Instinctual writing

[pjthompson]

Instincts play a big part in my writing. Generally, if I follow them they lead me to interesting places, making connections between my story and my characters that my conscious mind can't get to. For me, outlining kills this process of discovery. The story stalls because to my instinctual mind it's already been written, so why write it again?

This method isn't without problems. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, other times it only half works: I'll start off with an idea, some characters and setting, and pretty soon I think I know what the story is about and head off down the highway. Inevitably, I hit a pothole—usually a big 'ol pothole that can turn into a sinkhole. I flail around trying to get out of the pit, having a hard time (sometimes) even recognizing where the edges of the pit lie. (Or lay, as the case may be.)

When that happens, I can either keep flailing until something pulls me out, or lay the story aside and wait until my conscious mind catches up with my instinctual mind. At times I need the help of an outside agency. When the problem isn't with my characters or setting, but with the deeper layers of plot—the themes, for instance—I sometimes have to look to research reading to rescue me. I do a certain amount of research reading before I start writing, but only on the ideas that I recognize up front are going to be part of the story. The problem is with all those ideas I didn't realize were there going in.



Case in point: my partially finished novel, Venus In Transit. I got a long way into that one, thinking all the while I was on top of things, before I realized I'd fallen into a rabbit hole and couldn't get out. I scrabbled for a foothold, but nothing. I worked on other stuff, periodically going back to VIT to chip away at it. Still nothing. Each time it went back into the trunk it said, "There's something I need." "What?" I'd ask. "I don't know. But I'll know it when I see it."

This fall I decided to give it another try. I started reading books on parapsychology, hoping they would give me a clue (since the MC is a parapsychologist). Somewhere in browsing Amazon, I came across a book called Trickster and the Paranormal by George P. Hansen. Instinctually, I knew it was exactly what I needed, and it hasn't disappointed me. I've read it slowly, because it's one densely packed mama jama, and all along the way it has sparked ideas, given me new appreciation for the themes of my story, revealed aspects of character I'd only guessed at before. The remarkable thing—and this isn't the first time I've experienced this—is that all of the things I needed to bring into my conscious mind were already there, laid down by my instincts, but in some odd "alchemical" code. I just needed to see them in a different way in order to understand them. This book has helped me do that.

The unconscious is the voice of the collective. It knows all the codes that we don't see in our waking lives. It's forced to send messages via instinct and dreams because the left brain, the conscious mind, always thinks it's in control. It's The Decider, and doesn't want to listen to the advice of it's messy and primal dark twin. In reality, we are such a hodgepodge of social programming that we aren't capable of making any decisions, creative or otherwise, without the vast library of societal prejudice, assumption, and conditioning, the collective hive mind, coming to bear. We're just not aware of it at the time.

It's not a popular notion in the rugged individualism culture of America—but that's another discussion for another day.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I love this post.

[jenstclair.livejournal.com]

Likewise!

[pjthompson]

And thank you!

[jenstclair.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't mind, but I friended you. (If you do, just let me know.) :)

[pjthompson]

Welcome on board. :-)

[pjthompson]

Thank you!

[danceswithwaves.livejournal.com]

*gasp* This explains how I write.

[pjthompson]

lol

[grimreaperkitty.livejournal.com]

(Here via sartorias)

Really cool, thought-provoking post.

The unconscious is the voice of the collective. -- Society? Or the subconscious mish-mash of impressions left upon us by society? Actually, reading the rest of the paragraph again, it looks like you make no distinction between the two. Is the subconscious the herd animal part of us, or the reaction to (or creature of) social programming, or both? To you, I mean. Just, my brain seized on this and I got Curious.

(props for use of "The Decider" -- apt description!)

[pjthompson]

All of the above. I think the unconscious is all that stuff swimming around beneath the surface of the ego: the societal conditioning, the primal stuff, the archetypes, etc. None of it is stuff we can control, it's just part of the compost.

[quilzas.livejournal.com]

I tend to do a lot of instinctual writing as well. Sometimes it goes very well, giving me plot twists and such that I never would have thought off. Other times, I deadend somewhere and go "Umm.. how do I get from point A to point D?". And then sometimes I run into a fantastic idea halfway through something so I have to go back and 'fix' what I've written so it all works. Ugh! :)

[pjthompson]

Exactly! Boy, does that sound familiar. :-)

[e-underwood.livejournal.com]

I've just been struggling with a similar issue with my novel. Great post!

