On Intuition

Intuition is a choice to look within and trust the unknown is not the enemy.

Creative Writing Is Not a Linear Process

Creativity is a subtle and magnificent dance between the rational and the intuitive, between the left and right parts of the brains, between technique and imagination. Both partners in this dance are absolutely necessary and are needed in equal proportion, which means that imagination is not more important than technique and visa versa. If you only live in the imagination, you will never get organized, you will never complete your story. However, if you start from the rational, linear, organizational part of the process, ( ie. Gotta have the perfect opening sentence and first paragraph… better yet, an outline…) you will never fall into the rich, passionate cosmic landscape of the imagination where anything is possible.

However, the main problem I have seen in my twenty-five years of teaching fiction writing is over-dependence on the rational part of the equation. People want to get the story written and get it out. (Whatever that means?) The want to leap frog the process, get the words down on the page and finish the story. This is to symptomatic of the goal oriented society that we live in, a society that is striving upwards toward success instead of embracing the deeper, more powerful and life changing journey of descent that takes us into the creative realm of the true self.

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

Albert Einstein

TeleSeminar on Dramatic Tension in Fiction Writing

from Emily Hanlon and The Fiction Writers Journey
Tuesday, January 29, 1 pm eastern time

Every story needs dramatic tension. Every story needs a sense of mystery to create "what happens next." This is what makes the reader want to turn the page. However, there are two kinds of dramatic tension. Perhaps the more obvious is outer dramatic tension or action. There is also inner dramatic tension that builds from the characters' emotions. Both are powerful; both are a necessary a ingredient of every story. Understanding the difference between inner dramatic tension, which is character driven, and outer dramatic tension or action, can demystify the process.

Dramatic tension is a powerful and essential tool for every writer's toolbox!


In this TeleSeminar we explore:

• Dramatic tension and the arc of the scene, the chapter and the story
• Inner and outer dramatic tension
• The cliff-hanger
• Place and dramatic tension
• Character and dramatic tension
• Creating a plot even if the idea of "plot" makes you want to give up writing!

To further explore the TeleSeminar and register, go to:

http://www.thefictionwritersjourney.com/telesem_dramatic_tension.htm

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Warnings About Literary Fraud and Other Schemes, Scams, and Pitfalls That Target Writers
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's of America, has an excellent page for "Writer's Beware."
If you're looking for an agent and/or publisher, it's good to check this out first.

http://www.sfwa.org/beware/agents.html

Releasing the Creative Energy in Story Writing

What is good fiction writing technique? How do we unleash the creative energy through the channels of character and story? Although I still teach technique, my emphasis has changed and the techniques themselves have shape shifted. I know now that the journey of the writer is first and foremost a journey of self-discovery, the path on which we can find essence and hear the song of our soul. Craft and technique are necessary, but the trick is to not put the cart before the horse. Technical expertise alone cannot release the writer’s passion, and the perfectly turned phrase will please the ego, but if it doesn’t translate into something meaningful for the character and story, it is so much wasted word count. Not that there’s anything wrong with seeking the perfectly turned phrase. I do it myself. It’s a great delight for the mind; the problem is when we confuse perfection of outer form with essence.

Both technique and passion are vital in many ways, but I’ve worked with writers who are technically excellent but can’t plumb the depths of the human condition. Conversely, I’ve worked with writers who have great intuitive understanding of the task William Faulkner set forth for writers –– “... the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself... alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the sweat and the agony.”–– but whose lack of technique flaws their story telling, sometimes to the point where they can’t finish and give up in frustration.

But revealing the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself is, for most, the more difficult of the two tasks. If we are to succeed, we must leave our conscious self and all our mind’s expectations and journey into the unknown, that place of shadows, mist, fertility and birth that knows neither right or wrong, that holds a truth beyond the mind’s understanding. If we brave this journey, we will emerge from the mists and shadows into a landscape more vibrant than the one we left behind. Miraculously, we find ourselves writing the story we never thought we’d write, the story our minds could not conceive but our hearts hunger to write.

Write from What You Know? A Different Approach

When we write from the imagination we are writing what we “know” but from such a deep level of knowing that we don’t know that we know it until it is revealed in our writing. This is often the truer aspect of self, the part that we do not readily show to the world, and sometimes do not show even to our self – at least not consciously. This is what makes the journey such risky business. This is also the great joy of writing; when we are true to the process, we discover worlds within we did not know existed.

You've heard it said, "Write what you know." How limiting! There's a cosmic world accessed through you imagination!

Write what you know?
This is not only boring but is contradictory to the basic core of creativity, which by definition brings into being that which has not been before. If you write from what you know, if you remain slavish to the facts of what happen, you are writing out of you concious mind and will remain stuck in the straightjacket of you conscious perception of “reality.” That said, there is nothing wrong with using your life or any aspect of your experiences as a jumping off point, as a doorway into the unconsious. The key is not to be slavish to the known. Rather we need to have out writer’s antenna out for the doorway into the unknown and the unseen. Gertrude Stein put it this way: “You cannot go into the womb to form the child... What will be best in it (your writing) is what your really do not know now. If you knew it all it would not be creation but dictation.”

Building Dramatic Tension in Fiction Writing, A TeleSeminar

from Emily Hanlon and The Fiction Writers Journey
January 29, 1 pm eastern time

Every story needs dramatic tension. Every story needs a sense of mystery to create "what happens next." This is what makes the reader want to turn the page. However, there are two kinds of dramatic tension. Perhaps the more obvious is outer dramatic tension or action. There is also inner dramatic tension that builds from the characters' emotions. Both are powerful; both are a necessary a ingredient of every story. Understanding the difference between inner dramatic tension, which is character driven, and outer dramatic tension or action, can demystify the process.

Dramatic tension is a powerful and essential tool for every writer's toolbox!


In this TeleSeminar we explore:

• Dramatic tension and the arc of the scene, the chapter and the story
• Inner and outer dramatic tension
• The cliff-hanger
• Place and dramatic tension
• Character and dramatic tension
• Creating a plot even if the idea of "plot" makes you want to give up writing!

To further explore the TeleSeminar and register, go to:

http://www.thefictionwritersjourney.com/telesem_dramatic_tension.htm
You can now purchase the download of this audio!