Understanding Creative Writing - A Deep Dive

[Rilles]

In this journal I will share what I have learned and what I am learning about creative writing, I am not an author, I write poetry and music, but I do love deconstructing writing and prose. Hopefully you can learn something too, or maybe I can learn something from you, feel free to comment all you want, no restrictions.

Edited Tuesday at 02:52 PM by Rilles
capital letter

[Rilles]

"In the beginning was the word" 

 

A word is an appearance in consciousness, a distinction, it can be both audible or visual. A word is whats called a signifier, its an abstraction, a symbol that points to something in reality, but it is not the thing in itself. A word creates an association in the mind of the subject, if the word has no association for the subject or is not understood it is in that moment gibberish or noise, pure phenomena. 

Before we go further this is the most important to note for creative writing as it will save you alot of trouble, all words, sentences and passages create subjective associations, they are personal, it is utterly impossible to convey "the" truth to someone through words, therefore it is better to focus on expressing yourself how you like rather than getting stuck trying to find the perfect words, there are no perfect words. 

Example: if I say George Bush the likelyhood of us having the same image in our mind is very small, and even if we do its still your image and I have no way to access it.

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 03:02 PM by Rilles
yeah

[Rilles]

A sentence is a collection of words in a specific order, this collection of words is meant to create an association in the subjects mind, "can you get me a coffee?" can-you-get-me-a-coffee 

When a sentence has a cohesive structure we say it has syntax, when its not we call it broken syntax, however broken syntax can be used for aesthetic effect but we will get into that later.

To create syntax we have to use one of the three building blocks of language; noun, adjective and verb, other things like prepositions and conjunctions can come into play too.

Hopefully I dont have to explain what the three building blocks are as you have all been to elementary school so I will stop here.

Edited Tuesday at 03:12 PM by Rilles

[Rilles]

All words without exception contain vowels and consonants, there are words without consonants, for example "I", but words without vowels are more rare, words like "shh", "hmm" zzz" which are onomatopoeia (words that mimic real life sounds). 

Since every word has a start and finish it exists in time, since it exists in time it becomes an event, this event we call a syllable, the word "dog" for example happens as a single utterance where O is the most prominent to our ears. However certain words have more syllables because they have more vowels, example below. 

Tea - monosyllabic (1)

Dra-gon - disyllabic (2)

Me-lo-dy - (3)

Te-le-vi-sion - (4)

 

[Rilles]

Since language is associative and not fixed, it means that any symbol/signifier can in particular contexts change its meaning from literal to figurative. What do I mean by this? Say for example I say the word "tree", if youre from LA you may get a palm tree in your mind, if youre from Germany perhaps a birch tree. Now if I say "my family tree is huge" all of a sudden a leap has to be made to understand that I'm not talking a literal tree anymore but a figurative tree, family lineage. This is figurative language, where all metaphors come from and atleast half of human language. Common metaphors most of us use without realizing they are metaphors: "My heart is broken" - "Stop wasting time" - "I was frozen with fear" - "He's full of shit"

Edited Tuesday at 03:54 PM by Rilles

[Rilles]

Metaphors vs Similes

A common misconception

1. A simile describes something by using the characteristics of what it describes "he was barking like a dog" - "he ran faster than an antelope" 

2. A metaphor describes something by replacing it with something else, for dramatic effect "my heart was made of stone" - "the sun was a melting peach" 

 

Metaphors are important and so commonplace because of the confines of literalism, take for example sadness, the word is so vague and overused that it means very little, metaphors allow us to personalise language to where it becomes deeper and more nuanced, and the only way to do this without confusing others is to use words in a particular fashion that they already understand instead of inventing new ones which is a hassle. (Sorry for the run-on-sentence.)

[Rilles]

Direct Metaphors and Hyperbole

1.A direct metaphor is a metaphor where the object or state fully embodies the metaphor: "I am a rotten log travelling down a river" - "The traffic is a trainwreck today" 

 

2. Hyperbole is a metaphor where the common is exaggerated to enormous proportions "I am drowning in an ocean of tears" - "It looks like theres been an earthquake in your room"

[Rilles]

Semantic Fields

Semantic fields are the way words are related to one another, like how cow is related to barn, grass, moo, milk.

Staying within the semantic field of what you are writing about creates cohesion. Straying too far can create dissonance, gibberish or humor, however if done carefully it can create salience, intrigue, and interest. 

 

Full cohesion: "The policeman stepped out, took the suspect out of the police car, un-cuffed him and brought him into custody"

Semi-Cohesion with subtle category jumps "The policeman stepped out, took the suspect out of the police car, a pigeon shat on his shoulder, the suspect laughed as he brought him into custody"

Pure Absurdism "The policeman stepped out in his red clown shoes, took the gorilla out of the police car, a pigeon shook his head in a nearby tree disapprovingly, the gorilla grunted as he was brought into custody."

Edited Tuesday at 06:00 PM by Rilles