The idea of want crops up so often as a basic driver of stories – in defining a character’s motivations or yearnings, or in getting down to basics in a memoir.
I often suggest that wants have an inner dimension, which can be broad and abstract (love; a place to call home), but that they work best if also grounded in tangible and specific objects of desire that are located externally in our material world (two old shirts; a little ranch, or maybe a trip to Mexico).
I also relate the idea of want to the idea of intention. When working with writers, I often start by asking them what they intend their writing to do, and direct them to discussion of the subject in Susan Bell’s The Artful Edit (a book I recommend to all writers). Among other things, she asks simply: ‘Why do you want this piece of writing to live? Your intention lies in how you answer.’
We can take the ideas of want and intention further, into the idea of manifesting. I am thinking of the creative desires expressed in Octavia Butler’s notebooks. So bold, so powerful – and eventually so prophetic!
I’m also thinking about Bernardine Evaristo’s memoir Manifesto. Which I’ve yet to read – only just out. The idea of the manifesto is such a good way of making your wants real in the world. I’ve posted a writing experiment about this in the past: Write! A Manifesto.
The text that excites me most when I think of want in writing is Zoe Leonard’s I Want A President. Leonard was inspired to write this poem when her friend the poet Eileen Myles ran for president of the US in 1992, as discussed in this video. I always think of its title as I Want A Dyke For President, because: yes, so do I, and ALL of the rest of that fierce and brilliant poem too.
Oh! It’s so good and so powerful. The power of the simple repetitions, the power of the simple syntax of Subject-Verb-Object, the stark imagery of nouns, the simple expression of want. Also, the clever variations – the patterning, the emphasis created, the reinscribing effect of the repeated want. And of course its content – its transgressions and taboos and what it reclaims, its urge for social justice. And its eternal truths: those last lines speak to us even more strongly thirty years later. Above you can see it displayed as a huge poster on the Highline in New York during the 2016 presidential election season (though a lot of good it did then! Which does beg questions … Another time).
Perhaps more than anything the power of this piece lies in its VOICE: strong, direct, uncluttered. Back in the olden days, at a Fire workshop with Words Away, we had great fun with theatre maker Kate Beales running us through drama studio exercises in which we acted this poem out in different styles and voices. Modestly, sarcastically, quizzically – defiantly, fists in the air, we all cried out in unison: I WANT A DYKE FOR PRESIDENT! What a rush that gave us – what a charge.
So: as a writing experiment, let’s charge ourselves up by writing about our own wants.
* First read I Want A President to yourself. Here is another version. You might want to print it out – such a fantastic document to hold in your hands.
* Then: read it aloud to yourself. Try it in a few different styles – timidly, boldly, with curiosity, with rage, with love.
* Now, right away, write for ten minutes using the prompt I want. Maybe write about who YOU want for President (or Prime Minister). Or write more freely, seeing what arises for your wants. When you stop writing about one want, carry on writing about a new one. Harness those desires, and let your voice ring.
* You could adapt this for other wants. What you want your book to do. What you want as a writer, professional wants, personal wants.
* You can use I want within a programme of fieldwork for a larger work too, also exploring, e.g., what characters Can and Can’t do, what they Must and Mustn’t do, and what they Remember. Writing in their first-person voices, or adapting for third-person He/She/They. Or even try second-person you: you want. How might your characters’ wants conflict with each other to create drama? It works for fiction, and it works for real-life stories too.
* And try reading your pieces to friends/family/colleagues – it is a good one to share for its directed energy, even if it’s just as a voice note in a message. Get them to join in too! This is a fun and powerful form for writing.
Once you’ve established what your characters Can and Can’t do, you can make things more interesting by feeling your way through what they must or mustn’t do. This might even be the starting point for a character.
Personal obligations and legal boundaries that define what we must or mustn’t do introduce constraints and possibilities to our stories. Duties observed – or disregarded? Promises kept – or broken? Laws respected – or disobeyed?
The Oxford comma, telling instead of showing, misgendered pronouns. Thou shall not kill, wearing white shoes after Labor Day, making an illegal crossing into another country. Rituals, niceties, taboos, transgressions: what we must or mustn’t do brings energy and thrills to plotting in fiction, layering in complexities, seeding conflict, and launching change in the world. It can also draw out the urgent matter if we are writing about real-life experiences.
