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By Deborah A. Dessaso What is the art of writing? I believe it begins with the imagination—a crucial component since, in the words of one writer, “The human mind is a picture gallery, and we live by the images found in it” (Achtemeier). Our mind’s eye must be able to see what we’re trying to write, that is, to imagine it before we can put words on paper.
Researchers have tried to reduce the art of writing to a formula of devices, I suppose, to make writing easier. Others tend to share Derek Walcott’s views about writing devices:
I agree with Walcott—up to the last point. I believe there is a way to induce the trance. For example, I see hundreds of people every day, plugged into devices, listening to music, oblivious to the activity around them. The music induces a trance, and the same thing happens to readers and writers. How often have you missed your bus or subway stop because you were lost in a piece of reading or writing?
In graduate school, I took a course called the Art of the Personal Essay which was taught by a professor whose very personality made writing in her class a sheer delight. She stoked to full blast a fledgling fire to write that I’d had for a long time, and I discovered that imagination alone is not enough to produce good writing--the imagination must be nourished by a steady diet of every possible genre of reading.
Hence, like most readers, I have lots of images in my gallery. I vividly remember one assignment when we had to write essays that simulated those written by famous essayists, one of which was Samuel Johnson’s sermonic “The Solitude of the Country.” I responded with a similarly preachy essay, prompted by my testy reaction to a Washington Post article expressing surprise that sports teams from far southeast DC could win city championships. For weeks, I stewed over the tone of that article. Finally, I decided that I would respond with an essay proving that the inner city was as much a vibrant part of the city as any other section. My efforts paid off when the Post published my essay in its Opinion section.
In sum, I believe that the art of writing begins with the imagination coupled with prodigious amounts of reading--seedlings that mix with the silence of the trance to grow good writing. We who teach should continually ask ourselves: are we doing all we can to induce reading and writing trances among our students? More importantly, how can we get them to induce their own trances?
Works Cited
Achtemeier, Elizabeth. Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Eds. Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman III. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998. Print.
Walcott, Derek. Interview with Edward Hirsch. Writer’s At Work. The Paris Review Interviews 8. Ed. George Plimpton. New York: Viking Books, 1988. Print. |
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Inducing the Trance: Notes on the Art of Writing |