The Crazy Child is also your connection to the past. Everything in your genetic history, your cultural history, your familial history, and your personal history is recorded in your body - in your nervous system. Your Crazy Child has direct access to it all. Everything you have done, and everything that has been done to you, is in its domain.
LET THE CRAZY CHILD WRITE! celebrates the role of the creative unconscious or Crazy Child in stories, poems, plays, and essays. Examples show how the Crazy Child informs our writing and gives it texture and flair, and a plethora of exercises allow you to demonstrate for yourself the power of the knowledge in your own body. Topics covered are Image Detail, Slow Motion, Hook, Persona, Point of View, Dialogue, Plot, Narrative Presence, Good Cliches, Character, Surrealism, and Resolution.
Once you have a first draft, the next step is shaping your writing into its most powerful form. LET THE CRAZY CHILD WRITE! shows you how easy it is to follow the "kindergarten rules" of the syngenetic workshop. These guidelines honor your original, primary impulse to write and make rewriting a positive, fulfilling experience. You can use them with your internal editor, your writing partner, or your writing group.
Buy Let the Crazy Child Write! on Amazon
Acknowledgements
Preface
Chapter One: Image Detail
Chapter Two: Slow Motion Kinetic Detail
Chapter Three: Hook
Chapter Four: Persona Writing
Chapter Five: Point of View
Chapter Six: Dialogue
Chapter Seven: Plot
Chapter Eight: Narrative Presence
Chapter Nine: Good Cliches
Chapter Ten: Character
Chapter Eleven: Surrealism
Chapter Twelve: Resolution
Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much...
I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any
farther, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic
songs.
--Walt Whitman, from "Beginning My Studies," Leaves of Grass
The Crazy Child is an aspect of your personality that is directly linked to your creative unconscious. It is the place in your body that wants to express things. It may want to tell jokes, to throw rocks, to give a flower to someone, to watch the sunset, to make up insults, to sit quietly — or to play video games. All these impulses, all the thrilling, scary or ordinary ones, come from your Crazy Child.
The Crazy Child is also your connection to the past. Everything in your genetic history, your cultural history, your familial history, and your personal history is recorded in your body — in your nervous system. Your Crazy Child has direct access to it all. Everything you have done, and everything that has been done to you, is in its domain.
I experience my Crazy Child as energy coming up from my feet, through my torso, and up the back of my neck. It connects me to the Goddess, to God, to the earth, to space, to darkness, to my senses, to my dreams, and to sex. All the exciting and all the dark stuff simmering or roaring through my body is the Crazy Child.
Your "creative unconscious," your "creative source," and your "Crazy Child" are close cousins. I often use the terms interchangeably, but "Crazy Child" has the virtue of sounding playful and wild. When you address it as your Crazy Child, your creative unconscious may feel invited to come out, make itself comfortable, and start writing.
The Crazy Child's goal is to express itself — to have some kind of existence in the world. We spend so much of our lives telling it to behave or to shut up and go away, that it probably feels unappreciated. The Crazy Child would like to be heard.
Writing is a safe way for this part of you to be in the world — or a relatively safe way. If your Crazy Child wants to rob a bank, writing about a robbery is more prudent than doing the robbing. If it has an insight that makes you vulnerable, you can write it in a private diary.
When the Crazy Child writes, it's a raw, truthful part of you that reveals itself. It has not been civilized. My Crazy Child knows what is happening, in spite of all contrary messages. It knows what it's like to live in my neighborhood, in this culture, in this time, and in my body. My Crazy Child is the real me — or at least an essential, energetic part of me.
The Crazy Child coils tension into a story, loads a poem with gripping images, unfurls a play's or novel's plot ratchet by ratchet, and punches up an essay's most dramatic point. The other voices, the Editor and Writer described below, are valuable aids to writing. But the Crazy Child — your creative unconscious — is the source.
The Crazy Child has two companions: the "Writer" and the "Editor." These three voices are much the same as the Freudian id, ego, and superego, and much the same as the child, adult, and parent of Transactional Analysis. Sometimes the voices get along well, and sometimes they are unruly antagonists.
The Crazy Child is equivalent to the child or the id. The id, literally, means "it" — but the word has a darker flavor. Some German parents, when they want to discourage their children from going out at night, say the "id" is outside, just as we would say "bogeyman." The Crazy Child has some of that forbidden aura.
The Editor is the superego or the parent — the "should" voice. It analyzes and criticizes our writing, and is intelligent, well-read, and thinks it is civilized. Its judgments can be helpful, harsh or anywhere in between. The Editor might say you are right on schedule and doing well or it might tell you to get a real job.
The Writer is the voice that negotiates and plans, and it strives for coherence and reason. The part I am thinking with now is the Writer, which is the same as my ego or my adult. I use it to organize this book, to plan my writing life, and to schedule my lunch breaks.
If you are reading this with your Writer, you are probably absorbing it carefully. Your Editor could be assessing it at the same time, and possibly deciding that you're not good enough for this book or that Let the Crazy Child Write! is too elementary or far too strange — or it's a perfect match. Your Crazy Child will have its own feelings: it might be scared, irritated, awed or delighted.
All aspects of writing are expressed in these voices. One of them — Crazy Child, Writer, Editor or some combination — is chattering at every moment. When they quarrel, the Editor often tells the Crazy Child it's stupid or shy or sappy. These quarrels can stop your writing cold.
