[VanimaEdhel]

Thus far, the voting is a little lop-sided - too lopsided. Too bad I already voted. I would vote for one of the two that have no voted just to arouse controversy.

But this is the question that has haunted me for some time (since I cannot secure an answer for myself): if one reads a certain message in the author's work, but the author in no way intended it to read that way, is that message interpreted by the reader a valid one? Most English teachers argue "yes", but I know from experience that there are not many things I find more irritating than when people create things in my writing that are not there. There is part of me that says, "You're missing the entire point!" Then, there is another section of me that thinks, "Perhaps somehow I did intend that - or it just birthed itself in my writing." It can be compared, I suppose, to the method I use to write. It is not as though I carefully plan out every facet - it comes almost as though it is arriving through me, not from me. Therefore, does the story have a life of its own once it's out of my hands, open to the interpretation of strangers that know nothing about me?