Date: Thu, 31 Aug 1995 15:54:25 -0700 From: Cinnamon Toast Subject: TECH: Intro to Square1 Wow, it's been a long time. In the fall of 1992 I took a class that changed the way I look at writing and critiquing. It was called "Square1" and it was taugh by a man named Paul Belserene. In the spring of 1993 I posted the class handout on this list because I thought some people might find it useful and interesting. Seeing as how there are a bunch of new people on now, I thought I'd post it again. Here's the first segment, the intro. ____________________________________________________________________________ When I joined this list last November, I mentioned a class that I had taken, raved about the critiquing method we used, and then stopped submitting things due to other commitments. So, here I am with a new interest in writing, and a little bit of free time, so I thought I'd post a few things from the class. The first is the course outline. It is take directly from the notes used by the prof. and credit should be given to Paul Belserine. The second is "the feedback method", once again taken directly from Paul's notes, and credit should be given to him. And the third is a list of exercises, some of which we did in class, some of which Paul didn't assign because of time restrictions. Here goes. Great Writing - the goal of this course Great writing is writing that moves the writer and moves the reader. Both are necessary. One or the other is not enough. This is not the way people usually think about great writing. It's not a definition that is very useful to literature students, critics or book reviewers, except insofar as they themselves are writers. What they tend to be interested in is how the finished work stands up against certain outside criteria. What writers tend to be interested in is the work in progress. My definition of great writing is what an academic might call an operational definition, which means it's the only kind of definition that is actually useful to you, as a living writer. It points the way to creating great writing, and gives you a way of knowing when you've got there. It's also much quicker than waiting several generations to see if students are being forced to read you in school. The notion of a "great writer" in the abstract, without reference to a way of relating it to your own life, is exactly like (and exactly as helpful as) the notion of a "great lover" in the abstract. Are you a great lover? Who says? Good Writing (Good writing is writing which successfully fulfills a certain purpose. A salable magazine article is good writing. An essay that would get a good mark from your high school English teacher is good writing. A comprehensible legal brief would require good writing (and a minor miracle). Good writing can also be great writing. But it's possible to produce good writing without necessarily moving yourself and your reader. And, alas, it's possible to move yourself and the reader and not produce a good (usable, salable) work of writing. This course is not about competence. It's not about careers for writers. It's not about meeting expectations. It's not about good writing. This course is about writing things that matter to you and that you can communicate in a way that matters to someone else. This course is about great writing in this very narrow, operational sense of the term.) The Foundation of Writing The foundation of writing is not technique. It is the activity of discovering what you have to write. What do you have? Write it. What do you have to write right now? Don't try to write anything else. When you are motivated by your whole being, then your subconscious will assist your conscious mind to put down on paper the precise words that express what you have. When you care whether what you have expressed is meaningful to anyone else, then you are motivated to edit and test your writing to ensure that others can "secure uptake" without misunderstanding you. Only you can make these final editing decisions, because only you can be responsible for what is essential in your work. Expressing and Communicating Each of us tends to be either an expressor or a communicator. Which are you? Expression is "getting it out", communicating is "making contact." Great writing requires that you do both - make contact with what you have brought out of yourself. Most of us find one or the other of these easier. Finding the balance is a delightful impossibility. On One Hand Writing and reading, are acts of creation, not processes of description. If you "get it right" in your head first, then what makes it onto the page is second hand. It will be missing some of your energy, and may well be missing essential details that never left your head. This is the "you Hadda Be There" syndrome. If you're not creating it as you're writing it, you're likely to leave something out. The reader has no access to your intentions. The world you hope to convey is a chimera. It has no meaning. You can't successfully translate from your inner world to words. The reason why lies in the meaning of the word "translate." Stop thinking about duplicating what you imagine and start reading your own work, as it happens. This way you can discover writing that's greater than you can imagine. This is not to say that you can't outline a story or can't plan what you mean to say. But it is to say that you should always be capable of surprising yourself with what actually makes it to the page. So, writing is like a walnut. Even if you know more or less what should lie within the convoluted shell, the task at hand is to reveal something that you have never seen (or said) before. On The Other Hand Writing and reading are linear experiences. Meanings of phrases are secondary to the experience of encountering one word after another. Our imaginations don't wait until the end of a sentence to begin inhabiting the world that is created word by word. Most other forms of art are not "digital" in quite this rigorous a way. The only things that exist in a piece of writing are the actual words of the writer, in precise order, and the imagination and emotions of the reader. Writing and reading take place in time, like music. Like listening to radio. Like sitting in a room and having a writer slip words one a time under the door. The activity proceeds moment to moment, in one direction only. If you could slow down the activity of reading, you would see that each word evokes imaginative and emotional responses in you that influence your response to the next word. Yes, it's possible to go back and re-read the sentence to "correct" your first impression. But you can never undo that impression. It's the same with the activity of