Let the Crazy Child Write! will help your Editor and Writer understand how your Crazy Child is the vital force behind your creativity. They will learn to honor and tune in to your creative source. When they are getting along, the Editor and the Writer respond warmly to the Crazy Child.
Let the Crazy Child Write! is for anyone who wants to write. You may have no experience whatsoever, or you may have written as a child and are interested in trying it again. Perhaps you keep a journal or have begun stories, poems, plays or essays on your own.
Your job might involve some writing, such as preparing technical manuals or reports or briefs, and you are curious about creative writing. You may even have taken a class or read an inspirational guide, and now you want to explore the nuts and bolts.
All you need is the urge. Let the Crazy Child Write! will help you develop a connection between writing techniques and your unique creative source. You will learn, step by step, how to tap into your creative unconscious — your Crazy Child — and its indispensable, dynamic knowledge of writing.
Let the Crazy Child Write! is meant to be read on your own or with a writing group — either way. The chapters build one upon another, so it's useful to read them in sequence. But you don't need to; you might learn as much by following your nose and skipping around.
Each chapter introduces a writing technique. A discussion explores the technique, an exercise gives you a taste of it, and a workshop section, which is optional, suggests how to give and receive feedback. Each chapter closes with a short writing practice that gives you experience with the technique.
Every chapter begins by discussing a technique of creative writing. The focus is on how that technique works in conjunction with the nervous system, and why it is important to creative writing — both to writers and to readers.
Examples show how the technique functions in stories, poems, plays, and essays, and how the energy and pungency of the technique arises automatically and naturally from our creative unconscious. That mischievous Crazy Child heightens our skills because it already wields them.
The discussion will indicate what you know, but don't understand that you know. Learning creative writing is first a matter of bringing writing techniques into awareness. They are alive and thriving in the realm of the Crazy Child.
Every chapter presents an exercise that gives you hands-on experience with its topic. You can do the exercise on your own or, if you have a workshop, do it during the workshop meeting. Do it quickly and with as much exuberance as you can muster. Don't worry about how well you are writing. There is no wrong way to do any of the exercises — except to not write at all.
You can do the exercise in a half hour. You can lie on your bed, prop yourself on the stairs, lean against a tree, or sit in a cafe with other people or by yourself, however you are comfortable. My favorite spot is at my local daycare center, in a tiny room painted like a magic forest.
In general, follow the method suggested by Natalie Goldberg in her book Writing Down the Bones: keep the ink flowing. If you use a computer, keep those fingers wiggling. If you use a pen, keep that pen on the page, and keep it moving.
It doesn't matter how good the writing is. It matters only that you are writing. You're retrieving some of the natural skill your creative unconscious has, and acquiring a feeling for it. That's the goal.
You may want to wait until you feel confident as a writer before you join a workshop. You can read this book on your own and ignore the workshop sections, or you can peruse them for more information about writing.
If you've already written pieces you like, or if you just feel daring, consider starting a group. A workshop consists of two or more like-minded people who give each other feedback on their writing. This can be done in person, by mail, or by electronic mail. Workshops generally function best, however, when everyone is physically present.
You find out two things in workshops: how well your writing is going, and what steps to take next. These are surprisingly difficult to learn on your own. Your Editor often has too many suggestions or too many hostile judgments. A workshop will provide you with constructive insights in a way that you'll be able to hear — even if your Editor and Writer are being contentious.
When you are ready, suggest to a suitable friend that the two of you start a workshop. If a friend doesn't come to mind, post a note on a community bulletin board, advertize in a local paper, or make an announcement at a reading. Once you find someone, you can both invite friends.
You may be surprised how many people want to write. Decide on a regular meeting schedule and ask that members commit for a specific number of sessions. At each meeting, plan to hear everyone's practice piece, written since the last meeting, and plan to write and listen to the exercise for the chapter you are reading.
It may take several sessions before your group gels, so be patient; the ideal is for each person to feel engaged and encouraged about writing. A workshop's first concern is to establish a safe atmosphere. When it's well on track everyone gets excited and stimulates better and better writing in each other. You have then created a "fermenting brew."
Several ground rules, outlined on page 17, help generate this brew. I call the guidelines "kindergarten rules" and indeed they seem childlike, but they have a complex history. They have evolved over twenty years in my workshops and in other workshops around the country. The underlying concepts were first presented in 1973 by Peter Elbow in his book Writing Without Teachers.
The kindergarten rules constrain the Editor from giving heavy criticism that can stop people from writing. The ground rules establish a "syngenetic" workshopþone that focuses on understanding the writer's primary impulse. The syngenetic workshop supports what each person is doing well, and cultivates each person's unique strengths.
The practice section gives suggestions for a longer written piece that develops each chapter's technique. The exercise gives you a quick hit and the practice expands your skill. Often the practice is an extension of the exercise. I will present several alternatives, and you should choose whichever one excites you.
The point of writing a practice piece is to solidify what you have learned before you go on to the next topic. It could take two to three hours. You might write more quickly or you might take ten hours or more. There is nothing wrong with either.
As you write, follow the spirit of the guidelines — whether you choose one of the alternatives or devise something on your own. If you write three to five double-spaced pages or the equivalent, you are doing enough to benefit. More is not harmful.
We need to practice a new skill many times before we can do it well. The human nervous system needs to repeat a technique some two thousand times before the skill can be performed without thought. The practice gives you a start on those two thousand repetitions.
