How constraints can bring order to Chaos

Something that I have learned about myself is that I love a limitation to work around. Sometimes it can be a technical limitation, a time limit, or something more creative.

A new thing that I am doing at the moment is an evening course in creative writing. A lot of my career has been based on, as I call it, wordsmithing, and I've always wanted to try my hand at something more creative. I luckily found an evening course very close to where I live, and it's a great group of people that are supportive. Especially when one is trying something new, it is important to have a space where you trust people are going to try to build you up rather than knock you down.

I've learned quickly that my style of writing tends to be one of two things.

• A cynical essay writen by a grumpy middle-aged man. I like to think that this side of me is inspired by David Sedaris, but my life is nowhere near as interesting.

• Off-beat speculative fiction. I see Neil Gaiman and China Mieville in what I do, though I am obviously straining at the leash to be Terry Pratchett.

We always get limited topics to write about, with a strict deadline to work to. As Douglas Adams said, "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by". While I'm sure all my colleagues are very good at shoehorning a pre-existing idea into a theme, it is only natural that the theme starts to shape the structure.

My current exercise started out as an idea that I had in mind, and when I saw one of the titles I thought that was the one I could manipulate. Looking back at what I have written, the title eventually drew me towards a conclusion that I hadn't expected, which led me to throw out three quarters of what I had written previously, as the ending totally changed the dynamic of one character.

My last exercise is a great example of this. The title I chose was 102 words about Chaos. I was drawn to the idea of Chaos, and the word limit sounded fun. My mind immediately went to that great emblem of Chaos, The Joker. I'm a massive fan of the Batman franchise, and even spent a not small amount of money that my company gave me as an award on a print of Batman by Alex Ross, one of the great comic book artists. This is still in pride of place in our living room.

I wrote a first draft, and found that writing 102 words was actually quite easy, especially as dialogue. The problem is, it was really quite dull. I had basically written a piece of dialogue that would fit in with the interrogation scene between Batman and The Joker in The Dark Knight. It was, fine, but not particularly interesting.

That’s quite the question. Why do I do, what I do? Why do I, ahah, cause Chaos? And you say I’m dramatic.

You think I’m evil, inhuman, cruel. Well I think you’re just boring.

I’m not malicious, I just don’t want to die bored. Live boring like everyone else.

Why be predictable, when you can be fun?

You aren’t virtuous, you’re just dull. Dull and scared. Hiding yourself.

I know people. You know I’m right. Deep down. You would be me if you weren’t such a coward.

I’ll prove it to you. One way or another. Whether you like it or not.

So, back to the drawing board. I could write 102 words that were solid, but that didn't give me any space to move around. I thought about it more, and I thought about the Joker as an origin story*. This drew me back to two things. One was Alan Moore's seminal masterpiece The Killing Joke, featuring the classic image below. The other was a short piece of fiction I read in a roleplaying book years ago where a characer explained how his gift of insanity had saved him.

That gave me a theme and a topic, so I started writing the words. As this was more of an internal dialog than a conversation, I allowed myself to write more poetically, which was a REALLY scary thing for someone that was used to writing in a more fact-based way. This gave me a lot more bang for the buck from the limited words that I had. In the end, I felt I had some good words, with a nice flow to them that captured the apotheosis of the character, but there was still something missing.

Fortunately, one of my friends from my course had recommended a book to me, called How Novels Work by John Mullan. The first chapter was all on how titles can be used to affect the tone of a book, and it gave me the idea that I had other places to play outside of the strict word limit. I started playing with the fonts of the text, trying to make it more messy and, indeed, chaotic, as it went.

Then I had an epiphany (like my narrator). I have been teaching myself Adobe Illustrator! Why was I working in Google Docs? In a blur of work, I transferred the work to Adobe, and started tinkering with fonts, alignments, and even angles of text. All this still kept me within 102 words!

Finally, I wanted some contrast, and I added a title to it, in very structured and technical font. Not just the title, but the timestamp of submission. All very dull and contrasting with the text, but NOT adding to the wordcount. I'm very emphatic on that. 102 words still...

The wonderful thing about my creative writing group is that my first time reading out something that I had written was really quite terrifying, but they were supportive and gave positive feedback. It never really occured to me to be nervous about reading out what I had done, and I would just laugh it off as "Started writing. Didn't like it. Had a meltdown. Wrote this."

In the end, when the teacher gave me an annoted printout to read, she apologised for whatever the printer has done to it. When I cackled and said that was the point, my friends just laughed. In the end, the feedback was really good, my choice of words was complimented, and I was even asked about my process, which is one of the reasons I am writing this post.

Maybe, I might actually be not bad at this writing malarkey. Saying that, I've now used some of my favourite words, like Miasma and Quintessential, so I don't know what I'll do next....

What's the lesson from all this? Be brave, be creative, embrace limitations to see where it takes you, and surround yourself with people that will raise you up & not knock you down.

The final article is attached below. Let me know what you think!

CII.pdf

Download PDF • 76KB

* The origin story was omitted in The Dark Knight as Nolan and Ledger wanted The Joker to be scarier, ambiguous, and "An Absolute".