“Writers don’t need tricks or gimmicks or even necessarily need to be the smartest fellow on the block. At the risk of appearing foolish, a writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing—a sunset or an old shoe—in absolute and simple amazement.”
—Geoffrey Wolff
As we discussed in previous chapters, your brain is capable of many things. Many of these things you likely take for granted because they happen at an unconscious level or because they’ve become so ingrained in how you function that you’ve lost awareness of what it took to get to this phase and any effort you have invested. Still, your brain is very active behind the scenes, and in terms of preparing to write, one of its most important capabilities is cognitive processing.
The brain is not only designed to think, it loves to think—and there are specific ways you can summon and maximize your brain’s ingenuity. Let’s begin by clarifying the various abilities and functions the brain performs, and how each will serve your writing.
Your brain recognizes and interprets sensory stimuli (what you taste, touch, smell, feel, hear, see, intuit, and so on). Just think of how much “raw material” this function contributes! The more your magnificent brain perceives at a minute level, the better you’ll be able to write fabulous scenes. Luckily you can both train your brain to be even more perceptive and you can enlarge your hippocampus, where all those lovely memories are processed, just waiting for you to call them up when needed.
Your brain has the ability to sustain concentration on a particular object, action, or thought. It also has the ability to manage competing demands in your environment. The more you train your brain to focus, and to sustain said focus, the stronger these skills will become. Remember to limit distractions when sharp focus is required—and to tackle one task at a time. Truly dedicate yourself—and all the brainpower you possess—to the task at hand, such as plotting your novel, and your brain will take your quest seriously and “serve up” gems.
Your brain is capable of juggling short-term/working memory with limited storage (it helps you juggle ideas and information while working—but usually only about seven pieces of information at once), and long-term memory with unlimited storage (that you can call upon when writing scenes and characterizations culled from your own experiences, from stories you’ve read in the past, or from your imagination). Obviously we have to call on our memory in every level of writing; it’s crucial to our ability to craft stories, empathize with characters, and re-create events to illustrate emotional truths. Memories don’t become long-term unless you purposefully assign them importance or generate enough sustained neuronal involvement for the hippocampus to know these are memories you wish to store. Writing or speaking about memories helps your brain assign them meaning.
Your brain coordinates the ability to move your muscles and body, and to handle objects. It’s the smooth coordination of motor skills that leads to facile typing. Motor skills are also imperative for walking and exercising—essential to keeping oxygen and blood flowing to your brain. I’m so glad I learned to type while in high school, and if you’re a “hunt and peck” typist, it may behoove you to bolster your typing skills. I am known, within my writing circle, for saying that whatever “genius” I have for writing flows from my fingertips, because when thoughts are flowing, my ego leaves the room, and my fingers fly over the keyboard (seemingly with little interference from my brain). It’s when I do my best writing.
Your brain’s facility for language allows you to translate sounds into words and generate verbal output. With writers, these functions may be—or will become—more highly developed than people who don’t write on a regular basis. Reading and playing word games are fun ways to bolster these skills. To bolster your brainpower, don’t take your verbal skills for granted. Find ways to challenge your brain—read and analyze works that require massive concentration or engage in wordplay that requires you to think creatively. However, be aware that skills might not transfer—building a better vocabulary won’t help you use those words appropriately unless you train your grammar centers, too! By the way, it can be beneficial to your writing to review grammar principles occasionally. Books about grammar often hold many useful suggestions, such as limiting adverbs and adjectives, and writing in active rather than passive voice.
A 2014 study published in the Current Biology journal found that successfully learning the meanings of new words (or a foreign language) activates the same pleasure-and-reward circuits (ventral striatum) in the adult brain that are stimulated when deriving pleasure from having sex, gambling, or eating chocolate. Researchers think this rewarding feeling may have encouraged the development of human languages, as well as motivate some to learn new languages. “We suggest that this strong functional and anatomical coupling between neocortical language regions and the subcortical reward system provided a crucial advantage in humans that eventually enabled our lineage to successfully acquire linguistic skills,” the authors wrote. It may also be why eating chocolate seems the perfect reward for writing.
Your brain has the ability to process incoming visual stimuli and to recognize the spatial relationship between objects. This ability also includes visualizing or imagining images and scenarios, which is crucial to being able to craft stories. This internal “GPS” helps you remember what certain settings looked like and how people moved within the scene. This also has some effect on how you combine words, though most of that will happen on an unconscious plane.
