Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Structure and Wiring Diagrams

Structure and Wiring Diagrams

Great writers could be great electricians. They lead a reader or an audience through a complex and convoluted chain of events that are like appliances in the wiring diagram of a home or auto. The reader or watcher has to but turn a dial, push a switch and sit back as the whole piece unfolds with an almost effortless understanding, mindless of the intricacy that lies beneath the surface.

It is the difference between being a spectator and being a creator. We can listen to great music, read great literature and appreciate great sculpture but to create it is a different matter altogether. Some think they are so talented that all they have to do is push a pencil and pound the keys and from the locus of their minds will pour forth thoughts and words, appeaing as if by magic, beautifully arranged in an astonishing order of wonder, understanding and awe. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way…. You can no more write a great piece of literature without structure and complexity than you can wire an automobile. It is not just the technical skills but the artistic ability to integrate all the pieces into a harmony of function and prose.

Right now I am struggling to rewire the exterior lighting system on my 1946 Studebaker. For the uninitiated let me say it is a lot like writing a drama or a novel. I can see the schematic and all the colored wires and the components neatly arrayed on their paths and can follow a single thread and begin to comprehend how the smallest portion works. However when I see it all laid out in a single diagram it is overwhelming and unintelligible to say the least… The human mind can only order so much in a single bite and the writer has to lead the reader (audience) along through the tangled web one thread at a time. I think if we took the time to diagram a novel or a drama we would be astonished by the many threads, twists and components that in reading or viewing become almost transparent to the consumer of the art. Yet it is there and if you aspire to be an artist, or even a technician you have to appreciate at a much deeper level than the casual reader or patron of the arts.

Some people have diagrammatic minds and others have symbolically oriented minds. As a dyslexic I have trouble with diagrams so I have to translate them into alpha characters, and words and sentences of meaning. For example in looking at my wiring diagram I have to write it in prose.

“i.e. Power for the Turn signal circuit comes from fuse B/U (Back-Up) which is either fifteen (15) or twenty (20) amp. This circuit splits after the fuse serving both the back-up lamps and the turn signal flasher. The wire is Dark Blue (DKBLU). It enters the turn signal flasher and goes into a two way double throw switch……” I won’t bore you with more as I think you get the idea…. The point being art must be broken down into prose to be understood and then there is but a glimpse of the tip of the ice-burg beneath which is a huge weight of underlying complexity, that goes into the “WOW!” of those who know it when they see it.