Well fellow bloggers and blog readers, another semester has started for me so this spring 2013 I am taking my second fiction workshop in addition to my Literature of the South course. That will be two more down and three to go before I graduate in the fall of this year. Phew, it’s about time. So I am attempting to remember that I do still have a blog site (which isn’t very difficult as I am attempting to invest time into this) so I will continue to keep up my weekly postings. I am debating what kind of punishment I will suffer should I slack off of my duties. My video blog has already suffered neglect and this month’s video, as well as last month’s I believe, have yet to be posted. Next month will mark a year and I will have to decide if I am continuing that path or not. I may pause for now and wait until class is complete and focus more on my prose writing. Enough about that then, we now move on to our topic for this week.
So I have recently completed my reading of Stephen Kings On Writing for my fiction workshop class. This is not, unfortunately for you thrill seekers, another novel but a memoir that Stephen has written to up and coming writers. In a sense it is him sharing knowledge, things he has learned and still learning. One concept he discusses with his readers is the idea that “all the arts depend upon telepathy to some degree” (King 95). No groaning, that is in fact MLA format you see but you’ll be okay.
I thought this over as I was reading. What if in a way we are telepaths. Myths and legends are usually stories that have been amplified by the human imagination anyway so why not. By definition telepathy is the “the communication between people of thoughts, feelings, desires, etc involving mechanisms that cannot be understood in terms of known scientific laws” as stated by the free dictionary (I figure the definition for telepathy will pretty much be the same anywhere else). Now before you think my reflection preposterous consider this. A writer who knows their job and does it well is able to create an entirely different world for the reader. The result will be that your sense are taken on a exploration of things they may never have experienced before but now they are perceiving these things as if they are happening right before them.
The thoughts that writers see are translated well, for example, in movies we watch everyday. When a telepath (writer) provides images that allows us to create the visual replication of it we have executed our purpose. People can imagine the coldness of the night as the rebel group hid from opposing forces. Or maybe the reader gets a hint of the putrid smell of the surroundings the protagonist finds themselves in. Whatever the case may be the writer triggers something that allows you to actually “see” the story through your senses. King did an exercise in his book and I would like to try and do the same here. So here it goes:
You see in front of you a dark hallway. The only light that enters is from a window at the far end. The light that seeps in is gloomy causing a gray cast across the hallway floor. It doesn’t reach the high corners of the hall and so leave them hidden in dark shadows. On either side are doors each labeled with a set of numbers followed by a letter. The door closest to you on the left has the number 18 and the letter A engraved in a bronze plate. Your arm brushes the door and you feel the chill of the coldness creep up your arm.
You saw the hallway didn’t you, did you feel the cold on your arm. Telepathic abilities may very well exist. Hmm…what an interesting thought.
King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft. New York: Pocket Books, 2000. 95. Print. "Telepathy." The Free Dictionary. Farflex. Web. 27 Jan 2013.
<http://www.thefreedictionary.com/telepathy>.
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