As a writing experiment: For ten minutes, and following the list format of I Remember or I Can, use I Must as a prompt for a character or for your own personal experiences.
For another write, use I Mustn’t for that character or yourself.
Another variation: using the list format, alternate I Must with I Mustn’t sentence by sentence (or paragraph by paragraph).
Use these prompts for different characters in your story. You might also want to play around with tense forms and perspectives, e.g., I had to, He had to, She had to, They had to.
Do your prompted writes in ten-minute sprints, without stopping, feeling the energy as it travels from gut to heart to shoulder down your arm to your hand and on to the page. Each Must or Mustn’t is as long as it has to be: a couple of lines, a few words, a whole paragraph. And when that’s done, on to the next Must/Mustn’t. Let the pressure of timed writing force stuff out of you.
You can also use these prompts for brief free writes if you get stuck at any time in your writing. A ten-minute dash of mustn’ting might free something up for your work. As fieldwork for a novel or short story, you could work with these prompts for a set of different characters across the course of a week – you could also apply this to different players in a memoir or a real-life story.
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In other news: I’m reorganising and refocusing my work and also space online. Welcome to the Andrew Wille Writing Studio!
I like the word studio, because I feel writing is a studio practice that gains from trying things out. I also feel that writing belongs as much to the art school as it does within the English department – if not moreso.
More to come, but for now I’m concentrating on: launching a few Zoom classes (coming later in the autumn); developing structured mentoring programmes tailored to writers’ needs; and building online community on Instagram, where I shall be posting tips, guidance, news, and reviews.
I’ve also added a page with a few testimonials from people I’ve worked with: Endorsements.
See you on Instagram, I hope! It’s where one of my better selves resides.
As a guest at a recent Words Away Zalon on mindfulness and writing, I made a passing reference to Kellie Jackson about the manuscript as a site of suffering. It was a bit of a throwaway remark, but I’ve been thinking about this idea since.
First, and most simply: as an editor I see a lot of writers suffering over their writing. Uncertainty about technique, confusion about feedback, frustration and even anger about rejections, envy at the success of others, doubts about the very idea of the book in the first place, sales figures for the last book. Angst, worry, fretting, the workings of Monkey Mind: these are very real obstacles that writers suffer, whether they are at the beginnings of their careers or experienced authors.
Weren’t we supposed to be doing this because writing is fun?!
Secondly, I’ve recently been taking a series of classes on Buddhist philosophy. The foundation of Buddhist practice rests on the four noble truths: suffering is a basic fact of life; suffering has causes; those causes can be alleviated or ended; and there is a path to that end of suffering. Simple principles, simple observations.
I found it hard to relate to this idea of suffering back when I first encountered it – in some encyclopedia, I think – in primary school in the 1970s. That Victorian notion of progress and the forward march of history with a certain Judeo-Christian tinge: that still carried weight then, and a midcentury faith in the future offered all sorts of technocratic utopias.
But as I get older, I understand the relevance of this teaching about suffering on both global and personal scales. The innocence of Ladybird books about Kings and Queens and Marco Polo gives way to way to the truths of history and the threats of the anthropocene. And we all experience losses, or struggle with challenges. I still have that habit of seeing the glass a quarter full, but at times life really does suck.
Which does remind us that all things are relative. Yes, you might be struggling with this book you’re writing. But take a look at the sufferings in the world around us: disease, hunger, the climate emergency, grieving communities, grieving families. I’m rationing the news and social media at the mo, so who knows what today brings, but it will include some or all of the above. And then there are all the losses that don’t make the headlines too.
So beside any of those things, let’s place the worries permitted for writing a book. Sometimes, in fact, the Buddhist concept of suffering is translated more subtly as dissatisfaction, and that might be a more useful way of looking at things.
Of course, we seek support and guidance in our writing. But at a certain point we really do have to gather our energies, and regroup, and maybe ask why we are doing this, and what we can do to help ourselves further, and take a long hard look. Pull Yourself Together: that is the title of my own as-yet unwritten self-help guide (a family joke – I’m not always known for being patient with the moaning sorry suffering of others). I’m in the middle of Natalie Goldberg’s online Way of Writing at the moment, and she says we have to grow a spine. At a certain point, we have to cut through the worries and the struggling, and listen to ourselves and just write.
