Writing from the Inside Out (12 page)

I am apt to confuse emergence with magic. I do not know whether magic is real or depends on the play of appearances. I do not know that I could discern the two. I am apt to lose the attention of some readers when speaking of spirits and magic; however, it's a disservice to my experience if I avoid using such terms. When in doubt, things can be taken figuratively. For me, figurative language is the most real.

Temperature and humidity form ice crystals on a pane of glass. That ice materializes into intricate patterns like snowflakes is an emergent phenomenon. It appears to be blessed beyond the fact that temperature and humidity are at work. A tornado is an emergent phenomenon. Wind is air flowing from a high pressure area to an area of lower pressure. Many who have witnessed a tornado feel that they are experiencing a thing with intentionality.

In the mountains of Big Sur, it is not uncommon for the sea breeze to carry in low-lying clouds and fog that envelop the redwood trees growing in the canyon bottoms. One minute the sky may be clear, and only a moment later, the sky far and wide around is white and opaque — the fog has rolled in. It may last for days, and it may venture off in a matter of minutes. On occasions I have witnessed something pure and magical in the motion of the fog, where white wisps detach from the herd, then wander in from the sea and, like dragons, explore the treetops and cloak the nesting birds. Irrespective of what might seem to be wind patterns, the dragon does not dissipate as a cloud might, but instead roves, rolls, and returns at last to the white horizon.

A writer's mode refers to a wide-reaching general concern for putting together a creative project. Regardless of mode, an author can be working in the domain of poetry.

When I express from the mode of story, I am basically trying to get somewhere. I still invite poetry to reverberate in the background. The intent is to communicate in tandem with living — that is, things becoming and interacting.

The difference here between the modes of story and poetry might be expressed in the terms
life
and
living
, whereby the poetic image is imbued with the ecstasies of life, and story proceeds like veins in marble, which, traced, seem to be living. In the end, story and poetry can emerge to much the same effect through different modes.

I have a different set of expectations (or constraints, depending on how I think of them) based on what I'm doing with language. When telling a story out loud to a group of friends, I do not have to give a formal introduction. It's sufficient to begin at the thread of thought that led me to the moment where it felt necessary to tell the story. That might be an image from the middle of the story. No matter — I can rearrange the story (as it exists in my mind) in whatever way I need. The story as it gets told depends on the moment of telling — the overall mood, the receptivity of my audience, and what I particularly wanted to highlight. I often forget that everything can still be rearranged when writing a story down. It seems that I need to start at the beginning, when it's nearly always the right thing to simply begin where I first confront a vein of the narrative. To delay admitting what is immediately present to me will sand away the woodgrain of the story.

My intention is to prioritize the emergence of images as they arise from reverberation with the written material. Material that succeeds in this mode cannot be intentionally generated (or at least not for long), and can only be rendered as something emergent.

Several years ago, I was discussing with friends what they felt was the meaning of the word “shape,” as used in creative writing workshops. I quickly learned that everyone had his or her own definition, some in opposition to others, yet this term was often thrown around when critiquing work. After much effort and some light-hearted debating, we arrived at a suitable definition. Shape refers to the reader's impression of the story's structure.

Stories from oral traditions are rich and often strange, especially when it comes to how they are structured. While the premise of many stories has to do with explaining one thing or another, in the most entertaining cases not much emphasis is placed on the explanation, and most of the story's energy exists in other elements, sometimes in things that seem to bear no effect on the story as something instructional.

Take, for example, a common type of oral tradition story: the why story. In one story there can be a storehouse of information — if the story leads directly from the proposition “why” to the outcome (“because”), the story would be lost.

“Why are roses red, grandpa?”

“Roses are red because there is a pigment in their petals.”

There is an answer to a question, but the story has gone untold, and his answer offers no metaphor for living.

I asked my wife: “Why are roses red?”

She answered: “The golden sun had three daughters. Two of the daughters took the form of the night sky's darkness, and one was vivid red. The red daughter was always chased by nighthawks because she didn't blend in with her dark-night sisters. She was tormented so much that she would take stones and tie them to her slender body — the stones weighed her down to sink underground to a point below the horizon, where she could not be seen. She has been alive for a very long time, and she has borne many children. Now the shy red daughter shows her face when mother sun is out. All her children have thorns, which remind us of their independence. That is why roses are red and why night hawks never pluck them.”

“Why” stories impart the richness of living more wisely than any correct answer. Oral tradition storytellers honor ideas that arise during the telling, and, if there is a way, they include — rather than exclude — the spontaneous, directly lived experience in the telling. The listener has as much to do with the story that gets told as does the storyteller.

