One of my French teachers once told me that, as a graduate student, she was given a very specific writing assignment. First, the prof had them write a five-page paper about a topic of their choice. After being turned in and graded, they were given back their papers and told to condense it into a 3-page paper. The same thing happened again: break it down into a one-page paper. Then three paragraphs, one paragraph, five sentences, and one sentence. The last stages of the assignment were to get the ideas conveyed in the original five-page paper across in five words, three words, two words, and finally a single word. What an incredible challenge.
That story has stuck with me since, and I finally realized the importance of it this week while (where else?) in the shower. I've been wanting to get back to writing stories again for a while- not these blog posts, but actual "make up a world and everyone in it" stories- but I'm having troubles writing. Remembering my teacher's story made the light go off in my head: Our society has trained us to be as succinct as brief as possible. Granted, many people are not effective at it, but we all still strive for it. Hurry, hurry, be brief, get to the point, stop beating around the bush, summarize, use abbreviations, shortcuts, text speak, hashtags, keep it less than 160 characters.
Anyone who's been around a kid under 10 years old knows that they will happily spend half an hour explaining the dream they had about a talking giraffe and Mr. Bundles the stuffed rabbit going for a walk in the woods. Now, try to remember the last time you had a relaxed conversation, discussed something (not work-related) in depth, or wrote anything that took more than one paragraph to adequately explain. Tough, huh?
What I love about reading is when the author pulls you in and makes an entire world become real. When you get so passionate about what's going on in that world that coming to "The End" feels like getting kicked out of a friend's life. I have a couple of worlds in my head that I've created, revised, revisited, redecorated, and adventured in, but when I start trying to write them down, that little voice of society that lives in the back of my head starts whispering, "hurry up, make it fast, no one cares, you're too slow, get to the action, gloss over all that nonsense…" ignoring the fact that it's those little details that make a world really come alive. Just because I know that, in world #4, the mice have become sentient and are living awkwardly on the outskirts of humanity, doesn't mean that I can mention it is passing and have it be a pertinent detail in a reader's mind.
So, I'm trying. I love writing, I love sharing stories, giving people glimpses into the worlds in my head (and seeing what's in theirs), and I'm not going to stop, even if the only person who reads my attempts is me. But now I know what's been causing that voice of society to speak up, and that gives me the power to gag it. At least for a bit.
Postscript:
Every time I figure out the reasoning behind something that I feel has been holding me back, I think of this:
The child is the me I want to be, that has been held back by my ignorance of myself. Those last two sentences have been an inspiration to me for more years than I care to remember. Cheers!
That story has stuck with me since, and I finally realized the importance of it this week while (where else?) in the shower. I've been wanting to get back to writing stories again for a while- not these blog posts, but actual "make up a world and everyone in it" stories- but I'm having troubles writing. Remembering my teacher's story made the light go off in my head: Our society has trained us to be as succinct as brief as possible. Granted, many people are not effective at it, but we all still strive for it. Hurry, hurry, be brief, get to the point, stop beating around the bush, summarize, use abbreviations, shortcuts, text speak, hashtags, keep it less than 160 characters.
Anyone who's been around a kid under 10 years old knows that they will happily spend half an hour explaining the dream they had about a talking giraffe and Mr. Bundles the stuffed rabbit going for a walk in the woods. Now, try to remember the last time you had a relaxed conversation, discussed something (not work-related) in depth, or wrote anything that took more than one paragraph to adequately explain. Tough, huh?
What I love about reading is when the author pulls you in and makes an entire world become real. When you get so passionate about what's going on in that world that coming to "The End" feels like getting kicked out of a friend's life. I have a couple of worlds in my head that I've created, revised, revisited, redecorated, and adventured in, but when I start trying to write them down, that little voice of society that lives in the back of my head starts whispering, "hurry up, make it fast, no one cares, you're too slow, get to the action, gloss over all that nonsense…" ignoring the fact that it's those little details that make a world really come alive. Just because I know that, in world #4, the mice have become sentient and are living awkwardly on the outskirts of humanity, doesn't mean that I can mention it is passing and have it be a pertinent detail in a reader's mind.
So, I'm trying. I love writing, I love sharing stories, giving people glimpses into the worlds in my head (and seeing what's in theirs), and I'm not going to stop, even if the only person who reads my attempts is me. But now I know what's been causing that voice of society to speak up, and that gives me the power to gag it. At least for a bit.
Postscript:
Every time I figure out the reasoning behind something that I feel has been holding me back, I think of this:
No comments:
Post a Comment