Kristina Olsson

threat of the empty rather than the
empty threat.
Sometimes creative courage entails
a discipline of simply undertaking
to remain there, to not skive off
with a mundane achievement, or
answering emails or staring into
the fridge, but instead to ease into
the nothingness a little deeper. And
often from that darkness some part
of us, an inner magician, appears to
conjure the best type of writing—the
things we didn’t know we knew.
One question that
preoccupies anyone
interested in the
business of story
making is—where
does creativity
come from?
So how does this work in practice?
How is it possible to approach
writing in a way in which we have
an opportunity to conjure rather
than contrive? I literally stumbled
upon one of my favourite writing
exercises in my children’s playroom.
Before giving creative writing
workshops, I’d often raid their toys
to see what might be useful as
a springboard for story. One day,
while rootling through the lowrelief
soft sculpture that was their
playroom floor, I stubbed my toe on
a blue plastic telescope. Into the
bag it went, with the thought: this
might be good for a five-minute
activity—only to be intrigued when
that five minutes stretched into two
hours…
I’d like to share the bones of this
process with you now. There are
only two caveats. The first is to
refrain from rejecting what appears
in your imagination. Regardless of
whether anything you encounter
feels like something you wouldn’t
have consciously chosen, go with
it. Also, not everybody visualises as
such. Sometimes we see pictures
in our mind, other times we tend
more to feel or hear or simply know
what it is that is there, and each
or all are fine. Naturally, it’s also
always helpful to close our eyes
when imagining, to help shut out
the clamour for attention from our
external world.
Imagine now that you are gazing
into the distance at a far-away
place or landscape that’s hazy and
indistinct. Just take a quick note
of what you see. Now imagine that
you are holding up a telescope
and training it on a specific
spot in that landscape in which
everything becomes clear within its
circumference. There’s a person
there. Don’t reject the person who
appears. It might not be who you’d
ordinarily be interested in writing
about. In many ways this is even
better. However, if it’s someone you
already know, calmly move on and
find someone else.
The next thing to do is note and
write down: what that person looks
like, what they are wearing, any
significant or noticeable facial
or bodily features, any jewellery,
tattoos, scars etc. This can feel
like a process of observing as well
as fabricating. In either instance
there’s a deliberate looseness in
our approach so that it can be a
fusion of both. We then move to the
question: how does that character
feel about what they are wearing?
And here begins the dance from the
external to the internal and back
again.
Ideally we want to segue back
and forth from describing our
character’s external world, to
describing from their internal
perceptions. It is the same for
all sensory observations. What
sounds can they hear in this place?
What sounds do they most long
to hear, or most dread hearing,
and why? This equally applies for
sights, textures, smells, tastes
etc. Questions can be asked about
objects, about recurring dreams,
what they care about most, secrets,
loves and fears.
... and from
fathomless creative
darkness another
story is conjured.
All this can be done in a spirit of
ease of discovery. The telescope
serves to protect us from
overwhelm by delineating a clear
circumference of specificity
within our own infinite sense of
imaginative possibilities. Rather
than feeling an onus to ‘write
a story’ from start to finish, we
can embark on an exploration of
a character revealing how they
think and feel, their sensory world,
and the specific artefacts that
comprise their existence—and
from fathomless creative darkness
another story is conjured.
Melaina Faranda is the author of forty
YA and children’s books, published
nationally and internationally, as well as
being a qualified teacher for over twenty
years. She gives numerous creative
writing and self-editing workshops
and masterclasses in schools, writers’
centres and at literature festivals
throughout Australia and can be booked
through Speakers Ink.
WWW.WRITINGQUEENSLAND.COM.AU 17