 

 

As you write, take departures as if you were writing a why story. The truth in each why departure does not need to be literal or factual. Aim instead for a lived, enlivening truth. The occasion for your departure may be as simple as a scuff left on the wall of your protagonist's home. Once departed, be sure to reiterate. So, for example, in your first departure, you show the reader the scuff's presence and give some notion of its shape. In your second departure, you answer the question of how it was left. In your third departure, you take the reader into the moment when it gets cleaned off, yet the action that caused it is shown to affect the protagonist in that moment. Do not worry about the need to fill the page with words. Instead, permit your hands to record what you imagine. Remember: There are many voices to choose from, not just the editor's or the usual writerly voice. Ask a different question, get a different answer.

Addressing “why” concerns beckons both enjoyment and the employment of skill. When I am just beyond my expertise and comfort zone, and I am having fun, the listener relishes the experience.

I could provide an example from one of my own projects,
Pants in a Tree
, a short book-length piece that began as a lighthearted and relatively aimless project, adherent only to the device that the story would occur in repeated instances, scenes where an elderly man, the genius, comes to discover that his pants are not on him; rather, they are high in a tree, swinging in the wind. Something actually came about by sticking with this project. I needed to feel out more of the situation of the man — why he was alone, where he was, and just what sort of genius he might be. The listener for
Pants in a Tree
wanted to dwell long on details, to celebrate the otherworldly. I told the quick hints of a story by moving through a time-ordered sequence of prose poem episodes.

As it has happened,
Pants in a Tree
turned out more serious in tone and argument than an immediate introduction to the premise might suggest. There is something evocative about a scene that one finds repeating endlessly.

If I had listened to the direction of the internal teacher at the expense of being attentive to the internal fool, I would have dismissed the project as too light. On the other hand, if I had only taken the praiseful guidance of the fool, the book would not have been internally challenged enough to reveal the subtleties of the protagonist's experience.

 

 

This is my favorite exercise. I used it to put together several of my book-length projects.

1. I decide roughly how many chapters I would like my book to have. If I don't know, I say thirty.

2. For each chapter, I come up with three unique images (which could be of any sense, and are not limited to the visual). I then simply imagine interesting images, ideally those that hold a charge and in some way pertain to my creative project, and record them in a list.

3. I use this list as an outline for generating the draft of my book. When beginning a chapter, I refer to my outline and make sure to include all three nonessential images. They are nonessential because the story could be told without them. Yet, and perhaps because of this challenge, generating material becomes more fun, as I have created a puzzle for myself as to how I am going to maintain order while including these distinct images. Maintaining linear organization is actually much simpler when I have something puzzling with which to concern myself. Perhaps I write a haiku for each nonessential image.

For example, from my outline for
Pants in a Tree
, I knew that at a given point in the story, I needed there to be a copper bathtub, an image of the full moon, and a smooth river stone. Having these images helped me supply the lighter touches of larger order that could provide a coherent reading experience without seeming overly plotted.

 

 

I am a big fan of Joseph Campbell and his contributions to the study of storytelling. I admire how fully he lived, and how his full living enabled him to share so much with the world. He trusted his innate sense of direction, pursuing activities he was passionate about. He even coined the term “Follow your bliss.”

Leading a life in which I pursue the things I love and let the rest fall away is not easy. At one point, years ago, Joseph Campbell was giving a talk, and someone in the audience criticized his use of the term “bliss,” telling him that he was justifying narcissism. Campbell responded that he should have said, “Follow your blisters,” because it amounted to the same.

Joseph Campbell identifies an archetype of storytelling that he calls the hero's journey. The outset of the hero's journey is the hero's call to adventure. This call is the voice of poetry. The call reverberates in the story through the actions of the hero.

In general, the hero's journey is an odyssey, ultimately bringing the hero back to the source. This journey is often elegantly represented as a circular path, though it should go in a spiral rather than a circle, because the world is different after the hero returns. A spiral shape indicates a geographic return, but energetically there is no going back. This distinction bears importance for understanding the work of emergence.

Days appear to be cyclical in that tomorrow the sun will rise, and I will know that I am experiencing morning “again.” But tomorrow will not be the same morning anyone has ever had. I will never experience that precise morning ever again. Each reiteration spirals in and spirals out; I land on the familiar, yet I really am experiencing something original. The image is always there, anew.

 

 

The plot of a story is a causal sequence that results in change that engages the reader. It is beneficial for me personally to have a good amount of material already written before I set out to construct an outline: I get the clarity that comes from having an outline, and the sense of discovery from working from the heart of the story outward. All the while, I prioritize the breathing of words and images, the continually blooming form of the moment.

Referring to the structure, name the significant moments of the work. I will want each plot point to carry roughly the same significance, and the arc of the book to rise and rise until, toward the end, it cannot rise any further, and the story resolves. I ask questions to generate ideas for how I can continually raise the stakes.

If I don't have one of the plot points yet, I ask: Is it right for the story as it wants to be told? If I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on one or more plot points, I ask: What is right for the listener's engagement with the story's pace?