I've been blogging about how to make your writing more literary. Not all literature is more concrete more than it is otherwise. Often, the concrete, what's really happening in your story vs what may be happening in a character's head or in the metaphoric world, is secondary. It's frequently a very good thing for many concrete things to symbolize something in the metaphoric or internal world. But when it's all internal with nothing concrete to anchor it, your reader can get lost, bored, or frustrated. Most things internal should be tied to something concrete and vice versa.
I recently started reading two books back to back. One just stayed in a character's head with nothing to tie it to the real world around him. It was just his thoughts, and he was not interesting or unique. Why would I care? Answer: I didn't. I've read books like this, and it feels more like data dumping than a story with meaning and symbolism. We're just floating in a world with few or no ties to the world around that character. I couldn't get past about page four of this book that was just about a boring character's endless ruminations that failed to make me care.
The other book had plenty of metaphoric language and mental meandering. But it all first started with something in the world around the main characters or something the character was doing. We got setting and characters actually doing something, making choices and engaging with the environment. The figurative language included concrete images and metaphors that enlightened what was going on. And those metaphors were so fresh and witty that I have since read several of the same author's books. By starting with the concrete realities of the character, the author triggered my imagination. I wish I could bottle those concrete and clever turns of phrase that kept me in the moment.
It's important to balance the concrete and the metaphoric in order to engage the reader. Both are needed. Imagine Hamlet's speech on words if it stood alone without the events around it. His speech becomes more meaningful because of the events of the story. Without his speeches, the actions could easily become meaningless. If the real and concrete world is just what we're reading, only events and actions without any deeper level, that can get dull.
One needs to balance the concrete with the metaphoric, mental, and emotional. Create the anchor in the concrete world, so the non-concrete can have something real to make it meaningful. But also, give the concrete meaning beyond just events, location, and characters. It's not enough for stuff to happen. That stuff should give a meaning on which to reflect. Look through the events of your story. Is there a way to make concrete events in the story more meaningful and symbolic? Is there a way to anchor speeches, thoughts, and ideas with something in the physical world?