With that rather hard-faced perspective, try this as an exercise in writing or revision: write for at least ten minutes for each of the following prompts:
How is your writing suffering?
What are the causes of your writing’s suffering?
How can those causes of suffering be ended?
What can you do to help end that suffering? Maybe think about: craft, process, further studies or training, feedback, other forms of guidance and support? Break these aims down into a list of tangible tasks: pull yourself together (this might take more than ten minutes as an ongoing exercise in planning and list-making).
Also: translate the word, and consider your sufferings as dissatisfactions, and ask yourself how you can be satisfied.
You might want to try these as free writes, Natalie-style: write without stopping, keeping the pen moving, following your mind and getting it down on paper. Then maybe, later, read it aloud – read or send as a voice note to a writing buddy.
No harm was intended to any religious faith in the writing of this post! I don’t profess to be a Buddhist, or anything else other than someone who loves books and the world of writing. For what it’s worth, I also have four planets in Aries. I never used to think much about astrology until someone explained what that means to me (shocked at how accurate!).
Happy Easter! My favourite pagan holiday, full of Aries energy for fresh starts and cutting through. My birthday usually falls nearby, and I consider it an international festival for eating well, enjoying the garden, and thinking about books and bunnies and birdsong.
Continuing our closer look at my Four Elements practice in writing, let’s think about Earth.
Earth is about the embodiment of the material world in writing: how we bring to life sights, sounds, tastes, smells, textures or touch – the slant of sunlight in November, the song of a robin, the anticipation of eating those fat beans stewing with bayleaf and onions in the pressure cooker back home. The smell of onions that will linger in every corner of the house for a few days!* The crispy – and soggy – leaves that your boots sink into.
Material objects often lie at the heart of a story too: a magic ring, or an inherited house, or a painting in the attic, or a gun over the mantelpiece. Objects can create a focus that serves up purpose and tension, and they can ground the writing in a concrete and specific reality.
These are earthly considerations in the FORM of our writing at a MICRO level: which tangible images and sense perceptions do we select for the characters and settings and objects that populate our stories, and which words do we choose to describe them and make them feel real?
The FORM that writing takes is also a consideration at a MACRO level. I recently blogged about Ursula Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory – what is the larger shape that contains the writing? And at a more detailed level, how might, for example, your book be organised into the narrative units of chapters? Or think about other forms, conceptual or more tangible: the Russian doll format of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, or the separate strands of a braided narrative, or the exchange of letters that makes up an epistolary novel.
Earth is also associated with ACTION: some physical gesture or action set in motion when we add the energy and purpose of Fire. Think about the acts of sex and violence that feature in so many stories, or more subtly the earthly gestures of a kiss or the signing of a contract.
As a writing experiment: bring some of these aspects of Earth together by writing a letter in response to the compassionate letter from the Water exercise Yours Compassionately.
Make this letter contain a material action as well as a material object that somehow serves as a focus to ground the writing: a thank you for a tangible gift, notification of an inheritance, the finding of a body, a ladder someone’s walked under or fallen off, a wrong envelope.
Importantly, think about the exchange created between these letters: what is sent and what is received? What is given, and what is taken?
*Update from tomorrow: the smell of onions lingering on the seal of the pressure cooker, and the tang of vinegar and the drying effect of bicarbonate of soda you’re using to try to remove said smell …
In workshops and editorial mentoring I often use a Four Elements practice. It combines an intuitive sense of creativity with a practical grasp of craft and technique to offer a fresh way of looking at writing. I am planning online Four Elements workshops for the near future, so I thought it would be an idea to describe this in more detail.
I started exploring the Four Elements shortly after I moved back to London and began to focus my editorial work on developmental editing alongside teaching creative writing.
Something that often comes up with early drafts is that the writing often seems overthought, or cluttered; it can feel self-conscious, as if it is trying too hard, and it perhaps lacks ease of expression, or vigour, even though the basic idea might be a strong one. I wanted to help writers find approaches that would be more intuitive, growing naturally out of their own inspirations and taking shape authentically in ways that connect with readers. I felt that instead of thinking so much about writing, we need to find ways to feel our way into writing and also bring in other dimensions of experience. I usually invoke Ray Bradbury, who in ‘Zen in the Art of Writing’ tells us that a basic mantra of writing is: Don’t Think.