Working with Let the Crazy Child Write! is a win-win situation. No matter how small or immense your writing career becomes, you will benefit from this book. You will discover how very interesting writing can be, and you will learn about creating detail, characters, dialogue, action, and more.
Let the Crazy Child Write! will also help you in writing letters, memoirs for your family, school papers, and even with the writing you do at your job. You will be able to write more clearly and more vividly, and enjoy doing it far more than you did before. You might also discover that you want to make writing an important part of your life.
Since Let the Crazy Child Write! develops basic skills and nourishes your creative source, it gives you a solid foundation for a writing career. You will discover the unique power in your own psyche and body. You will find out how well your Crazy Child can write.
"
Without...playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet
come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable."
-- Carl Jung, Psychological Types
We begin with "image detail" because it's essential for strong writing, and because it's fun. Every moment of our lives we are surrounded by sensory information — the stuff of image detail. Your Crazy Child delights in it.
An image detail is that small part of an image that sticks in our minds. The worn green fabric on the end of a diving board, the pearly scar on a lover's neck, a piece of chewed gum in the boss's ashtray — these are image details. We remember the object, or the person, or the feeling of the entire scene from one detail.
The details that catch your attention in life are the same ones that catch your attention as a reader, and the same ones that work for you as a writer. Much of the adventure of writing is discovering which details are most gripping for you, the observer. As you look around, some details will strike your eye, and some of those will tug at your breastbone.
You are starting a journey and it is filled with fascinating images. What about that boy leaning out of a car window with a green carnation in his teeth? What about that peculiar interview with your boss? Maybe her eyes teared up, and at the same time she unwrapped a fresh piece of gum.
Writing is largely a matter of paying attention. You need to see, hear, taste, feel, and smell details in order to write them. You might notice them instantly and choose them in a snap — because they rise unbidden from your unconscious. Or you might turn a scene over and over in your mind, getting to know it well, before you find the appropriate detail.
Either way is fine. Whether you write slowly or rapidly is simply a signal of how your Crazy Child works. It's the part of you that feels. Those twinges and gasps are from your creative unconscious, from your Crazy Child. So are the sharp, brittle facts that come from deep inside with an utter clarity, the ones you know must be true.
The goal of Let the Crazy Child Write! is to help you establish a working relationship with your creative source. In this chapter you will be introduced to your Crazy Child, and you will become familiar with the kinds of details it sees.
Small details provoke our minds to fill in the entire picture. Especially effective are odd or dissonant details. We remember the experience of diving when we remember the worn fabric of the diving board under our toes. We see the entire blue plate when we remember a shell-shaped chip on its edge.
These small, dissonant or odd details work because of the close attention that is required to see them. You need to be quite near the plate to notice that shell-shaped chip in the first place. You can do this by moving close physically or by zooming in with your imagination. The reader, by taking in your words, comes as close to the object as you are.
If you write that you had your elbow on the boss's table when you saw that gum in the ashtray, the reader imagines being in that same position. If you write that you see a pearly scar when your cheek is on your lover's shoulder, the reader's cheek is there too. The reader's nervous system is automatically present, and fills in the scene as the words are read.
This picture-making might sound rare or exotic, but it is neither. Picture-making is automatic in every human being. It is the job of the human imagination to make images. By "imagination" I mean more than simply dreaming something up willfully. I mean the automatic imaging process that goes on beneath our awareness.
Creating and processing images — sensations, feelings, thoughts, observations, memories — goes on all day and all night. We might notice images only a few times during the day or in the morning when we remember a striking scene from a dream. But our imagination is always busy.
An old saw about a three-legged dog states, "You can't imagine a three-legged dog running." But as soon as you read that sentence, your nervous system contradicts it — you do see that three-legged dog. And it's running. The dog is ridiculous, clumsy, endearing, inspiring, or even oddly graceful.
You have at this moment demonstrated how the human nervous system works. Your nervous system began to register the three- legged dog, and your Crazy Child made an exact picture. Your nervous system and your Crazy Child did their everyday job. You were stimulated by an odd detail — the dog with a missing leg — and your imagination filled in the picture.
I have already talked about small and odd details. "Small," however, does not necessarily mean physically small. An image may be small only in comparison to the larger picture. On the roof of a Los Angeles nightclub is a neon martini, and in the martini is a blinking pink olive. That olive may be two feet across, but it is small compared to the cocktail glass.
Any picture that the reader can complete by imagining part
of the body is also powerful. One writer uses hands to convey an image
when she says the afterglow of lightning "looks like fingers poking down from the sky." I instantly imagine my fingers hanging down.
The shape and motion of the fingers mimics the shape and motion
of the lightning. The technical word for this comparison, using the word "like" or implying its use, is a "simile" (pronounced sim-i-lee). A simile works when the image and reality both contain
a similar feature. Both "simile" and "similar" come from the Latin similis, meaning "like."
Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" is almost a cliche‚ because it has been quoted so often. It's widely quoted
in the first place because it's so appropriate. Long, thin clouds stretched
across the dawn sky do look like fingers tinted with a rosy color, and
the fingers reach into the day. The image fits the event.
We feel anything strongly that relates to the body. The body is, after all, where the nervous system resides, and any detail that in some way touches the body becomes vivid. When we hear of children in our cities moving their beds out of the line of gunfire, we see this clearly — very clearly. We do not have to be there.
