CREATIVE PROCESS — WRITING & CREATIVITY
Should We Only Write About What We Know?
USING IMAGINATION TO CONJURE REALITY … ★｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
So, should we only write about what we know? Hmmm, all well and good but not many of us have ridden winged horses through Nordic thunder … So maybe, just maybe we should and could use our imaginations? After all, isn’t imagination part of a writer’s skill set?
Fiction is an arrangement of thoughts, events, and ideas within the constraints (or not) of storytelling. So, is fiction really just an arrangement of stuff that never happened?
Our imaginations can conjure up unlimited scenarios and sensations in our minds. A story may evolve around powerful figures and their empires (Game of Thrones) or lone travellers on mystic journeys (Gandolf — Lord of the Rings). I can imagine, if I want, a meeting between two famous persons, (dead or alive) and then imagine their conversation. I can imagine a conversation between myself and my late father. I can imagine waking up for work on a space station and finding said station invaded by alien creatures.
Fiction, by definition, IS made-up stuff, describing imaginary events and usually imaginary people. As children, we ‘make stuff up’ and invent scenarios. We play ‘make believe’ which can be fabulous fun and, of course, exercises our imagination muscle.
Making stuff up allows you to construct whole new worlds, whether we’ve experienced them in real life or not.
Someone once said (and I really don’t know who):
‘I want a story to take me to a place that I’ve never been to before and make it come vividly alive for me.’
You can invite readers to inhabit vivid worlds of your own creation. Using a semblance of truth, we can lend verisimilitude to give impressions of reality. Why? You need something your reader can latch onto, something tangible that your reader can recognise, something that binds them to your world of invention.
‘You have to use fantasy to show different sides to reality … ‘
– Hendrix
What fictional elements, whether character, dialogue, or themes contribute to authenticity in invented worlds?
There are ritualised forms of dystopian worlds such as Gilead in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale which strongly draws on observance and the language of rituals. We recognise those rituals, the chanting, the repetitiveness, even if they are misguided and horrific.
In George Miller’s Mad Max we have the children of the apocalypse speaking in a stark and simplified dialect. It feels wholly authentic and paradoxically vulnerable in a future world of dog-eat-dog.
In James S.A. Corey’s series of sci-fi novels, (televised recently as The Expanse) the blue-collar workers, given their isolation in an outer ring of planets, have developed a heavy Creole dialect. This distinguishes, separates, and unites them. As their habitats expand far beyond the known solar system, the stakes are raised and the workers, led by a charismatic despot, rise up in a desperate war of class.
Dialogue alone can be used as a powerful and integral part of world-building, without yet exploring other fictional devices.
Let’s pause for a second and consider your audience, your reader. There is a huge market, of course, for fantasy and science fiction. Yet, you may be surprised that one survey found the typical fantasy reader to be a woman well into her sixties! You may be less surprised that the same survey found male readers are usually in their 20s. My takeaway is that both categories are looking for escapism. Women in their sixties are finding the time they never had before and men in their twenties are financially less able or inclined to ‘settle down’ so the distraction of escapism is too good a lure.
What about the close cousin of imagination, creativity? Are they the same thing?
Creativity is the application of your imagination. For instance, if you convert your ideas into a story, an article, or a screenplay, you have applied your imagination to the art of creativity.
It’s hard to separate them but I think of imagination as the key, and creativity as the turning of the key.
So, winged horses aside, making stuff up requires a whole lot of imagination and contrivance. Our invention may require researching legends, landscapes, myths, histories, and mysteries … oh, and a little science and physics too. Making stuff up requires you to build a whole new world then stand back and take a hard look. Researching real-world versions is one thing. The next thing is to apply same to your faraway, long-ago lands or alien terrains.
Mirroring real-life problems can validate imaginary worlds with unnerving credibility. Even better, it leaves your reader wanting more.
So, write about what you know and use your imagination (with a little research) to write about what you don’t.
Good luck! ★｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
© 2022 Susi Moore. All Rights Reserved.
For more on the elements of fiction …
Susi Moore runs MuserScribe (a new publication to Medium) where writers talk about their storytelling and what inspires them to write …💜💜💜
