Looking at further examples from the Four Elements practice in writing, let’s consider Water, which is associated with emotion.
There are plenty of ways to think about evoking feeling in writing: shifts in tone can work, for example, through pacing, word choice, sentence length, and plenty of other techniques. Perspective and point of view can also make a difference in establishing an intimacy or detachment or a particular angle on events. These are tweaks or more radical changes we can experiment with during revising and self-editing: which way of telling the story creates a stronger emotional bond with the reader?
But too I am always looking for the intuitive approaches – the things that work their magic naturally, that unspool feeling without effort. When I taught the Water Ways workshop with Words Away back in February, we looked specifically at letter-writing as an instinctive act of embodying feeling in writing.
Firstly, we read some of the real-life letters of Tove Jansson. Depending on who she is addressing – family, lovers, old friends – her tone can be gossipy, passionate, newsy, sincere. The writing is also very efficient – often lyrical in its description of life in her island summerhouse, often brisk, more than a bit scary in describing air raids during the war, grateful in saying thank you for gifts sent from a friend in America, no-nonsense but revealing in relating business matters about her beloved creations the Moomins. Letter-writing doesn’t usually give you time for fussing about language; you have a message and you have to get it across. There is a direct quality of exchange and communication.
We also read selections from Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, a beautiful novel that takes the form of a letter to his mother – you can listen to the author read an extract at that link from his publisher. Again: a remarkable intimacy works through this direct quality of addressing someone – in this case a mother who has shared those experiences of being a first-generation migrant. Also, in this instance, the writing has a real charge from knowing that the mother in the novel can’t read. There have been struggles, there have been difficulties in their relationship – but there is also great love.
As a writing experiment: write a letter from one character to another with a particular purpose. In this instance, give it focus by making it a letter that is compassionate in its intent.
I’m currently taking an online class in Mindful Compassion with my alma mater Naropa University. (More info on a self-paced version here.) It’s fascinating! Not least as I’ve only dipped my toe into the disciplines of religious studies and psychology before. The science underlying various studies on mindfulness training is compelling.
I’ve been particularly interested in various thoughtfully curated readings on altruism and lovingkindness, especially as they tease out the distinctions between empathy (sharing feeling for others) and compassion (extending feeling towards others in ways that alleviate suffering).
It’s also made me question the idea of self-esteem, which can place a premium on pumped-up or unrealistic senses of the self and others. ‘Esteem’ – respect and admiration. Are we doing good things to be respected and admired, or are we doing good things for the sake – and the need – of doing good things?
Lots to think about – and too lots for writers to consider in how they contain feeling in the words they choose.
So, put this into practice: write a letter between two characters in which one of them is doing good things by reaching out to alleviate someone else’s suffering. Consider the nature of that character’s suffering, and then consider its cause and what another character can do to make that suffering more tolerable – and then let that character reach out.
Additional elemental activity: Before you write your character’s letter, try thinking – or feeling – your way into both characters as you take a shower or have a bath. (Note: there might be a difference between the experience of running water in a shower, and the relatively still water of a bath.)
Alternative Water-based writing experiment: I Remember, because so much about memories taps into emotion.
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.
I introduced the idea of the Four Elements as an alternative to binary ways of looking at writing (and the world – let’s be ambitious). And then we considered Water for its associations with feelings, which can so often be out of balance in writing. We listened to a passage from Annie Proulx’s ‘Brokeback Mountain’, and through close readings identified aspects of craft that brought a particular emotional charge to that scene. We also read aloud from Joe Brainard’s I Remember, and discussed how memory can activate feeling through specific associations.
And then, after giving ourselves watery workshop names (including Pebble, Fleet, Kelp, Great White Shark, Newt, and Goddess of the Eels and Wrong Fishes), we did some contemplative drawing exercises and wrote some powerful I Remembers of our own.
What was special about this class was that it took place in the Judith E. Wilson Studio – we had watery props, and communed with a manatee! And we had lighting: I’ve not considered so deeply before how classroom lighting might affect how we write or how I teach, and it was a real treat to be working in such a shadowy turquoise space; it was like writing on the ocean floor. It reminds me of an exercise suggested in Elaine Showalter’s Teaching Literature where she tasks students of Victorian literature to write by candlelight – such a simple idea, yet one with the potential for profound shifts in what we create. Thanks to Lorraine Carver from the English department for making this possible.
Thanks also to everyone who came for joining in so fully, and special thanks to Bhanu Kapil for hosting this workshop; the whole series of classes sounds rich and imaginative. Cambridge is one of my favourite cities, and it was a real pleasure to be teaching there.
I also saw the sacred lawns dug up by Extinction Rebellion, eek! See below. As a gardener, I was probably unconvinced … though as a teacher I’m thinking ahead to my next workshop on 21 March, when we shall mark the equinox with the WRites of Spring at Earth Works (shovels not required).
On Saturday a lovely group of writers came along to Water Ways, the newest of the Four Elements workshops that I’m running as a series with Kellie Jackson of Words Away.
Among the Four Elements, Water is identified with feeling, and as the workshop approached I realised the field of emotions presents a pretty HUGE and amorphous subject as a topic within writing. Given my ambition slash weakness of needing to be comprehensive, how would we cover it ALL?!