Your brain is capable of high-level cognitive processing, commonly called “executive functioning,” as it involves the “thinking” functions that allow you to accomplish goal-oriented behavior, such as the ability to generate and recognize ideas, organize your thoughts in terms of all the elements of storytelling (plot, characters, setting, theme, tone, scene creation, etc.), create a game plan for completion, and do what it takes to reach your chosen goal. Without these functions, you’d never be able to write anything cohesive, much less a novel. The specific abilities involved in executive processing include the following:
We should also add the ability to be original to this list, as your brain has the ability to make surprising associations, perhaps better known as those “aha moments,” when all the thought—research, conjecture, supposition, theorizing, imagining—you’ve been putting into something seems to suddenly coalesce and a brilliant solution appears, as if by magic. We’ve all had those moments, which typically come after a long period of struggle and frustration, and often after you’ve taken a break, to mow your lawn, garden, do the laundry, or wash your car. Halfway through the physical task, while your lovely mind has been blissfully freed from your attempts to steer it in certain directions, a synaptic event occurs (like a lightning strike in your brain, and it really is similar) and the ideal solution emerges. When it happens, it feels like pure writing nirvana, and rather than being elusive, it can be facilitated, which you’ll learn and relearn as you progress through this book.
One of the best ways to engage your brain is to call it forth and give it a starring role before you buckle down to write—but it’s also good to give it break when necessary, so those lightning strikes can happen.
Your complex brain consists of lobes, areas, and layers, some of which are similar to the ocean or the earth, with layers supporting a unique range of life. In your cortex, each layer houses a limited range of specific neuron types, each of which cooperates and competes with others in specific ways. Identifying and enumerating neurons has proved challenging, but scientists are making inroads in understanding the behavior of each neuronal “species.” In conceiving, creating, and crafting stories, you are tapping into your prefrontal cortex (thinking), hippocampus (memory), limbic system (emotions), and others. Honor their complexity, and they’ll work miracles for you.
One of the best things you can do to get your brain on board is to figure out what you want to write and why you want to write it. Without clear ideas about these two questions, your brain remains unfocused and unfiltered, which will make it hard to narrow your choices. Instead of knowing what you want it to concentrate on, your brain will sally along perceiving the world around you without knowing what’s most important—beyond life or death issues. Basically your brain can be easily distracted and susceptible to focusing on the wrong things.
It’s up to you to guide your brain where you want it to go. It’s always striving to discern what you want or need, and one way it does this is to “notice” what it’s being asked to do on a regular basis. Your brain creates a strong neuronal web for the needs it is asked to fulfill—it focuses on what you direct its attention to, what you direct it to do.
Imagine how hard it would be to go against your desires, to use your writing genius to support something you didn’t believe in. You’d encounter substantial resistance and dread every moment spent preparing or struggling to write. Now think about how much easier it will be to write about something that really matters to you, to express something that has been eating away at you all your life, to say something that you know will uplift and inspire others. Having a sense of purpose in alignment with your values gives you a raison d étre (a reason for being) and feeds the creative fire. It doesn’t have to be noble, but once you delve into the real reasons why you want to write about a certain topic, it clarifies the mission for your brain and facilitates the writing process.
When it comes to efficiency, your brain does more with less, partially because it has a dense “local” structure; that is, neurons in the same “neighborhood” are usually connected to each other. Although each neuron has only a few connections, signals nevertheless have the ability to leap from one area to another area in a few hops. Networks with lots of mutual close-range interconnections, combined with efficient, long-range global communication are called “small-world networks”—think Facebook, where knowing one person soon connects you to someone across the sea. In fact, Facebook’s global popularity may have skyrocketed because our brains recognized its similar connection pattern. It may also be true that our brains are evolving to keep up with technology, becoming even more efficient at “cost-effective” information processing. What this means for writing and creativity is that the more neuronal growth you create and link to your existing knowledge, the bigger “small-world network” you’ll develop.
As we’ve discussed, your neurons construct elaborate networks in response to frequent cognitive activity, such as writing. The more these neurons are fired up, the more they wire together, formulating a complex, multilayered web of synapses that grow stronger and more complex with use. It’s the practice of firing up those neurons that causes them to increase their outreach and to create new and more unique connections. You have writing genius at your disposal, but you have to make a conscious decision to use it to its fullest advantage, and one great way to do that is to choose a topic that really gets your juices flowing, something that has a certain urgency, something you’re somewhat obsessed with, something that’s important to you.