We imagine the scene. We move the bed, with the child, in terror or in a nightly numbness. We imagine the bullets angling through the window, we hear the thudding sound and see the shards of glass — our nervous system makes sure we do this. We see the entire scene, just as we see the three-legged dog, loping awkwardly down the street.
The term "image" applies to any sensory impression, and every sense receives and creates images. A particular smell is an image, a sound is an image, a taste is an image, and so is any particular touch. There is also an important sixth sense — the kinetic sense — that gives us images of motion and momentum.
So far I have discussed images as visual impressions — images that we see with our eyes or imagine with our mind's eye. Images from our other senses work in the same way. Small, odd, and dissonant details are vivid, and so are details that relate to the body.
" What is there, then, about place that is transferable to the pages of a novel? The best thingsþthe explicit things: physical texture. [Stories]...need the warm hard earth underfoot, the light and lift of air, the stir and play of mood, the softening bath of atmosphere that give the likeness-to-life...." EUDORA WELTY, Place in Fiction
It may be powerful to repeat an image detail. This is especially true if the detail is changed slightly when it reappears; it has a way of adding meaning to itself.
I have already repeated a few details, on pages 1, 2, and 3. That chewing gum in the boss's ashtray might mean more on page 2 than when you first read it. It might be disgusting, instead of a curiosity — it has accrued feeling with repetition. You can forge a unique sensation by repeating a detail in a story, poem, essay, or play.
Linda Cohen uses image details in the following excerpts from her novel-in-progress about early twentieth century immigrants. We can read how revealing her details are, and also, when she repeats them, how they gain power. One of her characters, Rose, has just met Sal in the restaurant where Rose is waitressing:
She finally looked up into the man's broad face. He smiled
at her and a reddish-brown scar formed a little diamond under one of his
eyes.
She looked away as she spoke, outside the front door as it
opened again. "We have very good hamburgers here." All that hair he has is frightening, she thought. I've never seen anyone looks
so much like he came right from the animals. Darwin was right. Except this
man came direct from a bear.
Rose pushed past the cook's station through the swinging doors
and into the bathroom. She put down the toilet seat and sat on top of it.
The reddish-brown scar that makes a diamond is an excellent detail — small and odd. It brings me right next to Sal's face. Cohen also shows us Sal's hairiness, and in the last sentence, shows an odd detail about Rose. When Rose sits on the toilet seat, it's a purposeful action: she is using the bathroom as a place to be alone and think.
...it's so hard to be a waitress and think at the same time.
She put up their orders, then rushed over to where the cereal was and poured
out two bowlfuls and a pitcher of milk. She carried it all on a tray to
Sal. His legs were stretched out onto the seat of the chair across from
him, and he was reading the newspaper again.
"
I'm sorry I took so long with your cereal." Rose extended her neck to see the newspaper open to the business section, with
a banner at the top of the page that read: "Coolidge Prosperity: Unemployment Way Down/Production and Consumption at an All-Time
High."
Notice how the phrase "extended her neck" gives you a precise feeling about Rose, and also about her relationship to Sal. It's a small, odd, physical action, and others will follow:
...Sal sat up straight and confident as he poured milk into his second bowl of cornflakes. He took a spoonful of cereal and watched it move toward his mouth. The scar under his eye formed a little diamond again....
There's the scar again, and in the next excerpt two new details appear. The reader is becoming acquainted with Sal one detail at a time, just as you do in life. Both the reader and Rose get to know Sal at an equivalent pace:
A sharply chipped tooth peeked out from the side of Sal's mouth.
He was smiling at her with wide open eyes, his long eyelashes nearly touching
the eyebrows on his low forehead....
He took Rose's hand, wrapping his big fingers around her smaller
ones....With her free hand Rose fidgeted with the narrow brim of her hat.
She let her other hand hang limp in Sal's, unsure of what to do next. His
hand felt bumpy and hairy, like a paw.
Sal's hairiness has become a singular attraction and it comes up again, bearlike and sexy. The next image gives another detail we can relate to our bodies:
...Rose's bloomers and waitress skirt were hidden underneath her coat as it flapped against her calves....
The reader gains a sense of the styles of that time. As we stand with Rose, we can feel the wind on bare calves. Rose and Sal then go to a social meeting:
"
How do you do, all of you." Sal gave a little salute with his hand and took a slurp of coffee.
Edmund, the college graduate, took a sip of black coffee from
his cup, then set it down so loudly and casually on the saucer it nearly
spilled.
Sal's wariness and Edmund's uneasiness are displayed as they
drink coffee. Next Rose and Sal are outdoors, and we read details about
their bodies, shadows, the air, and a leaf:
"
But you embarrassed me." The breezes were coming out of nowhere, finding the only bare skin on Rose's
neck.
"
Your Mama doesn't go for Italians?" Sal grinned and glanced over at Rose's house, then he moved away from the streetlamp
until he was under a tree. The shadows of leaves bounced around his face
and coat.
"
Rose, you're a beauty. I saw it right away. I've gotta tell
you that." Sal reached up and pulled a leaf off the tree. He began ripping it apart.
We see a new facet of Sal as he tears up the leaf and we see the tree anew, just as we would in life. Throughout these excerpts Cohen brings us next to the characters and directly into the scenes. Her details have this effect because they are small, odd, and dissonant.
Image details that you imagine work just as well as those you see. Cohen was born after the days of Rose and Sal, so she could not have seen the details she writes. They are from her imagination, but that doesn't make the process of finding them any different.
