>>> Item number 25437 from WRITERS LOG9402A --- (158 records) ---- <<<
Date:         Sun, 6 Feb 1994 18:35:01 JST
Reply-To:     WRITERS <WRITERS@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Sender:       WRITERS <WRITERS@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
From:         Mike Barker <barker@AEGIS.OR.JP>
Subject:      EXERCISE: Weather Report: Brainstorms All Day! (2)

    Hard question:  What was the point of the first article in this
series?
    <silence>

    Don't stop with the first answer, set a quota of alternatives and
keep going until you've made your quota!

    (For anyone tuning in at this point - We're going over a set of
exercises intended to exercise the most important muscle in a writer's
body - the one between the ears.  And like any good muscle-building
course, we started with the basics - repetitions.  It doesn't do any
good to come up with one idea and stop - set yourself a quota and keep
on pumping!)

Exercise 2.  Why?  And again, Why?

Challenge assumptions and boundaries

    One of the reasons that an adult can handle most events more easily
than a child is that they have an enormous "backlog" of assumptions and
boundaries set up to identify and handle whatever is happening.
However, these assumptions and boundaries also blind us, and we as
writers have to watch for them and challenge them.  It isn't easy to see
them, but it can be fun.
    Trying to do this sometimes seems to be one of the most difficult
points for adults - and yet there is a little child's "teasing" that
will help you.  Have you ever dealt with a child who is at the point
where they ask "Why?" repeatedly?  Even when you provide one answer,
they just keep repeating the question?
    Babysitters and parents are fairly wise to this trick, and often go
for the simple "because" of authority, the enraged "BECAUSE I SAID SO"
of frustration, or the effective "How about an icecream cone?" of
diversion.
    However, I want you to take a chance and ask yourself why for a
while.  Start with an action or scene and try to identify the
assumptions and boundaries you've put behind and around it.  Whenever
you find one, ask yourself WHY that is necessary - and then ask yourself
WHY again.
    Just as an example, let's say I've had my character in a stereotyped
attempt to get money from a bank.  First assumption that pops to mind is
that the best place to borrow money is from a bank.  Why?  Well, that's
where you get ordinary loans.  Why?  They have a lot of money.  Why?
who knows... - maybe my character should try for a grant?  or... is
money really a problem?  that's an assumption we often make - suppose
the character doesn't buy into that world-view, simply takes money as
needed (or uses those wonderful plastic cards and lets their credit
hang)..
    assumption - business before family.  U.S. citizens.  No aliens.  No
magic.  No selling the first child to the devil, either.  and so on and
on - the assumptions in a story are always huge.
    The boundaries also are high.  We tend to look at a problem and
classify it almost immediately, then consider only solutions "inside the
bounds" of common sense.  But for creativity, we need to slip those
boundaries.  For example, we look at a business going bankrupt, and we
say "AHA! Economic problem.  Solutions in morale, new products,
loans..."
    Suppose we let our minds slide a second, and consider what other
kinds of problem we might consider this.  Maybe it is an ethical
problem?  How about a communications problem?  Elfen influences?
Difficulty with solar flares?  Do you see how just by considering the
problem as belonging to a different category, you start to see it
differently, and the solutions that might be appropriate?
    And if you get bored with the ordinary categories - try bending and
building categories of your own.  Warning!  This is much harder than it
seems - the categories we use to divide up experience are very deeply
ingrained...  Possible, and very rewarding, but hard.

(what if a man talked "the evil critter" into taking his LAST child -
and then kept insisting he was going to have another any day now, just
wait, hold on...)

I'm not sure why that slid in here, but I'm certainly not going to push
it out.  Maybe it's another solution to the bankrupt business...

Now, some points about pushing assumptions and boundaries.  First, when
you are doing this, suspend judgment - let yourself be wrong.  We are
using bent, twisted, new, assumptions and boundaries as a way of
exploring, as stepping stones to a new viewpoint, so don't stop and try
to decide if it could possibly be right or wrong.

Second, try for variety.  Remember, you want to meet or beat your quota
of alternatives at each step, and you want to try different ways.

Third, look for newness.  As you step back through the assumptions and
trace the boundaries you are used to working in, an easy way out is to
simply use some other conventional assumptions, or other ordinary
boundaries.  But sometimes a new thread will drift by, a new way of
dividing the world will appear.  Grab those, and cherish them.

Fourth, as I mentioned before, avoid evaluation - let "where does this
lead?" replace "is this true?"  This is partly a mental trick, but is
extremely important.  If you have to check and prove each step along the
way, in most cases you will end up following ordinary, routine paths.
But you can step on a cake of ice and off quickly without ever noticing
that it sinks a moment later.  Use motion, and keep going.

Fifth, watch for assumptions: then question them all the time.  Take
news articles, and list the assumptions made.  Watch for markers like
"of course", "as we all know", and other give-away phrases that say
"HERE IS AN ASSUMPTION."  Jump on those little suckers and tear them to
pieces.  (Warning - some people find it quite upsetting when you point
out the assumptions that they prefer to leave unquestioned.  Be cautious
about pointing these assumptions out to your friends, although you can
still keep track of them yourself...)

Practice!

    a.  Descriptions - a farm; a townhouse; a flower; an item of your
choice.  (If you did this exercise last time, you may want to use the
same one).  First, write a description.  Now, look for the assumptions
you used in writing the description.  What about your description would
be totally baffling to an alien from Alpha Centauri?  How about a
bushman from Australia?  Or to a baby still learning about the world?
Now, push those assumptions - do you really need them?  How far back can
you trace them?  Suppose they were different?
    After that, consider the boundaries you used in your description.
Perhaps you mentioned people and a building - are they really separate,
or are the boundaries merely convention?  Consider the flower and the
ground it grows from as one whole entity - does your description change
when you do that?  Or maybe the sky and the flower?

    b.  Points of view - again, try pushing the assumptions used to
determine point of view.  Suppose you wrote a piece in first person, but
didn't allow the speaker to observe themselves?  Or maybe in the middle
of the obvious central figure, there are occasional flashes of other's
thoughts?  What happens if your narrator is the tree in the front yard
of the family house?  What happens when the narrator is a liar?

    c.  Conflict or problems.  Start with a problem (conflict) that you
have used or may use in a story.  Now, make a list of the assumptions
that make this a problem.  Make another list of the boundaries that fit
the problem.  Then start bending and pushing those, and watch what
happens to the problem.

    d.  Solutions.  Again, start with one problem, and make a list of
alternative solutions.  Now pick one of those solutions and list the
assumptions and boundaries that you used to define it.  Bend, push, and
twist - and watch the solution warp!

Example - one of my friends was upset with work, and insisted that a
trip to London was the perfect solution, but claimed they couldn't do
it.  I asked why, and they said they didn't have enough vacation time.
I pointed out that (a) they hated the job (b) they said the most
important thing in their life was this trip and so one.  Well, they said
they didn't have the money.  I asked to see their wallet, and pointed
out that they had five or six credit cards - certainly enough to get to
London.  BUT DIDN'T I UNDERSTAND?  THEY WOULD OWE MONEY THEN!!

I asked again just how important this trip was, and we talked quite a
while about it.

---------------------------------------