This morning I was a guest on a Zoom with Zibby Writers—part of the Zibby Owens publishing/writing/bookselling empire. To give the Zibby Writers a taste of the Imaginative Storm method, I set them one of our "write what you don't know" prompts. You might like to try it. Right now—why not?
Take a moment to bring to mind a memory. A memory you know well, in detail. It could be an event from long ago or something that happened fairly recently. Choose a memory you have a strong emotional connection with. Now, set a timer for 5 minutes and start with the words "I don't remember".
You may find that you start slipping into your usual recounting of the memory as you write, but keep bringing yourself back to what you don’t remember.
Many people said this prompt was very powerful for them. One woman said that it expanded her sense of what had happened. She'd always had one story of her father’s death, and now she has another, and sees that there may be many other stories that could be built from that scene. So, not only did writing to this prompt for just five minutes expand her awareness, it loosened the judgments she'd been carrying. You could see the amazement and relief on her face.
Another woman said she was very surprised by how intense her emotions were, prompted by those words "I don't remember." I think this happens for two reasons. First, because you so want to hold on to events that are important to you, and it's startling to realize how much you don't know about them. More than that, I believe that putting yourself in the "don't know" mindset brings you back into the present of your past. The "you" in the memory who didn't know much of what you know now. You may not have known what was really going on. You may not have known what you really thought or wanted or needed. You didn't know how things would turn out. You may have longed to know what other people in that scene were thinking, or what their motivations might have been.
So there you are, connected again with the uncertain, unsteady you in the moment—not the steady, stable you remembering the moment or judging the moment. That’s why the emotional intensity floods back.
This might seem scary. Another woman said that a memory that frequently presents itself to her came up, but she wasn't sure she felt brave enough to face it. Still, she did--and the prompt generated lots more questions about the event. So her curiosity took over! She was no longer scared of the emotion, but curious to understand more about what happened and her response to it. She said she was longing to write more about it from this new perspective.
When a memory settles itself into a fixed story, it's colored by the judgments of your rational mind. Was this good or bad, happy or sad? Was someone to blame? Did you, or someone else, do something wrong? Those are hindsight judgments. When you time-travel back to the present of your past with the help of prompts like this, you realize how much those judgments are based on what you know later, not what you knew at the time. And you become newly curious about what did happen, and what your mind has made of it.
When you write in the Imaginative Storm, curiosity is your most powerful writer tool. Curiosity gives you courage. It motivates you and it energizes you. And, when you're curious, you totally forget about trying to write well. (If you've been reading these newsletters, you know that we believe that trying to write well is the number one enemy of writing well.) So curiosity quiets the inner critic. Also, curiosity is therapeutic, because it opens your mind to other possibilities, which leads to a wider, deeper understanding.
I think there's a false distinction made between writing that's "therapeutic" and "real writing." It comes with a value judgment: "therapeutic" writing is of less value than "real writing." First question, what scale of value are we talking about--and who died and made them the value judge? For me, the only difference, and it's a value-free proposition, is writing that's written for yourself and writing that's written for potential readers.
I'd say that all good writing is therapeutic: for the writer and for the reader. Why do we write? Why do we read? To understand this strange thing called human nature. To get insight into why we do what we do and why we feel what we feel. To see how other characters, real or fictional, meet the suffering that life throws at them. To feel less alone in our experiences and our feelings. So, when you recount an experience with honesty, empathy, and emotional connection, you make it possible for a stranger to say, as many strangers said to me on my book tour for my memoir LOVE CHILD: "I know exactly how you feel!" In other words, you, the writer, seem to know exactly how I, the reader, feel. Isn’t that amazing? Your story can make other people feel understood, even though you've never met them.
If you’d like to know more about the Imaginative Storm method, check out our book (paperback or e-book) and self-paced online course Write What You Don’t Know. And please join us for the Prompt of the Week on Zoom, Saturdays 9am PT / noon ET, or Thursdays 3pm PT / 6pm ET, for an hour. It’s free. Links in these newsletters and in the footer at imaginativestorm.com.
If you wrote to the prompt, feel free to post what you wrote as a comment! Or tell us how the experience was for you.
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