Cohen must imagine the scene so deeply that the details come alive, and then she must write them down. Or she could have gone to a restaurant in present time, seen someone remarkable, and given his characteristics to Sal. In both cases, writing vivid details is a matter of seeing.
Image detail is basic. It works at the automatic level of the nervous systemþin any form of writing. It works in poems, plays, and essays just as it does in Cohen's novel. The only difference is in the play of the imagination: you might go to a more inventive place when you write poems.
An example is on page 69 of this book. When Mary Oliver writes, "the clear pebbles of the rain / are moving across the landscapes," she creates a fanciful image. It conveys a magical, bell-like sense of the scene.
On pages 81-82 Christopher Russell recounts that the poet "becomes brittle and suddenly / collapses in a pile of shards, / like a ming vase
dropped on a garage floor." We feel the poet's disintegration with all the impact of a precious object hitting
cement.
When Sharman Murphy observes on page 31 that she "cracked my elbow / scraped my arm / I ripped my shorts," we get an ample sense of the event. This works especially well because these details come after she has averted the accident. She didn't have time, earlier, to notice her abrasions or her torn clothes.
In the love poem on page 32, when Michael McClure writes "your backbone line," I am drawn into the special state of mind which saw that detail. It's a detail that would be seen with an attentive, appreciative eye — a lover's eye.
Image detail, in these examples, has filled in the scene, brought us deeper into each piece, and made the poet's point more lucid.
Plays benefit from image detail in two important ways. As a playwright, you can describe your scenes and your characters in a detailed fashion. You can dress your characters, give them mannerisms or funny tics — whatever you like — and you can give them revealing things to do as they speak.
If Cohen's novel were a play, for instance, Sal could tear up that leaf on stage. The playwright could set it up quite simply:
Sal: Rose, you're a beauty. I saw it right away. I've gotta
tell you that.
[Sal reaches up and pulls a leaf off the tree. He begins ripping
it apart.]
The audience gets to see, live on stage, what Cohen presents to our imagination. I am using the same words she uses, changing them to present tense.
A second important place for image detail is in the speeches. Almost any character's speech can be expanded to include sensory details that are natural to that character's style. You have a lot of leeway; audiences are hungry for detail. As you include image detail, the audience will find the scene enriched and the characters deepened.
Image detail can make a story powerful, and your characters probably know this. In these speeches from Sam Shepard's play Buried Child, physical details add texture and impact:
Vince: ...What is this anyway? Am I in a time warp or something?
Have I committed an unpardonable offence? It's true, I'm not married....But
I'm also not divorced. I have been known to plunge into sinful infatuation
with the Alto Saxophone. Sucking on number 5 reeds deep into the wee, wee
hours....
Halie's Voice: Good hard rain. Takes everything straight down
deep to the roots. The rest takes care of itself. You can't force a thing
to grow. You can't interfere with it. It's all hidden. It's all unseen.
You just gotta wait 'til it pops up out of the ground. Tiny little shoot.
Tiny little white shoot. All hairy and fragile. Strong though. Strong enough
to break the earth even. It's a miracle....
The image of sucking on those reeds lets the reader imagine Vince late at night. And Halie's description of those hairy roots, in their various aspects, give us a feeling of mystery and power.
This chapter is an essay. The first details I used were the fabric on the diving board, the scar on the lover's neck, the gum in the ashtray, and the green carnation in the boy's mouth. They display how we fill in a scene from a single detail.
My intent is to present a scattershot of images, hoping one will hook you. I'm concerned specifically with words and their relationship to our nervous system and to the Crazy Child. The beauty of this topic is — since you're reading words — the dynamic can be demonstrated as you read. Perhaps the scar or the gum aroused your interest.
Not all topics provide an arena so rich in relevant details. You may have to search for useful ones. Minor points may be easy to illustrate, as in the next paragraphs. I use cat scratches on a couch, a Naugahyde cushion, a penknife, ions on a light bulb — and ask which of these details are the most powerful.
My broader point is to demonstrate that your Crazy Child knows instinctively about seeing and writing. Choosing the three-legged dog and the blue plate with the shell-shaped chip on its edge took considerable thought. They were tried out in classes and workshops, too, before I was confident they work. The underlying principle of an essay becomes clear to the reader — and the reader's nervous system — if you give precise, physical examples.
Every essay has a topic, and almost every topic has a component in the real world. You have the potential to notice crucial image detail when the real world is involved. Once you start seeing the details, there will be a profusion of them. It's up to you and your Crazy Child to pick ones that work for your purpose.
In any scene there are almost an infinite number of details. You could capture them all with a camera — all the visuals, small, odd, and dissonant. But such a photograph would be cluttered with useless and ineffective details.
If you want to convey the feeling of being in a room, you might start by describing the furniture. But where would you stop? Should you stop at the cat's claw marks on the back of the couch? Should you stop at the fatty-acid molecules that have penetrated the naugahyde cushion? The small penknife that slipped out of someone's pocket and is hidden in the crease of the easy chair? The radioactive ions sticking to the surface of a light bulb?
You need include only the details that do effective work. If you are writing a mystery novel, you might want to include the penknife, but not the cat scratches. An essay about cats, in contrast, could include those scratch marks. A science fiction story might use either the fatty acids or the ions. So might an essay on indoor pollution.