This of course presents something of a paradox, given that the very medium we work in as writers – words – requires some degree of cognition and thinking. And we also need to think through possibilities that help us in the task of Don’t Thinking!
There are numerous ways to approach Don’t Thinking, in fact. I’ve studied and taught creative writing at Naropa University, the birthplace of the modern mindfulness movement, and have a strong grounding in contemplative approaches in the arts. The simple task of slowing down and paying attention to the everyday and listening to yourself are strong foundations for any creative practice. I’m also a big fan of Natalie Goldberg, and her Writing Down the Bones and her emphasis on free writing have been a profound influence on my teaching.
I also began to explore the distinction between the left and right sides of the brain, for example through the work of artist-teachers Lynda Barry and Betty Edwards. Though the two hemispheres of the brain are interconnected, the left side is associated with verbal and analytic skills – words, numbers, and structures – while the right is linked with visual and perceptual skills and with intuition. We could perhaps say that some of those overthought manuscripts are a bit too left-brained, and could gain from opening up more of the right side – though we don’t do brain surgery in Four Elements workshops; we just consider these ideas about the brain as a symbolic framework.
I took myself in other directions too, particularly when I signed up for a class in tarot at Treadwell’s bookshop at its old location in Covent Garden. I was already familiar with the symbolism of the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana, which offer powerful archetypes for storytelling, such as the Fool starting on his Journey, the mentor figure of the Magician, and the unexpected reversals of the Wheel of Fortune.
I now found myself drawn to the four suits of the Minor Arcana, with their elemental associations: Fire (Wands), Water (Cups), Earth (Pentacles), and Air (Swords). I began to explore the meanings and associations of the Four Elements in greater depth, and started to understand the range of their value to writers and artists. Through time they have come to play an important role in my teaching as well as my editorial work.
Sometimes it helps to focus on the elements individually, and sometimes to consider them in combination.
Fire is associated with energy, with the vital spark that brings writing to life and keeps it burning until the last word – we can think of this as the fuel for our writing, which can resonate in every sentence. I particularly associate fire with intention and theme: what are the ideas that inspire your writing, the passions that compel you to write? What do you want to achieve in your work? Sometimes, politics is involved in some way or other – and if it isn’t, what might that lack say? Paying closer attention to the craft of writing, I relate fire to developing the voice as an instinctively grown vehicle energising our stories. I talk about syntax, especially how we select grammatical subjects and verbs for the ways they can bring pace and charge to our sentences. I also like to think about the energy created through the conflicts, reveals and twists of dynamic plotting. What are the drivers of your story?
Water is related to the world of emotion. What does the writing make a reader feel? How does it move the reader? What lasting impression does it leave? I particularly relate this to the ways in which writers craft the inner lives of characters and work with point of view. On a sentence level, I consider how we can shift the tone with, for example, word choice, pronouns, repetition, rhythm, or sentence variety – the music in our writing.
Earth represents the material realm of experience, and its embodiment in words. Settings and the outer worlds of characters are obvious associations for earth: how are the sense perceptions that bring them to life evoked on the page: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures? Also, how does the story move forward with action and gesture (we bring in some fire here too), and what might be the roles in the writing, for example, of bodies and spaces, or sex and violence? I also pay attention to the grounding power of nouns relative to the moving energy of verbs.
I often discuss the practicalities of publishing and making a living as a writer as earthly concerns too.
Air brings us back to thinking and the world of mental formations – not as cluttered or overthought writing, but for its clarity of expression and ideas. I usually talk about the strength of its organisation: narrative structure, and the shape or form of the piece (here also bringing in some earth). And I often discuss symbolism and figures of speech, and return to theme: how has that initial spark of inspiration developed a consistent focus throughout the piece? What does the writing shed light on?
The Four Elements is a dynamic system. Elements do not work alone, but need to be cultivated in balance, and different pieces of writing emphasise different elements. A punk song might be all fire, whereas a boyband ballad might be a blend of water and earth (lots of feeeeelings, and the promise of S E X).