The passion for what you’re writing about will ignite those neurons, initiating the sort of “global excitation” that spurs original thought, surprising and unique connections, and the desire to re-create those feelings. Basically passion energizes your brain, gets it fired up, and makes it sharper than usual. Writing about something you feel strongly about provides the neuronal juice that will make writing a pleasure and will likely result in your best work.
If you have to write about things that aren’t deeply and personally important to you, then get excited about the craft and art of writing, and be passionate about your abilities to tell a good story and what your resourceful brain brings to the table. If you can’t love the topic, love what you do, and help your brain feel excited about it.
And if all that doesn’t do the trick, at least choose something that grips you like a vise.
When you identify the primary motivations related to your current project, journal about it, focusing on details, passions, and fears. By writing it down, you are programming your cerebral cortex and your hippocampus to remember that the story you are creating is important and that you are determined to complete it. You are also alerting your cortex that you’d like help anticipating and resolving problems and your “sleeping” subconscious that you’re asking it to offer its import. Before you begin brainstorming, read your entries to fire up all the neurons and synapses needed to do your best work.
We’ve all heard about brainstorming, and we’ve likely all used it, typically when writing essays and reports in school. You likely had a teacher who showed you how to write down the central idea and then create balloons as offshoots to brainstorm ideas for flushing out, illustrating, or refuting the central idea. It may also spark creativity if you incorporate color and use curved or artistic lines from the primary balloon to the offshoots. Using pictures you found in magazines or that you sketch yourself may also spur ideas. This sort of mind mapping exercise (you can find lots of images online) may feel cliché, but, in fact, it remains effective.
But it’s also true that a brainstorm is what we’ve already been discussing—it occurs when massive amounts of stimulation (you providing input) produce a tightly woven web of neurons that can be ignited to make writing go well. One way to create a brainstorm and fire up your writing brain is to sit down with pen and paper and start generating as many ideas as you think of related to the story you want to tell.
Now that you’ve focused your mind and your brain on what you’re going to write and about—and why you are eager to make a massive brain investment in completing the work—it’s ripe for the sort of brainstorming that results in plot, characters, theme, structure, setting, and whatever else you need to contemplate to get this story on paper. There are a number of software programs you could use to facilitate this process (and plenty of writers like them), but there’s scientific evidence that the old-fashioned way—writing with pen and paper—taps into slow thinking, which is beneficial at this stage.
Spiral sketchbooks with big, white, blank pages—with texture and space—can be very appealing to your senses and can leave your brain feeling like it has plenty of space to roam; that is, it can fill those spaces with brilliant ideas. Some, like me, prefer blue ink pens with a fine-tip point that lets the words flow across those big, white, blank spaces. Many writers have always loved pen and paper and probably still enjoy spending time in stationary stores (lucky you, if there’s still one near you) selecting paper and pens.
Julia Cameron, author of thirty books on creativity, developed the idea of going on “an artist date.” This doesn’t mean you go out with another artist, it means you take the artist in you somewhere special, choosing an activity that stimulates your creativity by bringing your artistic self pleasure—examples would be a luxurious day spent exploring a museum or writing at the New York Public Library. Pilgrimages to the homes of famous writers and attending readings are often inspirational. Some writers love running their hands and eyes over handcrafted papers, leather journals, or delighting over writing accoutrements (mini typewriters, plumed pens, paperweights), admiring items that appeal purely to their sense of touch and beauty—and somehow speak to their writing ambitions. If you adore old-fashioned pens and fancy an expensive one, spend a few hours selecting and then gifting yourself the writing tools you deserve—in this way rewarding your creativity. Cameron’s books on the creative process are full of ideas. Some of my other favorites include The Right to Write and The Vein of Gold.
Once you’re ready to fire up your brain, begin wherever you have the most heat, the element that has been driving you to write this particular story, that keeps it in the forefront of your mind, whether it’s a compelling situation, a particularly fascinating character, a dramatic and overarching theme, or the climactic and memorable ending. Give yourself at least a two-hour block of uninterrupted time to do nothing more than focus on the expansion of your primary idea. To write a novel, you need an idea that will keep your brain engaged and that can sustain the kind of depth that makes novels and longer works of art necessary, but these ideas often start small and expand as the writer works her magic.