" Even if I could put down accurately the thing I saw and enjoyed, it would not give the observer the kind of feeling it gave me. I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at, not copy it." Georgia O'Keeffe
Perhaps Georgia O'Keeffe was talking about her painting of a poppy. She did not take a snapshot with her brushes. She probably listened into her body and saw with her eye at the same time — and painted a poppy flamboyant enough to convey what she felt as she looked at those orange petals.
Of course, only O'Keeffe knew what she did. But my experience suggests that a feeling in the body, a Crazy Child sensation, directs the eye in choosing the detail. The two actions — listening to the Crazy Child and observing with our senses — occur at the same time.
The most vivid details are those most deeply felt by the creative unconscious. This is the thesis of Let the Crazy Child Write! and it puts image detail squarely in the province of the Crazy Child. We may not know, consciously, what our most deeply felt images are. We may find them by watching our subject closely, or we may find them by getting into a zone and letting them flow out our fingers.
" It may be going too far to say that the exactness and concreteness and solidity of the real world achieved in a story correspond to the intensity of feeling in the author's mind and to the very turn of his heart; but there lies the secret of our confidence in him." Eudora Welty, Place in Fiction
Small, odd, and dissonant details work the same way in all creative writing — stories, poems, plays, or essays. Finding those that work best for you is an interesting journey. Your Crazy Child will pick details different from anyone else's.
You do not need any particular skills to do this exercise. You need only be able to write words. You can be a through-and-through beginner otherwise, and do it very well. And, if you are a beginner, you have the advantage of approaching Let the Crazy Child Write! with an open mind.
You may be more practiced than you realize. Many people who think of themselves as beginners are, in fact, quite experienced. Any kind of writing is invaluable experience, including brochures and business letters. You have to push words out your body and onto paper, and you cannot do this without learning how words work together.
If you are an absolute beginner, you have a fresh mind. You may have a few ideas about what constitutes powerful writing, but those ideas are preconceptions that can restrict the Crazy Child, and your creative flow. The fewer preconceptions you have, the more you may learn from Let the Crazy Child Write!
In the next section I will describe an exercise and present several ways to approach it. Read the entire section before you begin. An idea or a phrase in it somewhere could be what you start with, because it excites your Crazy Child. You stand to write powerfully anytime your creative unconscious is engaged. And you'll have fun in the process.
An effective way to practice seeing and writing image details is to interview of someone. A relative or a stranger will do, as well as a friend, or someone in your workshop — while it is meeting. You can also pretend to interview yourself. Write for fifteen minutes or so.
For fifteen minutes or so, ask questions and take notes, copious notes, even if they don't seem to go anywhere. Watch for details that snag your attention. People will always manifest something interesting. They will say something appealing, or there will be something arresting on their person like their earrings, the design of a T-shirt, a hairstyle, some highly articulated muscles, an object in a pocket, or a mannerism — something.
You and your Crazy Child are on a treasure hunt. This hunt is special, because you do not know what the treasure is. You may not recognize it even when you stumble upon it. You will likely not know until you read the exercise over later and realize that some detail has brought your subject clearly back to mind.
The trail to the treasure could start anywhere. It may start with something the person says or a piece of jewelry or the gum that your interviewee is chewing — follow whatever trail you find yourself on. Write a lot of details, especially those that are odd, novel, or intriguing.
In this exercise it does not matter if you write falsehoods or truth, and it does not matter where you find the details. They may be entirely in your imagination, or they may be in front of you waving flags. Your task is to notice vivid details and to write them.
You could write exactly what your interviewee says. All of it might be very interesting. Or you could change a detail here and there as you go along, or later, when you write up your notes. You could add a plethora of new details, either way. You can be as extreme as you like.
If your interviewee is chewing gum, and that reminds you of your boss, follow that thought. Why not make your subject the boss or the boss's secretary? Or if your interviewee's green bracelet reminds you of the jade-colored carnation in the boy's mouth, follow that trail. What did the boy do next? Or what did you want him to do?
When you're done, look over your notes. You will discover, hidden or obvious, the trail you were following. Take another fifteen minutes to flesh it out. Be free, wild, and extravagant as you write. Do a portrait or, if the spirit moves you, write a story, poem, play, or essay.
Relax and write whatever you like. It's best if you don't try to write a perfect piece — or anything near perfect. This is an exercise, meaning you are developing a skill, not necessarily creating a product. You also don't have to be accurate to your interviewee.
Write whatever truth or fiction you find most interesting. "Interesting" does not have to mean upbeat or exciting. It may be most interesting that the interviewee reminds you of your wacky aunt. Perhaps they both have car parts in the living room, and one day a weird thing happened on the way to the kitchen sink.
This exercise provides practice in seeing details. You are letting your Crazy Child do much of that seeing, and every Crazy Child has its own unique way. But there is no telling in advance what your way is. Put those image details on paper, lots of them. You are venturing into new territory.
A workshop consists of two or more like-minded people who give each other feedback. You read your exercise to them, and they give their responses. They then read their exercises in turn, and the rest of you respond.
On pages xvii-xix I outlined several ways to start a workshop. Three is a good number of people for beginning a workshop, and five or six is ideal. But you can also do a workshop with just one other person.
" Syngenetic" means having the same origin. When the feedback has the same origin, as nearly as possible, as the impulse of the writing, then it can assist in improving the writing. Workshops are most successful when writers understand each other, and respect the thrust of each other's writing.
This understanding may be achieved by following a few simple ground rules. I call them "kindergarten rules," because they seem childlike, but they are deceptively difficult to follow.
