CREATIVE DRIVE

The newsletter for peak-seeking people

NUMBER 48

How high is "up"? The answer may surprise you.

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If you don't listen to heavy metal, you'll still know what heavy metal is. You can recognize the lead-blanket weight of it, the urgency of it, the anger in it and the way it pounds your head with the fearsome acceleration of a well-wielded cudgel.

You know what a war movie is like too. Some are more intense than others, and in some the despair barely relents.

A horror flick is somewhat similar to a war movie, but really it's closer to heavy metal in terms of intent. The purpose of a horror movie, as with an assault by heavy metal, is to remove you from the safety of your private, deeply protected self. It seeks to awaken you by means of sensorial shock.

Doesn't that sound fun? It is fun but only to an extent. If you were to say two hours amid a ravenous crowd at the Box of Apocalypse death-metal show was only "fun," a true metalhead might think you were actually out to a party with the original cast of "The Brady Bunch." More accurately, the fun is a delightful little morsel of coffee-toned chocolate wrapped in a thorny husk, which can only be opened with a strong jaw and sharp teeth.

What about the war movie, though? Oh, it's different. Yes, it can be horrific, and in that way it's similar to a tale of zombies being eaten whole by rapidly decaying dinosaurs with razor-sharp talons. The distinction is one of contrast. The young battalion member has a loving family and a sweetheart, whom he must leave in order to seek his destiny. The comfort of home quickly recedes into memory, but he holds fast to it through the gruesome reality of the fight. The memory sweetens whenever he nears what might be the final proof of his mortality.

?How It Works in Writing

We have a question to answer first, if we want to write something of value. It's an important question because we, as writers, are givers of ideas. If that sounds very generous–even more so than you imagine yourself to be–wait till you've heard what I have to say. Let's see the question:

"How high is 'up'?"

Gawd, you say. "How high is 'up'!?" What kind of stupid question is that!? Well, the question is so stupid that you can't answer it, at least not definitively. I won't give you the answer, either. That's how generous I am.

Just a few issues ago I wrote about the unhappiness I experienced as a kid in school. Initially I provided more detail, but I soon realized that the effort to portray brutality was more a means for me to savor it than to impart something of benefit to the reader. So, I cut it back. Even at that point I knew I'd apologize, which I did in the following issue.

Consider another question; one that's more a greeting than a query. Here it is:

"How're you doing?"

Let's answer it in detail, shall we?

"How am I doing? Oh, let me think . . . . Oh, right. Well, this morning I woke up with a bit of a headache, so I made the coffee extra strong. That immediately brought on some diarrhea of course, but I was also worried about . . . you know . . . money. I started to think about money and growing older and having to die one day and having people dress my stiffening corpse in a suit, which I hate wearing, and that I'd then be incinerated with the suit on . . . . Then I had a couple of eggs, which broke as I tried to fry them. Wait, and then I got fired. I'm really lonely too. I see all these gorgeous people in the world, but I don't have one like that, and I'm thinking that I should . . . ."

This is the reply: "STOPPPP-uh! SHUT THE HELL UPPPP-ah! What're you trying to do, tell me your entire life story? I'm not your therapist!"

No one needs to be told just how high "up" is. It, like the deepest pit in Hell, is reserved for the reader's imagination.

?The Limitlessness of Confined Space

Time has something to do with it. There is never enough time, particularly for the things we should be able to relish. We have only a finite resource of time, but we're also impatient. We saturate easily. For example, you'd probably love a three-hour, all-hits mega-show on a huge concert stage in a vast arena, but a fourth hour of it would bring forth images of your car, so cozy and small, lost in a sea of similar vehicles out in the parking lot.

Identification is another aspect. If I were to describe the most beautiful human creature I could imagine and do so in the most complete detail, you could easily dismiss my characterization this way:

"Yeah. Well, she's tall, but I don't like that. She has violet eyes, but that idea creeps me out. She should have brown eyes. Also, she has those curves. How could I compete? Now I feel like I'm ugly. Thanks a lot."

I could tell you a true story, but you might not cry even if that was my purpose. If I were to write it as I remember it, I–not you–would be the one to cry.

Identification belongs to the reader. Humor, pathos, despair, frustration, fear, exultation and a range of other emotions should be discovered within the reader's mind.

The story you write is a dining table in a room. Each place setting is different, and each is meant to invite a certain sort of guest. The use of place cards–"Fear," "Rejection," "Elation," "Shock," "Relief" "The Thrill of Love"–will put a damper on the conversation. It'll extinguish the candles and render the guests indistinguishable from one another.

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The Answer Is the Question

I will ask the question again. How high is "up"? Here's the answer:

"It's as high as I think it is."

You can write only so much, but after that point the reader will have no need for you. The flood of descriptions, metaphors and similes will begin to overtake the theater and drive your audience toward the exits. The next day's reviews will be catastrophic: "Writer bludgeons once-eager crowd"! "What should have been the best became the worst"! "A million-word disaster!"

The first musical artist I profiled for a magazine was a man of unrivaled technical proficiency. The speed and fluidity of his Django-inspired guitar playing were beyond comparison in his genre. I worked hard to achieve those qualities in my playing, but although I emphasized nuance over outright speed, I hadn't imagined that the man would also have other objectives. Then, in his lengthy written reply to my questions–he lived in London, and I was in San Francisco–he talked about "tension and release . . . tension and release." It led me to remember a chat I'd had with a gentleman jazz guitarist somewhere in my teens. He said, "You should try to combine your new idea with something that's familiar to your audience. If you play something inventive or elaborate, then give them something that's simple. Do that repeatedly, and they'll listen to all of what you play."

I understood what he meant. Well, initially I appreciated it as a beautiful idea, but in time I grew to appreciate the power of what the soft-spoken man had said.

Create your most detailed picture of a sunset, then put it on display. Leave some brushes, paints and a palette there for the convenience of passersby. Within minutes someone will add pink to those clouds you've so carefully depicted. Someone else will add a Delft blue to the canyons within those clouds, and then another visitor will add several gulls. An adventurous soul might use the brush and colors to suggest a face somewhere in the picture, hoping to suggest that it had been there all along. Then, as the sun passes the horizon you can return to your painting. Is it now only yours? You'd tried to make the picture absolutely complete, but now you see that you've failed to satisfy the ideals of anyone else.

?How to Do It

My son is a born writer, and that gift was recognized early in his school years. He'd write the most intriguing stories and pepper them with characters who spoke Norwegian and Polish. There's an aspect of my writing to which he's drawn, though. He likes the way I alternate flowing, mellifluous ideas with short, almost abrupt ones. I say less and allow more. I'll create a beautiful stream of words and punctuate that stream with stones as they would naturally occur.

It's the concept of tension and release; the enticement of lush, sexy melodicism and the sudden tug of a deceleration. It's the beginning, middle and end of any statement, paragraph, concept or story. Even a magazine article or a piece of marketing copy will have that quality in order to succeed. After all, as a writer you'll have a limited amount of space. You can't generate more time or attention on the reader's behalf, but you can maximize the use of that space.

The alternation of fluid expression and crisp, taut phrases will give your work character. It will make your voice memorable. Readers will value your words because, along with the story you tell, there'll be a question:

"What do you think?"

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THANK YOU for reading Creative Drive. If you like the writing, get in touch!

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? Copyright 2024 by Lawrence Payne. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated or distributed without permission from the author.