When reading manuscripts, I often think about the balance of the Four Elements too – even if I end up translating this into a different language for the uninitiated! For example, I can think of unpublished works of fantasy and science fiction that were really strong in their world-building and high concepts (earth and air), but lacked pace and emotional connection (fire and water) – they didn’t work so well as a story, but felt static, like a tableau. And sometimes intention (fire) is not apparent beyond an insistent urge to write about a particular topic, and focus and clarity emerge with a structured writing practice (air) that helps to fan those flames and stop them going out; writing prompts and exercises can also add layers of emotional depth (water).
In Everyday Magic and other Four Elements workshops I’ve taught at Words Away and elsewhere, we put these ideas into practice with readings and discussion as well as meditations and, of course, prompts and writing experiments. Writers seem to appreciate the new lens through which they can see their writing and experience it as a felt practice. Breakthroughs occur – writers often know at a subconscious level what needs attention, and a fresh approach that emphasises intuition helps them to experience their writing beyond just thinking about it or going round in circles or scrolling down a screen.
I should stress that in this context of writing and teaching we don’t dwell on the fortune-telling reputation of tarot; I know some people are spooked by esoteric practices, or have backgrounds in religious traditions that perceive the tarot as dangerous – in which case perhaps I should have put this paragraph at the very start to calm the fearful! And some writing friends have, I suspect, felt some of this is a bit woo woo and indulgent, with Andrew entertaining his inner hippie a bit too much. But, in fact, I no longer hide or qualify this; many, many people in creative and artistic fields have a deep-seated curiosity or experience with tarot or other fields such as astrology or the Kabbalah, and are open to their power as intuitive tools.
And, importantly, the arts need ways in which we can explore creativity freely, beyond the market and the grasping for a book deal, and the Four Elements offers a practical framework that is open to personal interpretation and meaning. Lately I’ve been reading a lot of ecological literature, and I’ve been finding the Four Elements resonating (of course!) in wonderful books such as Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane.
(That thing about grasping for a book deal. I mean: yes, we want you to get published. But I propose that that comes simply from writing a book that someone wants to read, and so often that sort of energy – that fire – is transmitted by an authentic book that is written from the heart rather than an agent or editor’s second-guessing of the market.)
In fact the Four Elements have a much wider reach than esoteric fields. The Four Elements appear in both classical and medieval philosophy. Then we also have the four humours and the four temperaments, and let’s not forget the four winds, the four gospels, and the four seasons (reinterpreted for literary studies by Northrop Frye in his Anatomy of Criticism).
Traces of the Four Elements can also be found in fields of psychology. The questions in Myers-Briggs tests, for example, ascertain how you make decisions or interact with other people: At parties do you enjoy getting into the action on the dance floor (fire), or do you prefer to have intellectual discussions one on one over a glass of Merlot in the kitchen (air)? And, notably, Carl Jung’s ideas about the quaternity identifies the four psychic functions of intuiting, feeling, sensing and thinking, which roughly correspond with the values of fire, water, earth, and air.
And of course there are many other systems of working symbolically. Buddhists add to the four a fifth element – Space – while the Chinese have a Five Elements philosophy too, though the elements are different ones: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Seven chakras are found in Indian culture. I also invite writers to think in terms of other frameworks: how might you find qualities of animal, vegetable or mineral in your writing? External categories do not need to define us, but are structures that help us in looking at the world – so why not make your own?
Perhaps consider your own intuitive powers: if you are a cook, for example, how might you relate to your writing in terms of ingredients (veggies, sugars, raising agents), method (baking, slow-cooking, flash-fry), presentation and form (snack, midweek meal, tasting menu, banquet). Writers will usually find strength from working with points of reference they respond to intuitively.
Whichever symbolic system you follow, it will possess its own alchemy – your capacity to create something from your own creative spirit. I like the simple balance of the Four Elements – and also the fact that four different qualities are about the most I can hold in my head at one time.
I often hold workshops and masterclasses in person and online too – some draw on aspects of the Four Elements, and some have more of a craft focus. If you are interested, subscribe to my blog or drop me a line via my Contact page.
And if you’d like to explore the Four Elements in your own writing, take a look at this simple exercise: Looking For The Four Elements. Or try one of these specific exercises devoted to Fire, Water, Earth, or Air. Or try some Field Work.
