From Theory to Data and Back Again: Authors’ Intentions, Characters’ Agency, and the Phenomenology of Writing Narrative

Abstract

In recent years, cognitive narratology has drawn on insights from cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind in order to revise the debate around authorial intention. These theoretical approaches often necessarily take into account the phenomenology of narrative creation, yet for the most part, this phenomenology is either derived from a selective sample of anecdotal accounts or else is essentially taken for granted. This article attempts to redress this balance somewhat by attempting an integration of the theoretical and the empirical, and evaluating the theoretical claims made by narratologists in the light of recent phenomenological data on writers’ experiences of their characters (Foxwell et al. 2020). This article suggests that incorporating empirical data in this fashion potentially allows for challenging and refining some previous theories, while also highlighting areas that have been somewhat neglected: most significantly, the role of inner speech in narrative production. Moreover, this article argues that recognizing how inner speech affects both agency and social cognition allows for the reincorporation of valuable insights from “strong” anti-intentionalism while still allowing for the more moderate position advanced within cognitive narratology.