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The Trick Is To Stop Thinking |
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Written by Elizabeth Genco
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Tuesday, 15 November 2005 |
There's a special part of your brain reserved for first drafts. But first you have to get there. How? Stop thinking so hard.
At the beginning of the month, I had the pleasure of attending this year's World Fantasy Convention. Small and intimate, most World Fantasy attendees make their living in the field of fantasy literature, or are on their way to the same. Far away from the maddening crowd, the professionals of World Fantasy are incredibly gracious and generous. This means that someone like me can walk up to, say, Gene Wolfe and ask him about writing.
You won't find movie screenings, fans in costume, or "con crud" at World Fantasy. So what's a con-goer to do? Readings, panels, and very open, very welcoming parties with lots of free booze (there's no secret about where "the cool kids" hang out). Since it's not a con for beginners, the few scheduled writing panels tend to be on more advanced topics. This year featured a two-part panel entitled "Working On Your Craft: Writing as an Evolving Process." A stunning crowd of fantasists, including Holly Black, Sarah Zettel, Ellen Kushner, and the aforementioned Gene Wolfe discussed aspects of their practice and how they get the job done.
As you can imagine, everyone had opinions and advice. Gene Wolfe had a lot to say on how to make characters come alive (hint: make sure they're not too much like you). Ellen Kushner spoke about how to get their dialogue just right (find the rhythm of their speech patterns). Patricia McKillip spoke of the dangers of investing a character with the all-too-human trait of avoidance (we want to watch characters do things, after all). Someone complained about "TV characters"; ie, those "archetypes" that can be catalogued by exhibiting certain behaviors that we've come to expect. And then, Graham Joyce (a.k.a. The Dude of Fantasy -- I thought that up just now) turned the entire conversation around with an important reminder.
Writing is about re-writing, he said. All of this process stuff is "front brain stuff." Front brain stuff should come later. The first draft should come from your back brain. The hindbrain, if you will. Write from the front brain then, and you'll end up with TV characters. (Note: "TV characters" don't belong on TV or in novels.)
The hindbrain is the creative, freewheeling, playing-in-the-mud part of your brain, as opposed to the rational part. What does it mean to write from the hindbrain? You can probably guess, but here are some examples. Writing from the hindbrain means shutting up the inner critic and just plowing on ahead. It means tapping a vein and seeing what comes out. It means trusting your subconscious completely and letting it call the shots. In short, stop thinking so fricking hard and just write, for crying out loud.
Writing is a process that's fraught with complications, many of which lend themselves to neuroses. Wouldn't it be nice to just write for a change? Well, you can. Stop thinking.
I struggle with this whole hindbrain thing. One of my personal dirty secrets is that I like to be in control of everything at all times, at least when it comes to me, myself, and I. Meaning, I'm not really into controlling other people, nor do I have a problem delegating, but when it comes to things that directly affect ME, yours truly, I get rather ansty when I don't have my finger on every button or lever, if you will (I know I'm not alone, here). Writing, then, on one level, is a perfectly designed instrument of torture. "I don't know what happens next! It's not coming out like I envisioned it! I don't know how to fix x-y-z-p-d-q problem! Abort, retry, fail!"
Yes, writing is fraught with peril, and one of its names is Uncertainty. The cool thing? The hindbrain can handle uncertainty in a way that the front brain can't.
I've always been a big supporter of my intuition, probably because it has saved my hiney in a number of dramatic ways over the years. Usually that means things like listening to the voice in my head that says "don't go into the funhouse" at Coney Island only to wake up the next morning to a New York Times headline that reads, "Four Killed and Dozens Injured in Funhouse Bustup". These days, as I'm writing more and more, it means trusting my subconscious completely. I resist that trust, unfortunately. It's a skill to be cultivated.
The rational mind is not a fan of trusting the subconscious. The hindbrain, on the other hand? All over it. You know, because they share the same bedcovers.
The results of all my hindbrain efforts (let's just call it "hindbraining" for simplicity) are really fricking cool. When I hindbrain, not only do I tend to get a lot more done, I produce better writing, too. Sure, the first draft is a mess -- but, many times, it's a salvageable mess. I can apply craft and technique and mechanics and all sorts of other Cool Things With Words to the hindbrain draft and shape it into something respectable. But what I can't do, no matter how hard I try, is fake the stuff -- the good stuff, the true stuff, the heart matter -- that the hindbrain comes up with.
The rational mind, she just can't do it. I think it pisses her off. Meanwhile,
when I trust my subconscious, it tends not to let me down.
Hindbraining tends to be a lot more fun than over-thinking, too. The rational mind sometimes loves to wield the lash, which, while having its time and place, is often inappropriate at best and downright destructive at worst. I've mentioned Jane Yolen in here before; well, one of the things I love about Jane is that she doesn't cop to the oh-so-fashionable writerly pastime of bitching about how hard writing is. In fact, she wrote an entire book on the subject of how much fun it is. Would you rather enjoy yourself or hurt yourself?
There's plenty of time for pain with writing. Like, later. Go ahead, enjoy yourself. I won't tell anyone.
(By the by, if you're not enjoying yourself, then why the heck are you bothering? I know, I know, it's a subject for another column in its own right. Just something to think about.)
A little while ago I contributed to one of Neil's columns on the great "to outline or not to outline?" debate. At first, the idea of writing from the hindbrain may sound an awful lot like that issue: frontbrain equals outline, hindbraing equals winging it. But that's a simplification. Instead, "winging it" is but one way to get to the hindbrain. Maybe it's the best way for you, but maybe not. You can get away from your front brain when you're following an outline, too. (Though maybe not if you've outlined every single thing before you start, unless that's your story and you're sticking to it, which is perfectly fine.)
Exercises like NaNoWriMo (going on now!) are another way to get in the hindbrain groove. Stampeding by the rational mind is certainly one way to put it in its place, or at least ignore it for a time. But you don't need speed to plow, as it were. You can get past the trouble spots the first time around by, well, ignoring them, too. Skipping around is another way to get to the hindbrain. You can work on some other part of your draft while your subconscious haggles over whatever you left in the dust. You know, no big deal.
You're not even thinking about it, right?
Elizabeth Genco enjoys splitting her psyche into parts like "hindbrain" and "front brain". You can check out some of her writing at Streetfables, or pick up a copy of SMUT PEDDLER #3 or STYX TAXI: A LITTLE TWILIGHT MUSIC. She is currently hindbraining her way through a first draft of her first novel.
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