The Five Ingredients of the Scene, Installment One

The Five Ingredients of the Scene
An Introduction …
by way of three conclusions

Conclusion One: We make writing a lot harder than it is meant to be.
Don’t get me wrong—writing is not a piece of cake. It is hard work, but it’s good hard work,
like digging in the earth to make a garden. The problem for many of us is that our minds have
convinced us that sitting down to write a story much less a book is at best painful, at worst impossible.

I believed this for many years and despite that I managed to get five novels, two picture books and one book
on writing published. (Not to mention the books and stories that never got published.)
I don’t believe in the pain theory of writing any more. Experience and age has convinced me of this:
all our stories and novels are vibrant and complete somewhere in our creative unconscious. If we could
side-step the mind or what I call the Inner Critic (aka the ICK), who resides in the mind, we could
sit down, put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and the story would reveal itself in its glorious
completeness in much the same way as Mozart’s symphonies did for him. I have
read that Mozart sat down and wrote his symphonies with very little revision, if any at
all. In other words,
he gave himself over fully to the creative journey and fell headlong into its passion.

The first time I read about Mozart composing without revision, I thought, sure, right. And if it’s true,
well, we’re talking Mozart. For sure, that’s not me! Now, some twenty-odd years later, I no longer doubt
that it is possible to sit down and write a book from beginning to end and have it come out whole. I would
like to experience such a creative flow and know that what prevents me is me, my mind that says it’s impossible,
“What, are you kidding? Writing is blood,
sweat and tears. It’s revision after revision. It’s tearing your hair out. It’s giving up and picking up. It’s blah, blah, blah…”

Because that voice, the voice of my ICK, is still strong, I have, like you, something of a difficult time opening
to the creative flow. It’s getting easier—some of the time. And who knows? One day I might just manage to
quiet the naysayer in me and write a book whole from beginning to end. For now, I’m thrilled that the pain of writing has left and I see the possibility of creative nirvana.

Look for CONCLUSION TWO: Creative writing is a subtle and magnificent dance
between the rational and the intuitive, between the right and left parts of the brains,
between technique and imagination.

Coming soon! Bookmark this page....

© Emily Hanlon, www.thefictionwritersjourney.com, 2004

This series on The Five Ingredients of the Scene for the Fiction Writer can be passed on to a friend but cannot be reprinted on another site with written permission from Emily Hanlon. Any reprint must have the copyright, a link back to my site: www.thefictionwritersjourney.com. My bio as well as other articles by Emily Hanlon can be found by clicking here.