Writing Right with Dmitri: Take Three Steps
Created | Updated May 27, 2018
Writing Right with Dmitri: Take Three Steps
You're sitting outside on a spring day. The lawn is full of dandelions. There are lots of bees buzzing around.
What is your thought?
- 'Bees are good pollinators. They are good for the environment.'
- 'I'm allergic. I hope I don't get stung.'
- 'Those dandelions make my lawn look so lower-middle-class.'
- 'Bees are busy. That's the way to describe them.'
- 'Didn't Wordsworth write that poem about 'the busy bee'?
Yes, all of those comments are trite and clichéd. (Except for the allergy one, which is trite and clichéd, but also based on self-preservation.) It takes you two steps to get there. And if you're like most people, that's exactly what your brain does – takes those two steps, lights, and sits down. Like the bee on the flower.
But you're not supposed to be like most people. You're supposed to be a writer. A writer who takes those two steps to the nearest handy cliché, trite observation, or anodyne sentiment should be ashamed. People will stop reading you. They will be bored, and they will be right to be bored, so there.
Don't take two steps. Learn to take three. Take one more step, out of your comfort zone, over to where the new ideas are. What else could you say about the bees?
- They make a bright contrast in the spring sunshine: the dun-coloured stripes of the bees against the fierce yellow of the dandelions. What a change from the monotonous snows of last month….
- The low, lazy droning, like a distant background chorus, ushering in a new theme in the seasonal symphony….
- Just look at that fat bumblebee: hanging improbably in midair, floating forwards and backwards as it surfs the afternoon thermal draughts, humming a comic song to itself about butterflies….
Sure, you can do better. You can think of all kinds of things to say about those bees. Go ahead and try. Lots of room down below.
What am I saying? You have a tendency to take mental shortcuts. How do I know? Because everyone does. Where your mind jumps varies, but wherever it is, you'll tend to go there. Like that word the kids use these days: triggered. You are 'triggered' by all sorts of thoughts. Grocery store? One person always thinks of prices, another of annoying crowds, yet another of the problem of unripe fruit. It's just what we're like. Now, take another step, past your usual mental stopping point. Think of something else. What about people-watching at the grocery? What about exotic foods on certain aisles, that make you think of faraway places? What about…?
You see what I mean? Dig a little longer trench. Take yourself off the beaten path. Spice up your writing by thinking about something new.
Often (too often) we depend on outside stimuli to freshen our writing. We wait to go on a trip to see something interesting. We look forward to significant events or long-distance visits to inspire us to think of new things. But we could change our viewpoint simply by sitting in a different chair. Same living room, different angle. Or by thinking past the usual, habitual thoughts. Don't let reality imprint you. Make your own imprint.
Have you ever sat in a different corner of your favourite café and suddenly noticed something new? Ever walked around your block in the opposite direction from your usual route? Ever studied a flower as if you needed to memorise it? Did you learn anything?
Take three steps. Come on. I dare you.
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