The dynamic of the syngenetic workshop keeps everyone's attention on the writing itself — and on feeling the writing to its roots. If you follow the rules precisely, you will be guided into the writing with a clear mind. You need to know what the writing is about. The goal of the syngenetic workshop is to further the primary impulse of the writing.
Since the Crazy Child or creative unconscious is largely unknown, by definition, you may not have a clue how to hear someone else's writing. The group may be equally clueless about yours. These are reasons why the rules should be respected. Groups also lose the ability to comprehend someone's writing, because — without anyone wishing it — they develop an exclusive aesthetic.
For this first session, since you have written a rough-draft interview during the meeting, it is necessary to give only positive feedback. Guard against subtle criticisms that masquerade as compliments, as, "I like this, but something didn't work." You will benefit if you practice giving — and receiving — clear, positive feedback with no "buts."
Read to your workshop, slowly and loudly, what you have written. If the piece is short, read it a second time. The workshop will not have copies of what you wrote a few minutes ago, so they must hold the piece in their minds. Reading it a second time will give them a chance to understand it more fully. When you are finished, the workshop should take a few moments to absorb what you have written.
The workshop then identifies which image details are most vivid. This is positive feedback, and, following the syngenetic model, they should repeat your words back to you. Take careful notes, indicating each detail they point out. You might underline the words or use exclamations points in the margins or squiggles or stars — whatever makes sense to you.
While the workshop is talking about your piece, you should remain silent. This is an essential kindergarten rule. You should remain silent until they are completely finished, and they might need as much as ten minutes. It is absolutely not useful to discuss or counter their feedback. The workshop's attention and yours should stay — entirely — on what others get from your writing. If someone raises a question about the text, let others provide the answer or try to. You take notes.
There are, however, two cases when asking questions is fair. The first case is if you do not understand the words that are being spoken. You should ask that those words be repeated or be explained. The feedback should naturally be expressed in words you can understand.
The second case is when the feedback is vague. It is only slightly useful to hear that your details are effective. For example, someone might say, "Your description of the boyfriend is interesting," but this doesn't tell you which phrases are working. Was it the description of his face or of his jacket or of how he was moving? It's to your advantage to ask for verbatim feedback. The workshop should try to recall your exact words.
You have an important job as you listen to the workshop. Your job is to believe the praise. The workshop is being honest, and their positive feedback is probably accurate. As you work with Let the Crazy Child Write! trusting the workshop's positive feedback may be the single most important thing you do. When someone says an image detail is vivid or gripping, indicate that with a note on your copy, and believe it. Do not leave this crucial task to your memory.
The workshop is a mirror for your writing. Their praise reflects what you are doing well, and it is valuable information about your Crazy Child. You find out in the workshop how effective your Crazy Child is. This is not something you can learn on your own.
Often we have banished the Crazy Child from our minds. We may even have forgotten that we have a creative unconscious. This is no surprise, for we are trained from an early age to hide it. The Crazy Child does not help us in school or with our parents, and it does not go over well at work — quite the opposite.
We also train ourselves to discount the Crazy Child. You may think the details you write are dull or boring or simply not of interest to anyone — and these judgments may be totally inaccurate. Most likely they are ways of discrediting the Crazy Child. If the workshop likes those same details, it is a lead-pipe cinch your negative judgments are in error.
The exercises will put you in a positive relationship with your Crazy Child. And when you believe the praise of the workshop, you counter the negative thoughts of your internal Editor. You are joining in honoring your creative unconscious and you are giving yourself access to its energy. You are encouraging your Crazy Child to come out and play.
When another workshop member is reading, your job is to listen. Listen carefully for image details that snag your attention. When one does, a picture will form itself in your mind, and you may find yourself dwelling on the detail even after the author has gone on.
Listening is an art. To do it effectively, you must clear your mind, because any preconception will get in the way — any preconception whatsoever. You are not to judge whether the writing is up to par, and it is a good idea to forget that writing is supposed to do anything. You should report the effect of what you hear — nothing else.
Make your mind a blank slate or imagine your mind is an empty screen. As words are read, the image details will light up on the screen. Remember those images that are clear or striking or hold your attention for a while. All you have are words, and the responses of your nervous system.
Another way to listen is with your body. Listen inwardly for little twinges or small intakes of breath or slightly nervous feelings. You could imagine your entire nervous system is a clean plate, and report what sticks to it. Just as some food will remain on a plate tipped at an angle, only those strong or forceful images will stay in your mind.
However you do it, listening is not easy, and there are no rules for predicting vivid details. No one knows in advance what details will be the most vivid. This is especially true when a person is reading for the first time. Each reader is a new entity, each reader sets up a different context, and each set of image details is new territory.
The main thing is to notice, as you hear them, which image details are the most powerful. These details were probably chosen by the Crazy Child, and they are likely to feel strange to the author — which is why the listener's job is important. The most powerful details could be impulsive, wacky, bizarre, finely textured, perfect, or ethereal. There is no formula for what the Crazy Child does well.
Once you identify the vivid details, repeat them to the writer. It's ideal if you repeat the words verbatim. Then it will be obvious to everyone, even to the author, that those words are powerful — because you remember them. It is also valuable to take notes. This is not cheating. You are reminding yourself which details are vivid, and when the author is finished, you can refer to your notes to repeat the author's exact words.
