open and it's already hot enough that Rupert seeks shade, and that shade is rare.  He's not a dummy; he knows the odds, but he is desperate enough, now, to harbor hopes for the nearly impossible win.  

Surely the reader would be surprised to find out that Rupert was actually a customer, was in his early twenties, had packed the shopping cart with his notebooks listing his assortment of lottery tickets right after he had arrived in his car, and made his living collecting lottery wins for the people in his neighborhood who didn't have time to check their results.  All of this second scenario could be true, given the details we have in the parargraph, but it is not the likely situation we would assume in the absence of any more information.   Writers pretty much need to be sure right at the beginning that the most probable explanation is going to be the correct one.

Now, you might say, "well, but, I never read anything that closely."  Most readers don't think they do, either.  But if you ask them what they assumed from a first paragraph, you would be astounded at how many readers make a huge number of default assumptions.  

The dynamics change slightly further along in a story - but the necessity to confirm the Reader's default assumptions - or have a VERY GOOD reason why not - remains central.  [by the way, the VERY GOOD reason should be a part of the important character, greater truth, or plot elements - that is, you will want to spend considerable time in changing the Default Assumption of your reader gradually.]

But what about unfamiliar information? 

Let's say, for instance, that you are writing a story about a kid at a soda fountain who orders a Green River.  Orders a What!?  Already we see the problem here:  most of the readers are under sixty years old [unless you are writing for Modern Maturity or some venue where you know the readership is over a certain age], and they have never been to a drugstore soda fountain (except at Disneyland), have no idea that a Green River is a kind of Lime Rickey with 7-up and lime juice instead of soda water.   Does this mean that you can never write about the past, exotic places, imaginary worlds?  Of course not, but you need to be much more careful!  The most reliable way to set up a situation where the default assumptions are going to seem confirmed by the Reader is to 1. start with images that the Reader does have and 2. use descriptive language that includes sensory experiences the Reader is likely to have experienced. 

 "Rupert looked around at the magic sights of the unfamiliar drug store - the long, shiny green counter, the bright, red stools, the chrome toasters and mixers, and the real photos of ice-ream sundaes and chicken-salad sandwiches along the walls.  It was a place he had hardly been allowed to peer into, when his father was alive.  

'We don't waste money in them places, sonny,' his father had always said, when Rupert drifted toward the cool blast of air from the glass doors.

Now, he reached into his pocket and brought out the one-dollar bill, the "death benefit" that the Judge paid to the children of hired hands that happened to die in his employ.  He spread it on the counter and looked up, again, at the picture of the Deluxe Banana Split.  The price was right there on the wall: Fifty cents.  Then his eye fell on a frosted glass of emerald green.  It was topped with a red cherry and a slice of lime.  Twenty cents.  If he had the lime drink, he could come in here every day for five days straight.  Sit at the counter in the cool, clean, bright room and order as if he could live this way forever.  

A woman in a striped dress came up in front of him:  'I'll have the Green River,' Rupert said."

Writers are always trying to figure out what the Default Assumptions are for each audience - and times do change.  It's not an exact science, and each writer has to determine for each particular story what the Reader might already know and supply in that context.  I don't think we ever totally master this skill - but we want to be sure to be aware of the power of the Default Assumption!

inculabula -- see, I bet you don't have one to hand!