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Two years ago, I made a thread here that discussed the finer points of how we create ideas for our stories, and I posed a difficult question: how can we write of ideas and experiences we have never had ourselves, when we are limited by what our brain can create?

I never did get a satisfactory answer, and so, I ask you all again... how can the worlds and people who have little to no basis in reality be created without-- at the very least-- temporary suspension of sanity? And how can you expect to be taken seriously when you write about things which only exist as figments of your imagination?

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I think I missed this one last time.

Those I will agree that a little insanity is needed to create an idea, yet as long as it's believable you can get away with most things, you know, if the reader is willing to pull himself away from the sane and logically, I don't see why the reader can't accept or believe the suspended moment (roughly 200-400+ pages) or madness or a new world without problems...

But then again, it ALL depends (I believe) on how well the writer illustrates the story with words.

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first question: it's called imagination.

Second: Why can't you be taken seriously? I think its a lot more impressive for one mind to create an entire world than for someone to just take what is already handed to them and use it for a story.

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But here's the thing. If you can write a story which captures a reader's attention, all power to you, but to create something that really clicks with a different person on the receiving end-- especially something truly fanciful-- there can only really be two possibilities:

a) You have written something which is, in the end, extremely similar to our own world and experiences, and so is not so very special;

or b) You have written something so strange and bewilderingly new, it is captivating.

And in order to achieve b), I cannot see how you can maintain a firm grip on your sanity while creating so many strange thoughts and ideas.

Undead Elder

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16807 Remorseful Whim
But here's the thing. If you can write a story which captures a reader's attention, all power to you, but to create something that really clicks with a different person on the receiving end-- especially something truly fanciful-- there can only really be two possibilities:

a) You have written something which is, in the end, extremely similar to our own world and experiences, and so is not so very special;

or b) You have written something so strange and bewilderingly new, it is captivating.

And in order to achieve b), I cannot see how you can maintain a firm grip on your sanity while creating so many strange thoughts and ideas.


This is what makes the human mind an incredible thing. Thing again - perhaps writers aren't as sane as they'd like to think.

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I quoth the great King who dwells in Bangor Hold in the land of Maine beyond the river Skai.

So did he speak.

A writer is a person who has taught their mind to misbehave.

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Let me ask you something, VampyBoy. What is our imagination made up of? All of our experiences, rolled into one giant ball of thoughts and ideas, which we then fire off at random to come up with things that are somewhat original and inventive. Or at least, that's what we hope.

So, if you are writing a pirate story, and have never read about them, and barely seen anything of them beyond Johnny Depp, then to create something that feels real, you must go beyond what you have experienced, and hope that what you come up with does not seem ridiculous.

That's just one example. There are thousands of others, big and small.




Others seem to agree with me: the act of writing is to take yourself into a new world, and to describe it in full, which can only mean that some people have seen themselves in fantastic places which can only be the creations of addled minds.

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Here's what I'm wondering. Let's say I read a book set in soviet russia, written by a soviet russian, and for all intents and purposes of the argument a precicely accurate account of the lifestyle of soviet russia. I have never been to Russia, I've done no prior research of the area or history. But through the story that I've read I develop in my head an image of soviet russia to the point where I say, "This book makes me feel as if I were in Soviet Russia."

Now, Soviet Russia really existed. And thanks to this book that I read, my vision of it is accurate. Am I crazy because I have in my mind a vivid image of a place and time that I have never been to, even though that place and time did in fact exist in this reality?

And if not, why would a vivid image of a place that has not existed in this reality be treated differently?

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I believe that if a story or other piece of writing can draw you in that far, then it is safe to say that you have experienced the Soviet Russia you read about in that book, albeit in a removed fashion.

You would then not be so crazy as to draw on that experience as a source to write about it yourself.

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Honestly, I think it's a normal part of complex thought. Human beings have the ability to wonder 'what if?' Whereas other animals are limited to 'I had food. I now have less food. I want more food. Hey lets mate'.

Admittedly there's only so much we can understand. Most people don't write about characters who live on a planet made entirely of hydrogen, because it's difficult to know what would happen.

But we still have the ability to imagine it. To find a reasonable solution, even if it's not the right one.

The brain is limited by things around it - signals from the body that it can't understand. Colors that are too bright and noises that are too loud. But the inside - the thoughts - those aren't limited. And if they are, I doubt we're able to fully grasp what it is we're missing.

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I don't know how I do it. I've never been romantically involved with anyone, but somehow I can pull it off. I guess it's from all the TV I watch.

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XwonderX
Honestly, I think it's a normal part of complex thought. Human beings have the ability to wonder 'what if?' Whereas other animals are limited to 'I had food. I now have less food. I want more food. Hey lets mate'.

Admittedly there's only so much we can understand. Most people don't write about characters who live on a planet made entirely of hydrogen, because it's difficult to know what would happen.

But we still have the ability to imagine it. To find a reasonable solution, even if it's not the right one.

The brain is limited by things around it - signals from the body that it can't understand. Colors that are too bright and noises that are too loud. But the inside - the thoughts - those aren't limited. And if they are, I doubt we're able to fully grasp what it is we're missing.
Then, isn't it safe to say that were are all a little crazy? You have to admit, the line between imagination and insanity is a fine one indeed.


Mrs. Coulter-- I consider watching TV an experience-- especially if you watch a lot of it.

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It's easy. We're crazy. We posses the ability to see into other words and translate them so that the rest of the world may see them too. We live dual existances, who we are in "reality" and who we are in each of our characters and each of our worlds. We are as Stephen King wrote in the Dark Half, mediums between worlds.

"But writer's INVITE ghosts, maybe; along with actors and artists, they are the only totally accepted mediums of our society. They make worlds that never were, populate them with people who never existed, and then invite us to join them in their fantasies." {Page 349-50}

I loved the Dark Half, it explained constantly in insanity of writer's. These worlds we create become real to us. The characters become real to us. This insanity is nothing I would ever give up. It is something I charish.

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Add On:

This was also from the Dark Half and explains things quite well.

"And there was something else: he was a writer, an imaginer. He had never met one-including himself-who had more than the vaguest idea why he or she did anything. He sometimes believed that the compulsion to make fiction was no more than a bulwark against confusion, maybe even insanity. It was a desperate imposition of order by people able to find that precious stuff only in their minds...never in their hearts." {Page 117-8}

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16807 Remorseful Whim
Then, isn't it safe to say that were are all a little crazy? You have to admit, the line between imagination and insanity is a fine one indeed.


To use the same example given by Wonder about people living on a planet made of hydrogen: we "know" (used loosely because we only know theoretics) the chemical elemental properties of hydrogen in such a way that we can say "that at 20 degrees Celsius, it is a gas". In space, if there was a planet made entirely of hydrogen, it would likely be a solid because the temperature of space is below freezing point.

To note, I don't know much about space physics as space operas aren't generally my thing, unless it's much bullshittery as a certain guild thread might have you believe.

Because we know the freezing point of hydrogen, it is safe to assume that the people can live on the surface of the planet. So then we equate in our other knowledge - what might such people exist on? A diet, perhaps - there must be C, H, O, and N elements present for life to form. Water in some form is also quite critical. If there are these things, then...

You see where i'm going? We can apply our learning to theoretical situations and - if i'm blunt - fiction is all about 'what if'.

Utilising our knowledge in a way that we can create scenarios like that isn't insanity. It's brilliant.
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