Imagination and the Prophesy of Fiction

“There are two types of fiction writers,” she declared.

“Good and bad ones?” I supposed.

“I mean, among those who know their craft.”

Within the brief pause that followed, my thoughts ran a riot. What does she mean by two types? If she’s talking about two types of talented writers, the adjectives that come to mind are more than a few.

“Don’t you wanna guess?” she breaks the silence.

“Introverts and extroverts?” I mutter, as an exemplar of the former type.

“Well, I guess that, too. But what I mean are those that write from experience and imaginative ones. Some writers, as good as they may be, just don’t have the imagination to envision stuff, while others are like prophets, don’t you think?”

What did I think?

Certainly, that there could be creative writers who are not by definition imaginative. In ordinary discourse, we often use the words imagination/imaginative and creativity/creative interchangeably, but they’re not synonymous. No wonder I’ve categorized them as two distinct skills writers need to hone, if they wish to level up their game.

True, in imagining, we often departure from reality, and so achieve the novelty that creativity requires. But the former is not the only means of achieving the latter.

When we narrow the scope of creativity to writing, I’ve already said it:

[T]he authors’ creativity transpires through their personal voice. It’s the sum of the textual rhythms of the language they use, the structure of the sentences, the emotional tone, the expertly drawn settings, the captivating characters, sometimes even the punctuation.

That said, one can be an excellent creative writer, while describing our complicated web of relations in a generally mundane settings. But just because their plot is not situated in a distant utopia, populated by aliens, human cyborgs, or trolls, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t used their imagination.

After all, imaginings come in different varieties and can be employed with importantly different aims. They could be put to an instructive use. Like when we empathize, pretend, make decisions, or solve problems. You know, it’s when you imagine all the places where you might have left your keys. Or when you ponder over whether those new shoes will be a good match for a certain outfit.

Similarly, creative writers who draw inspiration from their (or other people’s) life experiences, use their imagination in such an instructive and rather restricted way. Within the pages of a historical novel, one could imagine the characters and setting only as much. Scientists, too, use their imagination in this tamed by reality way to come up with novel solutions to the problems they’re trying to tackle.

Of course, we could also unshackle our imagination, put it to a transcendent use, and escape the world as it is. Forget about reality, let’s see what unbelievable things we can come up with! This is when world building becomes a fun, yet tedious task. How do you come up with what no one else has ever thought of? Where do you start from when everything is possible? And, most importantly, how do you make sure that within the fictional world you’ve created everything is consistent?

It’s often the authors of genres like fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism, whose imaginative endeavors transcend the realm of the pragmatic.

But is everything we can imagine possible? If yes, then how probable is it? How can transcendent imagining teach us anything of significance about the real world, if it doesn’t track reality?

I’ve written extensively on how reading about events that never really took place, involving non-existing people and creatures, can help us see truths about the real world here.

We can find numerous examples in literature of authors whose literary imaginings have turned out to be so-called prophecies. Think of George Orwell and Jules Verne, among others.

But what exactly does it mean for an author to be a prophet?

Prophets, the dictionary tells us, predict what’s about to come, and instruct people what to do to avoid certain events. Prophecies, within both history and literature, have strongly emphasized the value of linguistic expression. Be it as an oratory or a written skill, prophets must know the art of language to attract the attention of their audience.

It’s the eloquence of words that give power to their message. The language of prophetic creative writers transcends the dictionary meaning not only because of its beauty, but because it’s infused with universal truths about the human experience.

In Poetic Prophecy in Western Literature (1983), Jan Wojcik and Raymond Jean Frontain suggest that the poet-prophet is a visionary because by definition he “must be concerned with the nature of insight and inspiration”, and because he is “determined to reveal or uncover the world beyond the one the average man sees.”

Similarly, in Henry Thoreau, John Brown and the Problem of Prophetic Action (2002) Lewis Hyde tells us that the poet-prophet can envision the future because of his deep understanding and knowledge of the past.

Thus, it turns out that the literary prophet is not so much a mystic, or as my friend would suggest — more imaginative than others, but is rather someone who knows their craft. The literary prophet is someone who dissects the human nature in general, but also whose voice proceeds from their deep knowledge of history and culture. I think this aligns with what T.S. Eliot had in mind when he discerned between immature and mature poets. All that, of course, is sugar coated by the creative refinement of their style.

Back to my friend’s question, I don’t agree that there are imaginative/prophetic and non-imaginative writers. I think that we are all imaginative simply because we are human. We just differ in the degree to which we allow our imagination to float free.

Once, I came across the term Homo imaginatus and I love it. Aristotle emphasizes how to flourish as human beings, we must exercise the capacities that set us apart from the rest of the living world. The philosopher reasons his way towards the answer, first, by dismissing growth as a distinct feature of ours, since it’s something we share with plants. Then, he dismisses our perceptions, since they’re something we share with animals. Finally, he concludes that it’s our ability to accord our actions to reason which is unique to our species.

Who am I to argue with Aristotle? But I think our capacity to imagine is also something that sets us apart. As the poet and painter William Blake wrote in 1799,

To me this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination. The imagination, is not a state: it is the human existence itself.

A few decades later, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote in 1817,

The primary Imagination I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception.

Our imagination is neatly tied to the arts and literature, but it also has, often complicated, relationships with our assumptions, beliefs, actions, desires, knowledge. It enables us to experience things that not only we may never get the chance to, but also such that we never could, simply because they defy the laws of nature. Kafka’s Metamorphosis is one perfect example of the latter.

Next time you sit and write, be mindful of your imagination. Play with it. See what happens if you let it loose. Or the opposite, restrict it. Mix your fantasies with a fact. If, in your writing, you draw from personal experience, note how your imagination helps you envision the structure of the narrative. There are many types of writers, but humans are by default Homo imaginatus, I think.

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