So we approached the subject of emotion through a few specific lenses. We started by discussing memory and symbolism as ways to activate, contain or convey feeling in writing. Inspired by Lynda Barry, we also gave ourselves watery names for the day – with my teacher hat on, I became Professor Newt.
We then looked at methods of crafting narrative tone, paying special attention to perspective and sentence structure and examining the emotional shifts within a particular scene in Brokeback Mountain. A good scene will contain CHANGE, especially in the feelings of characters – and readers. We also looked for Proulx’s use of water imagery.
And I forgot to ask: where in the story do Ennis and Jack say, ‘I love you’? What does that say?
Thinking about tone in relation to pitch, it also occurs to me now that we use the word pitch to describe that brief description we use to sell books. Which makes me think how a good sales pitch really goes to the heart of a book, and ideally grows out of the narrative tone and voice and style of telling the story.
We ended the day looking at the emotion created within the intimate space of a letter with reference to works by Ocean Vuong and Tove Jansson. And then we wrote thank you letters of our own.
I wish we’d discussed the idea of the unconscious a bit more. But it was certainly present; we talked plenty about Ocean Vuong, and only now do I realise: the clue is in his name! OCEAN = WATER, right?! There: the unconscious in beautiful action.
A highlight of the day was our brilliant guest tutor and resident wavemaker: author and illustrator Sally Kindberg. I am really keen in this series of workshops to experiment with practices and viewpoints from creative fields that rely less heavily on verbal forms, because words are so often the problem with writing – words can get in our way, just as writers often need to get out of their own way too, and it often makes sense to develop writing without actually doing any writing. So on Saturday we drew.
At the start of the day, instead of a meditation we did a contemplative drawing exercise using our hands and lines. And then in her drawing workshop Sally got us to make some (hilarious!) self-portraits, and, using her magic top hat, guided us through the creation of characters that we took on adventures in four-frame comic strips. Clouds became potatoes, and much mirth was had. Under my student pen name of Simon Seahorse, I was very pleased to learn how to draw wings in flight.
Comic strips also prompted a brief discussion about yonkoma manga and kishōtenketsu, and we bonded in questioning the necessity of conflict as the central drive in writing (an idea that many of us are fed up with – more on that anon).
Sally inspired me so much I spent the following afternoon watching the wild and brilliant Studio Ghibli classic Porco Rosso and then playing drawing games with a friend who’d come to visit. Thanks, Sally! I finally got to art school.
And thanks again to Sally for bringing drawing into our class so purposefully, and to everyone who came for joining in so fully.
Our next Four Elements workshop is Earth Works, where our guest earthshaker will be dancer and Physical Intelligence expert Claire Dale. It’s held on 21 March, which is the spring equinox; I promise we shall be marking the wRites of Spring in appropriate style!
Four Elements workshops follow a holistic approach, using mindfulness techniques and placing a strong emphasis on play and experiment, while also addressing practical matters of craft and the business of publishing. Each day-long workshop considers the symbolic powers and perspectives of the elements: fire for the energy it creates, water for the feelings it evokes, earth for conjuring up the material world, and air for the way in which it structures the world and brings clarity to our thinking. We also discuss ways to balance all four elements in our writing, as required.
We held the first new workshop last month; in Finding Your Fire we paid particular attention to how the power of fire fuels our intention and charges up our voices, with one session devoted to crafting dialogue, which is perhaps one of the most striking ways to add a spark to our writing. We also looked at many ways in which fire appears in writing.
Writers sometimes overthink our work (too much time spent in our own company?!), and we all gain something from getting out of our own heads, and to do so it often helps to work with creative materials other than words. So we are also inviting guest gurus to lead sessions during each day – practitioners who bring in fresh (and elemental) perspectives from different fields in the arts. In the pic above, guest firestarter Kate Beales is showing us how techniques from theatre help summon up fiery energies to empower our writing. In other workshops we’ll gain insights from teachers or coaches from the worlds of illustration, dance, and poetry.
I usually circulate brief writing assignments as well as reading suggestions in advance, so that everyone comes prepared. And of course there is plenty of writing during the day, and afterwards too, as I provide writing prompts and resources, as well as follow-up notes with plenty of suggestions for further writing and reading. We also make time for brief meditations.
Our workshops are attended by published authors as well as beginning writers, and the spirit is engaged and collaborative; it’s good to observe community forming and writing partnerships developing.
If you are interested, below are the dates for the next workshops – my Forthcoming page also has more information, and you can find booking details via the links below:
* Saturday 16 May 2020, 9.45pm-5pm Writing On Air: A Four Elements Workshop on Structure, Form and Focus – our guest aeronaut is poet and performance artist Bhanu Kapil (more info and booking link to come)
* June 2020 (date to be confirmed), 9.45pm-5pm The Four Elements of Editing (more info and booking link to come)
Also, on 26 January 2020, 2pm-5pm, I’m leading Writes at the Museum with Food – Bigger Than The Page, my rescheduled Sunday-afternoon workshop on food in writing at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Inspired by the V&A’s recent exhibition Food: Bigger Than The Plate, it will explore all sorts of ways in which we use food in writing. I might even wear a pinny.
Have a good holiday break – and I hope to see some of you in the new year. Let’s see 2020 as the beginning of something good – in our writing, in the world.
