Open Writing

A ScienceDaily.com article titled "Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings" caught my eye recently. It describes how Harvard researchers used an Implicit Association Test, where respondents quickly say the first word that occurs to them while hearing or seeing particular words for a split second, to study how bilingual members of ethnic groups answered the same question differently depending on which language they used to answer.

In Morocco, for example, when bilingual Arabic-French speakers' were shown Arabic names, most chose positive word-associations when they were answering in Arabic, but they answered neutrally when shown the same Arabic name while answering in French. "It's quite shocking to see that a person could take the same test, within a brief period of time, and show such different results," one researcher said. "It's like asking your friend if he likes ice cream in English … and asking him again in French and getting a different answer."

Creating thoughts and feelings is the goal of most good writers, but how exactly does one acquire that skill? A science fiction author named Jim Hines surveyed 247 "professional authors" earlier this year to learn how they broke into the business. By "professional" Hines meant that they'd collected at least one advance for $2,000 or more for a new book. He found that 116 of the authors sold their first novel without publishing short fiction first, but on average each author sold 7.7 short stories before their first novel. Only one author self-published his first book and then got it professionally published, and more than half of those surveyed sold their first novel without connections to publishers or agents.

Hines' test subjects recommended several approaches to improving the prospective writers' odds: attending writers' conventions and writing groups, and earning undergraduate degrees in English and writing. But what about practicing writing? The Internet abounds with sites to help with that, but like most online offerings: you get what you pay for. "The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations" is a list compiled by French writer George Polti in 1921. Polti claimed to have rediscovered the list which was originally compiled by an Italian, Carlo Gozzi. Gozzi never published them, but he did discuss them with Goethe, who later wrote of their existence.

The "situations" Polti listed are based on basic human emotions, of which Gozzi claimed number thirty-six, each with a set of character roles. Some emotion-types are obvious, like "Deliverance," which requires "an Unfortunate, a Threatener, and a Rescuer," and "Recovery of a Lost One," that needs "a Seeker and the One Found." Others are more obscure, like "Mistaken Jealousy," which requires "a Jealous One, an Object of whose Possession He is Jealous, a Supposed Accomplice, and a Cause or Author of the Mistake."

Then there's the "SixtySecondWriter.blogspot.com that provides a variety of prospective situations as examples for aspiring writer to use in practicing their rapid composition skills. A typical example has a photo of a doll holding a sprig of holly is accompanied by the following scenario:"What Is She trying To Tell You? You are in the attic, looking for a place to stash this year's Christmas presents, and you find this little figurine in the corner … you have sixty seconds to discover why she's there."

Online columns by Richard Nordquist, About.com's grammar and composition writer, provides regular insight into the craft of writing well. He recently outlined William Safire's "Fumblerules" for writers, that include "No sentence fragments," "Don't use no double negatives," "Never, ever use repetitive redundancies," and "Avoid cliché's like the plague." Nordquist knows the most successful authors are voracious readers. And he quotes Stephen King who said in "On Writing" "The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing."

Good writers are forever honing their skills, and a good writer, Samuel Johnson said, "will turn over half a library to make a book." But aspiring authors will find no better resource for writing tips, style, and inspiration, than our fine library. And that's just as it should be, for as Norman Cousins pointed out, the library "should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas."