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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31914
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31914
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Well, within any discussion of literature -- any answer given on this SE for example -- there tend to be lots of ideas postulated. That is, simply, that they are taken as accepted truths by the writer, and usually by the readers as well. They are postulates in context -- simply the things we think we all agree on in order to be able to talk about the question we are answering.

Of course, such postulates can be challenged and sometimes are.

Here are some of the things that I postulate here on a regular basis:

- All literature is moral -- it is about a choice of values
- Literature is an experience, not a proposition
- All stories have story shape
- Story shape is driven by desire

But these are just postulates in context. If challenged, I could produce argument based on evidence to support them. They are not axiomatic statements in the strong sense of a geometric axiom, for example.

I don't believe that there are any axioms in this sense in literature. The study of literature is based on the study of aesthetics, psychology, and sociology, and I think that any statement you could make about literature specifically could be shown to be an instance of a more general statement in those fields.

The danger in literature, I think, is quite the opposite though, not a dearth of axioms but gross surplus of facile rules of thumb that are often taken as axiomatic but are, in fact, misleading at best and outright wrong at worst.

Finally, I think it is worth saying that the writing of a good story, despite all the advice on can find on structure, character development, etc. remains largely an exercise of tacit knowledge and skill. We cannot fully describe what we are doing when we write in objective terms. We learn it by osmosis and inform it with individual experience. If there are axioms, I think that they are axioms we have not yet learned to articulate, and I suspect we never will be able to articulate them.

Original score: 7