In 1979, children’s author Dr Seuss published a book called Oh Say Can You Say?. This collection of tongue-twisters is not his best known work, but it was the one that stayed with me into adulthood – much more so than Green Eggs and Ham or Fox In Sox.
Recently, while pondering (not for the first time) the largely unfathomable process that is writing, this quote from Oh Say Can You Say? popped into my head.
I just look in the mirror and see what I say
And then I just say what I see.
I didn’t understand why, at first, but when I analysed those ostensibly absurd lines, I realised they came close to defining how I compose descriptive passages my fiction.
When I see something interesting or unusual, my mind often suggests an colourful turn of phrase to describe it. This is a handy trait to have as a sometime travel writer – describing an experience or destination in a vivid and original way is what separates good travel writing from bland travelogues. Fiction is a little different. Fiction involves visualising something and then finding the words to describe the image. In other words:
I just look in my head and see what I see
And then I just say what I see.
It’s a curious interplay of brain functions, and whether or not a person has an innate talent for fiction probably depends on the width of the neural pathway connecting the two. Reading and writing can smooth such a pathway, but they can’t build one. It has to be there in the first place.
Dialogue, while related, is different. It’s more of a cross between playing hypotheticals and being George Costanza in this episode of Seinfeld. It’s asking yourself, “If someone said this to me in this situation, what would my reply be? And then what might he or she say back?”
Then there’s figurative language. This is what separates the hacks from the good and great writers. Those who are gifted can see analogous ley lines that are invisible to others; they can make connections between seemingly unconnected things, and the result of that connection is reader enlightenment and a new way of seeing the world. Exceptional metaphorical language elevates writing from something entertaining to something transcendent.
When all these facets are operating in unison, the effect on the author is sublime. The words just seem to spill out from his or her fingers and the real world and the imaginary world swap places.
Once such instance that stands out for me was during the composition of my forthcoming novel Invasion at Bald Eagle. I was working at Bondi Junction at the time and a friend of mine who lived at Cronulla was having a shindig on a Friday evening. The two suburbs were linked by a train line… a long and circuitous one involving dozens of stops. But I wasn’t perturbed; I just got on at Bondi Junction and started writing.
That day, the pathway between seeing and writing was more like a four-lane highway with no traffic on it. The self-hypnosis was perfect. In the space of two hours I churned out nearly two thousand words, a record for me. I wish I could remember which scene I was writing at the time, so I could read over it and see if it reflected the elation I felt.
Because the paradoxical thing is this: even when it feels like that pathway is obstructed with speed humps and potholes and roadwork zones, quite often the work produced from travelling along it is fine. My story ‘The Devils of Cain Island’ is a prime example: it felt like I was shovelling shit but was in fact writing (in my opinion) one of my best-ever stories.
Which leaves us where? I suppose a writer’s mood has something to do with his enjoyment or otherwise during a trip back and forth across that neural pathway. Mood (and atmosphere) can affect the experience of writing, just as it can affect the taste of coffee and wine. Drink a glass of $200 shiraz at breakfast time and you’re not going to enjoy it, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the wine. Writing is the same: try to compose you’re tired or upset or prone to constant interruption or just not jazzed to write and it’s going to be a slog, but there’s not necessarily anything wrong with what the journey produces.
And the converse is true. An author can look in his head and see what he sees and then say what he sees… but what he sees and how he says it aren’t necessarily going to be worth publishing. So while Dr Seuss came close to describing a facet of writing, even he couldn’t explain it.