[pjthompson]

Thank you. I seem to have to learn this lesson all over again with each novel.

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

The only way I can really write is to let my backbrain have at it. The more I try to control it, the more I try to plan or look at it while I'm writing, the more it floats away or I get paralyzed by indecision.

So when I got stuck, twice, on the first draft of my WIR, yes, I had to step back and think consciously about it. But I didn't plan or plot. I didn't analyze. I tore up pages and went back to where it last felt right and started again. The second time, I did that too. And I changed the protag a bit and added stuff and took out stuff and moved other stuff, but I did it all by feel and it came together. I got stalled because my backbrain saw problems and was trying to tell me that. It took me 40,000 words or so to pay attention. Twice. Next book, I'll be paying closer attention.

Writing instinctually has pitfalls for the people it has pitfalls for and not for the people it doesn't.

[pjthompson]

I think it always has pitfalls, it's just a question of degree. And yes, all that you said about your WIR. I always get in trouble when I stop paying attention (or channeling?) the backbrain, and the way back into the story is to go back to where I stopped listening and "do again."

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

Well, in the sense that every method has pitfalls, yes, it has pitfalls. But instinctual writing is my method. Anything else has so far has had too many pitfalls for me to overcome, from killing off the desire to write or getting it all wrong (outlines) to making a mess (overthinking, analyzing). It's when I stick to what feels right that I get it done. Whether its good enough for publication, I'll have to leave that to others. :)

[pjthompson]

Yes, exactly.

[wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is just what I needed to read! I recently fell in one of those sink holes of creative insanity and I couldn't figure out how to claw my way out. I was a little worried, but after thinking about your post I realized what I was missing. And now I think I've found the rope ladder I needed.

*Thank you!*

[pjthompson]

Your welcome! I'm glad it helped!

[bummble.livejournal.com]

Great post!

Friending you, if you don't mind.

[pjthompson]

Thank you--and welcome to my world. ;-)

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

Here via sartorias. This is awesome--you've articulated a lot of my own experiences in writing. Sometimes I envy the people who can outline, but I'd really miss that sense of discovery, and the rush that comes from watching those bits of the unconscious surface and slot into place. That's the best part of writing for me.

[pjthompson]

For me, too. And I also wish I could do this the easier way (or the perceived easier way), but I'd sure miss the thrill of the chase. :-)

[haworth-attard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post! I pull my hair out half way through every single book I write, then have a couple of days of naps and it suddenly becomes clear. You've illuminated for me what is going on in my brain.

[pjthompson]

Thank you. I also seem to have to learn this lesson every time I write a novel. I can't understand why I always forget, yet I do.

[kimberlychapman.livejournal.com]

I do outlines of major plot elements as a rough sort of road map so I know where I want to get to. This both forces and allows me to fill in the rest with interesting stuff and do so in a plot-relevant way. My editors have trouble cutting because it's like trying to take a piece out of woven cloth without having anything unravel. :D

However, sometimes my very early concepts change. In the first Colony book, it was my original intention to kill off two of the secondary but important characters. But by the time I got to the end of book 1, I already had decided I liked them enough that I wanted them around in future books. My major series-long outline now requires one of them to be around to the very end, even outliving the main characters.

So outlines work for me, but only because I don't hold them as a rigid construct, more a framework.

Here's an analogy...you know those hoop things embroiderers use? That's my outline. It's a frame to work within, but not really important to the overall outcome other than as a tool to facilitate the real creation. And if halfway through the frame doesn't fit, it's easy for me to snap it off and snap on another one.

[pjthompson]

I always know where I'm going in terms of having to know the endpoint before I can start. I know some of the highlights along the way, and I do a lot of scenes with characters as a way of getting to know them (which often don't make it into the actual ms. as I write along), so I have an idea of some of the stuff that crops up along the way. But everything except that endpoint tends to change. The endpoint is my anchor—or maybe more like my homing beacon. I point the story and go, sometimes twisting and turning in unexpected ways, but always arriving at my destination.