One drowsy Saturday night as we prepared for another week, we heard a puzzling sound underneath the bathtub. At first, we didn’t believe our ears, but the plaintive mewing continued. We soon realized a kitten had crawled from the porch into the dryer vent under the tub. For the next twenty-four hours, we faced the challenge of coaxing a kitten—which we couldn’t see, feel, or locate—back into the light.
Many writers and visionaries find themselves in the same situation. Their creative ideas are hiding just out of sight. They can sense them, feel them, almost hear them. But they can’t quite grasp them.
Denise Levertov says that the process of writing is like a hunter looking for a rabbit: “You can smell the poem before you can see it.”[i]
When you sense an idea coming down the pipe—but it seems stuck just beyond reach—how do you lure it into the world?
Here are three practical tips you can use as bait.
Luring Ideas Through Conversation
Before C. S. Lewis ever put pen to paper, he discussed his ideas at length with friends. He shared “largely unintelligible” ideas with people he trusted to listen—writing comrades, companions, and even his chauffeur.[ii] These conversations helped him develop his thoughts so that when he sat down to write, he could finish his novels with amazing speed.[iii]
Science explains why personal conversations are so effective. Both left and right prefrontal cortexes (PFC) are involved in helping us find meaning. So a face-to-face conversation—which uses the right PFC to interpret facial expressions and the left PFC to form words—is a specifically powerful tool to help us find meaning.[iv]
Todd Hall agrees that “telling our story to someone, even while still incoherent, helps organize our connections.”[v] We come away from conversations with a deeper understanding of what we want to communicate.
Luring the Words Through Writing
Not only do we explore our thoughts through conversation, but we can also explore on paper. This type of writing is not concerned with grammar, word count, or mechanics. Instead, we’re focused on getting the thoughts on paper.
John McPhee said, “Sometimes in a nervous frenzy I just fling words as if I were flinging mud at a wall. Blurt out, heave out, babble out something — anything — as a first draft…Until it exists, writing has not really begun.”[vi]
Tolkien used this approach. Rather than talking about his concepts like Lewis did, he rehearsed them on paper. When drafting The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, he churned out a pile of paper drafts that was seven feet high—taller than Michael Jordan.[vii] These drafts were the tools that helped him understand what he was saying.
During exploratory writing, we start writing without knowing for sure where we will end up. We feel our way through the process and see where it takes us. After the draft is written, we approach it with curiosity to find what we are saying. In the words of one author, “Create the jungle, and then explore it.”[viii]
Donald Murray suggests the following questions to help you find meaning in your drafts:
· What sounds so “right” that it needs to be developed further?
· Which words or pieces of information point to newly forming meaning?
· Where does my voice come through the strongest?
· What do my words reveal about my attitude toward the subject? (For instance, you may think you feel detached about your subject, but the language on the paper reveals anger or passionate concern. “Listen to the sound of your language.”[ix])
· What additional information does the draft need?
· What is this draft focusing on? What is it NOT focusing on (that I can delete)?
· What questions would a reader have?[x]
Luring the Ideas Through Story
Finally, we lure our ideas to the surface through story. Todd Hall says stories are a uniquely powerful form of words that moves ideas from the right brain to the left brain and vice versa.[xi]
Not only can stories help us express unarticulated feelings by transferring ideas from the right brain into the word-based left brain, but stories (and movies) can also take complex rational ideas and move them seamlessly into the emotional realm where they can be “felt.”[xii]
A story or movie is a deeper form of knowledge that accesses reality more directly than a logic proposition.[xiii] With this in mind, consider the following prompts:
· How did the topic you are writing about become so important to you? Tell the story.
· How did the idea first start forming in your mind? Tell the story.
· Is there a metaphor that expands the concept?
· What concrete stories about real-life people could help bring the concept to life?
Luring the Words With Patience
When luring an idea into the light, patience is key. Approach your concept gently, like you’d approach a timid animal.[xiv]
“Hold back, decelerate. Approach softly as toward a deer or a fawn. One violent assertion of self-will and life is gone.”[xv] Instead, wait with “quietness, an abandon of self-assertion, and a fullness of the deep true self.”[xvi]
Do not force ideas or hurry them. Cooperate rather than control; focus on process over the product.[xvii] As you remain humble and submissive regarding the not-yet-seen, the idea will reveal itself.[xviii]
Remember, all you need is one tiny idea. Using a similar metaphor, David Lynch says that when fishing for ideas, all we need is to catch one small minnow. Once we have that spark of insight, we can use the tiny idea to bait the next idea, and the next, and so on. Eventually, we reel in the big fish.[xix]
After finding the kitten under our tub, we stayed patient and quiet. We left a pan of milk.
Then we waited. And eventually, it came out.
The same will happen with your beautiful new epiphanies. When you least expect it, they will show themselves.
You’ll surprise yourself—and the world.
[i] Donald Murray, Learning by Teaching, 36
[ii] Diana Pavlac Glyer, Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings (Kent State University Press, 2015), 74
[iii] Bandersnatch
[iv] The Immanuel Approach Revisited PDF (2011)
[v] Todd Hall, Relational Spirituality (IVP Academic, 2021), 236
[vi] Dana Marie, “7 Quotes from John McPhee on the Writing Process,” June 2020, https://medium.com/swlh/7-quotes-from-john-mcphee-on-the-writing-process-bd77374093ec
[vii] Nick Groom, “The Value of Tolkien,” September 2, 2023, https://airmail.news/issues/2023-9-2/the-value-of-tolkien.
[viii] Donald Murray, Learning by Teaching
[ix] Donald Murray, Learning by Teaching, 36
[x] Donald Murray, Learning by Teaching
[xi] Todd Hall, Relational Spirituality, 237
[xii] Todd Hall, Relational Spirituality, 237
[xiii] Todd Hall, Relational Spirituality, 237
[xiv] Esther Lightcap Meek, Loving to Know (Cascade Books, 2011),
[xv] David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random House, 2023),
[xvi] David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random House, 2023),
[xvii] Meek, Doorway to Artistry
[xviii] Meek, Loving to Know
[xix] Dana Marie, “Ideas are Bite-Sized Miracles,” May 8, 2020, https://medium.com/swlh/ideas-are-bite-sized-miracles-4cc8461d1c7a
References:
[i] Donald Murray, Learning by Teaching, 36
[ii] Diana Pavlac Glyer, Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings (Kent State University Press, 2015), 74
[iii] Bandersnatch
[iv] The Immanuel Approach Revisited PDF (2011)
[v] Todd Hall, Relational Spirituality (IVP Academic, 2021), 236
[vi] Dana Marie, “7 Quotes from John McPhee on the Writing Process,” June 2020, https://medium.com/swlh/7-quotes-from-john-mcphee-on-the-writing-process-bd77374093ec
[vii] Nick Groom, “The Value of Tolkien,” September 2, 2023, https://airmail.news/issues/2023-9-2/the-value-of-tolkien.
[viii] Donald Murray, Learning by Teaching, 36
[ix] Donald Murray, Learning by Teaching
[x] Learning by Teaching 86
[xi] Todd Hall, Relational Spirituality, 237
[xii] Esther Lightcap Meek, Loving to Know (Cascade Books, 2011),
[xiii] David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random House, 2023),
[xiv] Meek, Doorway to Artistry
[xv] Meek, Loving to Know
[xvi] Dana Marie, “Ideas are Bite-Sized Miracles,” May 8, 2020, https://medium.com/swlh/ideas-are-bite-sized-miracles-4cc8461d1c7a
[i] Donald Murray, Learning by Teaching
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