This writing practice is a suggestion for developing your familiarity with image detail. Read the entire section before you start writing, just as you did with the exercise section. The practice isn't designed, anyway, to be done on the spot. You might want to spend an hour or two doing the practice or several hours over several days.
As practice, write a second interview, and this time select someone with an interesting hobby or job. Spend more time with your interviewee, look closely at the hobby or job, and write five pages or so — you can write more, of course.
The type of person you choose to interview is important. It could be the person from your exercise, especially if that person's hobby or job deals with physical objects. The more tactile elements your senses have to feed on, the more material you will have for making vivid details. A weaver, a microbiologist or a car mechanic are all good subjects. So are a dancer or a farmer or a stamp collector. There are millions of good subjects.
Take the reader on the same journey you take for the interview. Give the reader a picture of the front door, the person, the workbench, the sounds, the smells — anything that strikes your senses. Proceed through the interview showing details in the same order that you notice them, or in the same order that they happen. Include what the person says in greeting — and include any odd things the person says.
When you write those odd details, you give the reader the feel of the person, the place, and the work — even the joy or the adventure or the agony of it all. This is "new journalism," also known as "literary journalism."
Technically, new journalism is journalism that uses story techniques. Old-style journalism simply lists the information. For purposes of Let the Crazy Child Write! new journalism takes the reader on the same journey the writer makes to find the information.
Take the reader on the same journey you make to find the information.
Barry Newman does just that in his article "Fisherman." We see the farm, its surroundings, and the man coming out to greet us, just as he does:
Leigh, England — Kevin Ashurst's maggot farm — a cinder block
shed attached to an air scrubber — is a mile outside this old mill town,
in a field of pink wildflowers.
"
Looking for work?" a tattooed man calls when a visitor drives up on a hot morning. In the yard,
some dead sheep nourish a new generation of bluebottle flies. Two workers,
bent over the carcasses, scoop the maggots into plastic tubs. The smell is
about as bad as a smell can get.
Ashurst, a meaty man of 43, wipes his hand on his dungarees to
clean off the offal, and extends the same hand in greeting. Then he reaches
into a tub and brings up a sample of his finest produce — most, white and
writhing.
"
See, that's the size of 'em, like," he says. "Them's good maggots, quality maggots. They'll keep like this for a week in the
'fridge."
Who keeps maggots in the 'fridge? Coarse fishermen do. Kevin
Ashurst sells maggots to coarse fishermen. He's a coarse fisherman himself,
and a good one. Coarse fishermen bait their hooks with maggots to catch coarse
fish — like barble, dace, bleak and roach. Coarse fish live in murky waters,
are mostly tiny and make awful eating. Game fishermen, who catch salmon and
trout, think of them as vermin. Some think the same of coarse fishermen.
Until about ten years ago, British upper-class fishermen succeeded
in keeping the upper-class fish to themselves. The working class had to fish
in abandoned gravel pits and industrial canals. The sport wasn't refined,
but it was diverting enough, once money got involved.
The author puts the reader in his shoes as he learns about coarse fishing. Quoting the owner gives the reader a sense of who he is, and the smell brings us right into the scene. When you do your interview, however, you may choose something that smells good.
New journalism is what Newman employs in the first four paragraphs. By paragraph five, he slips into old-style journalism and simply lists information. He shows us that the line between the two genres is not rigid.
There's no reason to limit your interview to a person: this practice also works when you interview a place. One writer chose to spend a night in a hospital, as part of her job, and reported what the experience was like. You could interview a restaurant, a golf course, a nightclub — you name it.
You can also pretend you are a stranger interviewing yourself. This is a challenge because you will need to see yourself through a stranger's eyes. What would someone see when meeting you for the first time? For the same reason, interviewing a friend is complicated. You may know your friend too well, and you'll need to concentrate on imagining you are seeing your friend for the first time.
Show, don't tell.
Remember to show us the details, don't simply tell us about them. This directive is universal among writers. If an author writes that someone has a handsome face, I know the face is not ugly. Since there are six billion people on the planet, the writer has described some three billion of them. That's too many! I see only a handsome blank or something the writer did not have in mind.
But if the writer shows me a detail, I can see the face. Remember the pearly scar on the lover's neck, or the shell-like crack in the blue plate, or the gum in the boss's ashtray? Go for the small, the odd, and the dissonant. If you do use a general adjective, like "handsome," be sure to back it up with image detail.
As you work, follow the trail of details. Be exact, and do not worry about the effect. The more odd or dissonant or flamboyant your details are, the more freely your Crazy Child is writing. The wilder you write, the more you stand to learn about your own creative unconscious — and the more likely your writing will be truly vivid.
Clive Matson, a master teacher, set me on the path to writing freely, to writing
with exuberance and joy. ~ Isabelle Maynard, author of China Dreams
Clive Matson, a master teacher, set me on the path to writing freely, to writing
with exuberance and joy. ~ Isabelle Maynard, author of China Dreams
Clive encourages the discovery of what so impassions us to
write in the first place, what he calls the voice of 'the Crazy
Child' — the intuitive, the raw, the bloody. ~ Laura Glen Louis,
author of "Fur" from The Best American Short Stories 1994
I've seen every kind of writer come from Clive's workshops very much improved and with a newfound confidence. He cherishes the primary impulse to create in everyone. He leads his merry band of writers to a place of vibrant self-realization; his humor and enthusiasm are as infectious as his wisdom. ~ Joe Quirk, author of The Ultimate Rush