Hypnagogia — A Reflection
Tag: Prose
The Pros and Perils of the Pantser
One thing I’ve learned recently, during my practice of writing one flash fiction every week, is that being a “pantser” comes with its own unique challenges. For those who don’t know, a pantser is a writer who begins a story without outlining it. They are the opposite of plotters, who always pre-plan their stories before writing it.
On a given day being a pantser, my word-inventory might be strong: I’ll feel warmed up to create beautiful descriptions or narration, with stunning literary devices. But without a vision of where I’m taking my story, I cannot write a single sentence, unless I want a speculative piece, maybe.
So I sit at my page and generate visions on the fly—how many characters to include, what setting, theme, etc.—and that eats up writing time. I’ve had quick brainstorm sessions before, don’t get me wrong, and being a pantser feels more free than being a plotter, having to follow the rules of a rigid outline. But if I brainstorm sloppily, I also risk gluing cliches together to make a story.
Here’s an example:
(Bland brainstorm session) A cigarette dropped in woods causes fire.
(Effective brainstorm session) A blow-torch is used in woods to reveal secret bunker under the foliage.
To get that uniqueness takes more mental effort. But if you make it, it’s definitely worth it.
Subverting Expectations on The Visionary Level
Life Is Larger Than What We See In Our Heads
If I said to you, “Look! It’s a trucker!” odds are, before you turned your head to look, your mind would conjure the image of a male. You’d be less likely to imagine a female tricler, or a trucker with vitaligo, or transgender trucker, even though all those things are valid and exist in the real world.
In the real world, we walk around with subconscious biases for how things ought to look and sound, and this may be based on how things commonly are, or based on stereotypes that are far off from reality. Regardless, the biases exist within us and effect our expectations and therefore how we interact with the world.
So when we see the unexpected, say, a female trucker, we are momentarily shocked—we’re put in a situation we aren’t usually in, which forces us to be in the present moment. There’s no subconscious pattern created for novel situations. And following said experience, we’re more likely to remember it since required more brain power to process and navigate.
The Unexpected Can Enhance Your Writing
The principle of the unexpected—of people and situations that don’t neatly fit into our common ideas—this principle can be used when crafting stories. Concepting a story where a belly dancer is revealed to be a man, or a story where the setting is described as a house but is revealed to be a dungeon—these stories shock readers, make the narrative more salient in their minds. By practicing your skills as a Visionary, someone who plays around with the various ways a single story can be presented, you, too, can create plots that hook readers.
If in a story I say there’s a waitress, a generic image will come to mind. But if I have a story set in China with a Muslim waitress wearing a hijab, you’ll see something more vivid. And uncommon. Questions will come to mind: how is the woman speaking Chinese? Was she born there? How unique!
Subverting expectations can have splendid results. When creating a plot for your next story, try experimenting with this.
The Visionary and The Writer
The Visionary. To me, a Visionary is someone who sees the entire picture at once and can intuit numerous, distinct ways of presenting it. As a writing professor in college put it, before you begin writing draft two of a story, you should reflect on the story within the story.
Is such-and-such really a short fiction about a home invader, or is it actually a story about a negligent father who suffers for not paying attention?
Also, consider the scenes we don’t get to see in a character’s life. There is the story the reader has privilege to experience, and then there are events that characters experience (for them in turtle-paced real time) but we don’t see or sometimes even hear about.
An example would be a story that chooses to show a character’s morning routine, their commute to work or school, a scene while their at work, and then it’ll skip to the next day, without showing their commute home or what they did that night.
And even if we got scenes in a character’s home, their commute, work/school, their commute back home, and dinner, those scenes take place within a few pages, not several hours like for us in the real world.
A Visionary looks at these reader-hidden details and can add them to a story to enhance it. A Visionary can alter or cut scenes. A Visionary is an excellent developmental editor. Essentially, a Visionary is one who practices the art of plotting, outlining, character creation, and theme.
Visionaries are necessary for earth-shattering storytelling. A favorite example of mine is season 3 of the Marvel show Daredevil. Not only did each episode leave me hooked, but also the conclusion was unpredictable. I also felt this in the prison story arc in the novel “Live By Night” by Dennis Lehane.
The Visionary paints the most excellent blueprint. Elegant. Immaculate. But it is the Writer who assembles the conception. Brick by brick. Word by word. And while the Writer must scoot up close and only see pieces of the blueprint at a time, only the Writer can put the house together, can add the style. The literary devices. The sentence length.
An example would be the short stories and microfiction of Lydia Davis. They often have simple plots, but it’s her masterful sentences that makes readers chuckle or awe at her work.
To be a fiction writer, one must balance visionary thinking and granular thinking. Be sure to find joy in both.
Goodbye, Tarantula
Tarantula skittered from the snowy window into the dust-ridden bedroom. She paced left and right. She could sense the termites eating away at the bedframe, and the carpet beetles shimmying out the closet. But overlapping those signals was the mouse family’s squeaks: the voice of a mother comforting her children from the hailstorm. Tarantula left the room.
* * *
After several hours exploring the nooks and crannies of the house, Tarantula found a cubby-hole on the floor beside the kitchen sink. She crawled in and allowed herself to get comfortable.
* * *
The footsteps of an ant colony. She detected a line of them trooping past her. She swiped them into her mouth without hesitation. They scattered, and she lunged after a few more.
When they were gone, she remained standing. Still as a stone.
Minutes passed. Then she crawled back into her den.
* * *
A high-pitched screech alerted her. It was followed by a second, crackly voice. She exited the den. The sound was laughter. Tarantula traveled to its location.
She entered the living room and found, on the knotted carpet, a turtle lying on its back, and two ravens standing before it.
“You buffoon!” One of the ravens said. “What, did you think you could run from us?”
The living room was bustling with traffic. Tarantula could sense it. The roaches congregating under the furniture. The flies hovering by the molded wallpaper. She saw a stinkbug stroll past the turtle and the ravens.
“If only we could rip you out of your shell,” the raven said.
“Had our beaks been sharper,” the other raven said. “We’d pierce that meaty head of yours.”
One of the ravens turned its gaze directly at Tarantula. Tarantula stood motionless. For minutes. Then she skittered back into the kitchen, back into her den.
* * *
From a window, white light poured into the kitchen. Hail was replaced by snow flurries. From a hole in a tree, the cheerful chirps of sparrows. Remarks at the prettiness of the snow. The desire to fly out among it.
Tarantula could sense this. Just as she could sense the presence of the ravens, still somewhere in the house. Just as she could deduce the turtle was still on its back.
* * *
Hours passed before Tarantula left her den. When she did, she went straight to the living room, and flipped the turtle right side up again. At this, the turtle beamed.
“Golly, thanks!” the turtle said. “Thank you so much! I thought I’d be scrambled like that forever!”
Tarantula stood motionless. The snow continued outside the house. Tarantula turned. The turtle tried to mouth something, but couldn’t think of more to say.
A blast of wind sounded and the turtled leaped into its shell. Angry caws echoed in the room. Then silence.
When the turtle poked its head out, Tarantula and the ravens were gone. The turtle stood and walked toward the open window.
“Goodbye, Tarantula.”
The Fiction Writer 