Write down the inciting thought (what attracted your brain to this particular character, situation, or story) and then branch off from there, jotting down any ideas that arise. Don’t overthink, just let the thoughts flow, and write down anything that pops in. I suggest starting with the big picture items, such as the basic premise, theme, main characters (and their relationship to each other), and the genre, and giving each one a full page for an expansion of ideas. Big picture elements to break down include the following:
At this point, keep asking yourself what the story is about and what needs to happen. Concentrate on the broader aspects, but write down any subplots, characters, or scene ideas that occur—and they will. Avoid falling too deeply into one aspect, as doing so may deflect you from creating the broader strokes. When the session feels complete, tuck all the pages away and think about something else. Do, however, thank your brain for being brilliant—and reward it with a glass of wine, a hot bath, or a piece of chocolate perfection.
For this round of brainstorming, delve a little deeper into your topic/theme/concept. This is when you begin to figure out who else will be in the story, what will happen, and the sequence (this will happen, causing this to happen) and flush out the character’s arc (where the character is when the story begins, where he is in the middle, and where he is in the end—and what changes as a result of his actions).
Even if you don’t have full confidence in what you’ve created thus far, release expectations, suppress negative thoughts, and surrender yourself to the process. Thanks to brainstorming, your brain is beginning to make vital neuronal connections, which will spark ideas. Again, this is not the time to reject ideas. Write down whatever occurs to you and welcome surprising thoughts. It’s not uncommon to experience the genius your brain possesses. When you feel spent, stop, but be sure to thank (and reward) your lovely brain for delivering up a bounty of ideas for you to ponder further. In the meantime, here’s your brainstorming task:
Once this level of brainstorming is complete, you will have a growing mound of notes to help your writing brain focus on what you hope to achieve. Even while you’re sleeping, your brain will be processing all the new information, linking it to what you created earlier and to whatever else is in your storage bin, as a result of your prepping efforts—or what you’ve encountered in life.
A single neuron looks like a long, branching vine with thousands of tendrils, or synapses, which connect with other neurons. Tiny electrical currents fluctuate along the neuron's surface. Then, to respond to a stimulus or send a command, the neuron sends a jolt of electric current, or spike, across a synapse and into another neuron. This synaptic process is repeated hundreds of times each second as electrical signals race from one side of your brain to the other, creating ever-changing networks of millions of neurons—and billions of connections—that birth your senses, thoughts, and actions. When preparing to write, fire up your neurons by focusing on bringing your absolute best to the task and consciously calling upon your brain to bring its genius.
The third round of brainstorming will focus on specifics. Begin by reviewing all your notes from the previous two sessions and making any changes or expansions that come to mind. Once you’re ready, create a page for each major plot point, and be ready to jot down ideas about the essence of what happens and what will change. You may even be ready to create scene pages, describing who is in them and what happens that moves the plot forward. Note that the numbers of pages specified for each section (beginning, middle, and end) are an approximation for novels or memoirs.
By now, your story should be taking shape, and if it’s not, go back to the first level of brainstorming and keep those ideas flowing. Remember, you’re not rejecting or committing to anything. The whole point is to engage your writing brain in the process so that neurons connected to formulating a story will start firing and wiring together. You’re creating a strong neuronal network that you’ll soon call to duty when the real writing begins.
Advertising and product development agencies have long been known for productive brainstorming sessions. To generate original, inventive, memorable, and marketable ideas in high-pressure situations, they’ve developed what they call 6-3-5 Brainwriting. They gather in groups of six, and each group has a moderator. One participant is given five minutes to come up with three ideas, which are written down on a worksheet and passed to the next person, who is expected to use the first three ideas as inspiration for three new ideas. After six rounds in thirty minutes, the group has brainstormed 108 ideas.
Okay, you don’t have five people to help, but you could try the same concept: Use a timer to give yourself five minutes to write down three ideas—whether it’s what to write your next book about, what your character will do next, or what should make up the opening scenes. When that time is up, set the timer for another five minutes and write down three new ideas inspired by your first ideas, and so on until thirty minutes have passed. You may not end up with 108 ideas, but you will see how your brain ingeniously responds—and you may find the germ of a fabulous idea (for your character or plot).
“Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.”
—Joseph Conrad
“The deep self, your true self has to come out. Try word association. Go to the typewriter and type in any old thing that comes into your head. By the bottom of the page, some character will take over and begin to write, and you’ll be writing with excitement and passion and all the things in your past that you haven’t touched yet.”
—Ray Bradbury
“The mind can proceed only so far upon what it knows and can prove. There comes a point where the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap.”
—Albert Einstein