Context

What is context? We hear it mentioned on frequent occasion, e.g. something, most often a written passage or work, is lacking context. This is a word, like so many, that is often bandied about but rarely defined or examined. Or, I think, understood.

Context is defined by my favorite dictionary as, "A joining together. The part of a discourse in which a word or passage occurs and which helps to explain the meaning of the word or passage."

Textual color, breadth of insight, background--analogs of context (among others), all of which are critical to creating the sense of reality, perhaps reality, of a good story. Of course context plays a critical role in all types of writing, not only fiction. Without context you have little more than boring verbiage.

As noted in prior posts, much of what we perceive and conceive is tied to sensory input in one form or the other. Thus color, depth, sound, motion, etc., all aspects to be considered in creating meaningful context. Note the word meaningful. Certainly none of us exist in a vacuum, nor can a character or characterization in writing. We fill out our understanding of one another over time by gathering background information about the person of interest. Context. And so it is in developing characters, character strength, in writing. So what is meaningful context?

Again, it is helpful to use the example of two people getting to know one another (for better or worse). We form a nearly instant instant impression of the other and then add depth of understanding by interacting with them over time. Most often those instant impressions prove accurate, if two dimensional. This is exactly what needs to take place in writing. One simply cannot load up the reader with a vast array of character or environmental attributes in the first paragraph after introducing a character. Give a first impression--you will whether you intend to or not--add a few teasers, and then proceed with the story using the plot, the interactions of the plot, to flesh out character. Where does the character hail from? What does he do? What are his personality traits? Use the plot, the dialog, the action scenes, the confrontations, etc. to develop character traits.

It is the interaction of the characters in a story, the breadth and color of their personalities as they interact, that give life to a story. Context is a form of weaving, or perhaps the skill of writing context is the author's ability to weave aspects of personality, scene, action and background together to form the tapestry that is context. A joining together.