Write up a storm
A cracking new tutorial by Taos writing coaches
‘WRITE WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW: 10 STEPS TO WRITING WITH CONFIDENCE, ENERGY AND FLOW’
By Allegra Huston and James Navé Twice 5 Miles (2022, 163 pp.)
It’s the new year and we are going to write better. We really will. Lake Michigan Superior State University asserts that we have been overusing certain words like “amazing” and we will banish them from our vocabulary. We have gotten lazy and need to remember to tap into the million-or-so words in the English language — of which we use only a fraction.
George Orwell warned that “the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” The author of “1984” and creator of the term doublespeak wrote in his influential 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language”: “Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.” The effort to weed out meaningless words, readymade phrases and wilting metaphors allows us to convey clearly what we mean. And clarity not only sparkles with purpose and emotional depth, but keeps our reader from falling asleep.
We will avoid hackneyed prose if it kills us. We will remember the advice of Flaubert, the famous bourgeois hermit of Croisset, France, “to be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
But how to write “stormy,” as Taos authors and writing coaches Huston and Navé encourage in this latest tutorial on their Imaginative Storm Method? They offer 10 active writing steps (90 minutes each) to spark the “duende” that they insist everyone
holds inside them. Spurring that joyful spirit of creativity brings a freshness to the page — what the authors promise will be astonishing, unexpected and memorable prose.
Their thrust: write what you don’t
know, the opposite of what we learn in first-year composition class. Their argument is that the story we already know is so familiar and well rehearsed that when we tell it we “tidy away” whatever doesn’t fit the official version. If it’s already routine to us, it will certainly be boring to the reader. But by questioning that version, the authors suggest, and exploring gaps in the story, we can access all kinds of surprising and random detail that will make the writing rich. Phrases like “I don’t know” and “I don’t remember” become important diving-off points.
The authors like to start with a provocative image — a cat surfs with a pen in its mouth — then generate lists of random words in a timed space. The more absurd, the better. Then, read the words aloud so that they make zany combinations. “Let your rational mind dance with the imaginative mind,” the authors like to say. This is a way to get playful and waylay the inner critic.
From there, the authors work with borrowed words from other writers in order to try to recognize one’s own voice. They emphasize reading the work outloud to develop “your authenticity meter: with practice, you’ll be able to feel in your body when you’re in your own voice and when you’re not.”
Some of the exercises include recognizing little white lies that people tell; letting yourself rant about things you hate and gush about what you love; relishing the senses; developing observational powers within spaces and in nature; examining social situations in order to deepen characterization; and probing those “tender spots.” This is where the real material starts to emerge, from places of fear, shame, guilt, desire. “Write with courage,” the authors urge, perhaps their single-most crucial piece of coaching.
Character drives story, and “there’s no story if nothing changes,” conclude the authors. By the final exercises, the authors exult in the contradictions, oppositions and reversals they have incited in us. They call this “oxymoronic inversion.” Who knows what it means, but it’s messy and random and thrilling.
It’s worth the effort. So get writing. Surprise us.
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