“But are they really?” I asked my wife.  “I mean, have you ever had the thought,” I questioned, “while reading one of these pieces that yes, it’s well written but doesn’t amount to much intellectually or emotionally—so how well written can it be? Shouldn’t good creative work be the result of deeper thinking and more rigorous seeing, even if what’s visionary, so to speak, is the literary technology itself?”  She confessed that she too had been having similar thoughts.  It has been my experience that many of the composers of said works are often resistant to a wider scope of knowledge, for a variety of reasons, most seemingly illegitimate.  Writing to them, whatever the focus, is both means and end.  Historically to my experience, such writers are not interested in exploring writing theory either.  The great poet Galway Kinnell called compositions of this type “ornamental,” pointing out that when you crack this art open, there’s not much inside. 

There’s an old assignment used in many creative writing classes. It’s a competition of sorts. Here’s the gist:  The entire class is given a sheet of “facts,” from which they are to shape an original story.  They can organize and title the story any way they like.  The person writing the best story wins.  Everyone is subject to the same information.  As such, differences predictably arise in organization, especially in the way the story is arced.  Differences also appear in the form of exciters—language choices made by the individual authors intended to make the piece more appealing.  But it is usually the other differences that separate the good perhaps from the great.  These variations impact the text by enriching its depth and by this I mean the complexity of the human epic happening below the tip of the proverbial iceberg, below the blatant and obvious.  Many of these differences result from students’ perception of detail, its connectivity, and implications.  For example, putting certain detail side-by-side can create symbols, metaphors, suggested inferences, suspense, theme, universality, subplots, and myth.  It can suggest the piece’s deeper profiling (historical, psychological, sociological, medical, philosophical, scientific, and/or spiritual) as well as causality.  

PAYING ATTENTION to detail is supported by a liberal mind. 

The liberal mind flows freely amidst a vast array of knowledge, integrating it into creative context. In fact, it witnesses the world this way—believing, perhaps, that the true stuff of life is systematically connected and can be understood (and if not understood, then felt) with a level of intellectual precision that cuts across the disciplines.

Striving for technical mastery will help credibility, no doubt, but it will probably never replace creative vision.

As a footnote, I now recall what had incited my conversation with Elaine that morning on our way into the Green Mountains.  I had read somewhere, and expressed quite seriously I must report, that creative writing professors should consider taking off more credit when students misuse the comma, especially in the writing of poetry.  Viva e.e. cummings (as I type his name, the spell check underscores it in red), Jack Kerouac, and the several students of mine who have gone off to write their own books.

Note:  For a scientific adventure into the world of human attention see my newest book  Can I Have Your Attention?: How to Think Fast, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Concentration . 

Acknowledgement:  This blog is dedicated to the memory of my former officemate, Dr. Anthony Walsh —a true Renaissance man indeed.

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