This kind of codification sometimes reflects a fear of the uncertainty of the imagination and the need to have a set of rules in place through which to understand the universe. In the worst creative writing books, this method is expressed in seven-point plot outlines and other easy shortcuts rather than as exercises to help encourage the organic development of your own approach. If it’s not clearly a means to an end, it must be a waste of time. Inherent in this idea of “play” being immature and frivolous is the idea that, just like business processes, all creative processes should be efficient, timely, linear, organized, and easily summarized. The world wants to believe in technique and craft, in practice and hard work as the primary ingredients of success. That truth can make writers and readers alike uncomfortable. It brings yet another level of uncertainty to an endeavor already saturated with the subjective. Creative play speaks to an aspect of the imagination that defies easy measurement. To some extent, I understand the reasons for this attitude. The best fiction is often driven by this invisible engine, which hums and purrs and sighs. When unburdened by the need to put words on a page, the imagination often appears as a form of love and sharing: playful, generous, and transformative.

I wasn’t mad at all instead, I was impressed by the quality of her imagination. So during our first holiday season together she told me all about the glory that was the “Hanukkah Bear,” and I wound up reciting these “facts” to the rabbi at my wife’s synagogue - only to find out, much to everyone’s amusement, that she had “punked” me. She knew that I, an agnostic, was trying to learn more about her mother’s Jewish faith. The letter apologized for a lack of US currency and explained that the exchange rate for teeth wasn’t favorable right now. For example, she would find a letter under her pillow from the “frog fairy,” not the tooth fairy, with a couple of Chinese coins enclosed. I had been feeding her lines of what one can only call tall tales or creative hogwash.

The following is excerpted from Jeff VanderMeer’s Wonderbook (Revised and Expanded): The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction and first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter- sign up here.īears figured prominently in our own household when my stepdaughter was growing up, invoked through the trickster aspect of our relationship.

Vandermeer wonderbook