writing. When in doubt stop in the middle of a phrase and ask yourself "Where am I now?" In the world of your writing, if you haven't said it, it doesn't exist. If you have said it, then you can't take it back. Umbrella phrases Umbrella phrases are another symptom of the "You Hadda Be There" syndrome. We all have umbrellas in our psyches. These umbrellas have things clustered under them. Thinking about one thing under the umbrella may be a shorthand way of thinking about everything under the umbrella. Sometimes we put the umbrellas in our writing. When we do we run the risk of others not getting what we're giving. Because we know what's under the umbrella, but the reader doesn't. When we try to translate a feeling or impression onto the page, we always run the risk of leaving something out, or putting something under an opaque umbrella, where the reader can't get at it. If you haven't said it, then it doesn't exist, even if it feels like it exists to you, because you can see behind the umbrella. In the Beginning is the Word As a writer, you are like God. You are responsible for the physics, for the rules of nature, of each written piece. Each word enters a universe which your previous words have conditioned. Why Writing is Impossible Writing requires that "left brain" and "right brain" work together in perfect harmony. Your right brain is the intuitive, feeling, pattern-recognizing side of you that is in great fashion right now, and is also the part of you capable of discovering what you have to write. Your left brain is the logical, articulate, analytical side of you which is also responsible for language. You can't write without this side. To succeed, you must make these two halves of you work at the same time. Another way of saying this is that when you write you must find a way of making your head and your heart come together at your mouth. This is impossible. It just doesn't happen in normal consciousness. Writing is an Altered State of Consciousness Writing is an altered state of consciousness. This altered state allows you to do the impossible. It's like lucid dreaming with a pen in your hand. Or like being able to write on psychadelics while simultaneously being able to read cold sober. It is very easy to find this altered state. It takes incredible, gentle discipline to stay there. Who Cares What You Have to Say? The only reason anybody reads anything is to discover something about what it is to be alive. It could be a big thing, or it could be a little thing, but we all read to learn about living in our world from each other. You are an expert on being alive. Why do you think you write? Conflict Life is marked by conflict. So is most writing. Conflict is what sparks change, and change is one of the reasons we all need to share what it is to be alive. Conflict isn't just disagreement. In a real conflict between two characters, both people are drawn together and drawn apart. Once the conflict emerges, something has to give, what what? The stakes are such that the resolution of the conflict is not obvious. If it is, readers will say your characters are "one dimensional". What they mean is, you haven't shared what it is to be alive. Characters Here, again, you're God. You create human beings. These people are neither puppets nor toys. The world you create may be more imaginary than God's world, but the people in it are real. Or as Marianne Moore might have said, you are creating "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." Create your characters with the same care that you ought to bring to bear in conceiving children. You may not like them, or what they do, but you must love them. They are human beings. And just like your "real" children, your characters do not belong to you. They come from you, but they are your equals. It's an offense to manipulate or neglect them. If you think you're not capable of creating real people whose behavior is capable of surprising even you, consider the people in your dreams. Listen to Your Own Death Being who you are is a wonderful thing. Your particular perspective on the universe is a precious gift which you can give and which others will treasure. Once you stop trying to make something out of it. Listen to your death. Release your secrets and give yourself away. Ego death can transform your particulars to something universal. After all, when you were alive, you were a miracle, but, then again, you were nothing special. Some people worry that anything they want to write about has been done before, by other people. This is true, it has. There is nothing new to write about. If there was, it probably wouldn't interest anyone else. What is unique is not what you write about. There are millions of walnuts. But what's inside this walnut has never been seen before. It's the same with what's in you. What is unique is you. What You Give You Get The act of writing is an act of giving. Ideas are a potentially limitless resource, but you will only find more by giving the ones you have away. (You can charge for them, but don't hoard them). The more you write the more you will discover to write. The more you give the more you will receive. The more you are moved, the more you will be able to move others. It's like love. Are you a great lover? Style Style is not mannerisms, techniques or affectations. As someone (perhaps E. B. White?) once said better than this: Style is what is left when you have gotten rid of everything that isn't essential to you. Square One Every piece of writing has its own rules. The task of the writer is to discover what these rules are, and then follow them rigorously. They will be different next time. This isn't English class, this is the present: the frontier of communications. Nothing is grammatically or stylistically correct or incorrect. The language evolves continually. Your grammar may be the next thing, who can say? The only thing that matters is that you write in such a way that your reader can get what you gave. You can be good at what you do. You can have confidence in your gifts. You can know what you want to accomplish. But you can't know what to write until you write it. If you do, you're reciting. Reciting is fine. We're not talking about reciting. No matter who you are, no matter how long you've been at it, when you start to write, you start at square one. Gee, I Wonder What Happens Next? That's what it feels like, with a blank screen, a white page, at square one. (Part II, the feedback method, coming soon to an internet connection near you) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lisa MacDougall lmacdoug@unixg.ubc.ca UBC Main Library (604) 822-5034 (work) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~