Holistic writing - The four elements of creativity.

Andrew Wille is a book doctor and author, whose workshop I attended last year at York. The concept was so interesting, I signed up for the mini-course this year to cover the subject in more depth.

Basically, Andrew takes a holistic approach to a manuscript. As a great believer of gut instinct (I really should allow myself to listen to it more often though when writing), I liked the idea that by using the four tarot elements of earth, air, fire and water, I could develop my writer’s intuition. Please note – this does not mean that I had to read or perform tarot. Neither do you… Just use the words as prompts to look at particular aspects of a manuscript.

Fire is the creative imagination in a piece – what fires you up, be it sci-fi, dragons, murder, history, fantasy or whatever else floats your boat. It’s often associated with voice.

Water is the heart of a piece – the emotion. This is likely to be where you connect with your reader on an emotional level, and they connect with your characters.

Earth is how the piece relates to the physical world – how it evokes sensory perceptions for the readers relating to the body and the material world.

Air is the qualities of the mind found in a piece – how much you’ve thought about what you’ve written and how you’ve structured or organised it.

The problem is that it’s easy to go overboard on one or other of the areas, so the manuscript feels unbalanced. The trick is to recognise this imbalance – and then know what to do to rectify it.

Andrew gave us exercises relating to the particular elements. No, not exercises: writing experiments. (I found it incredibly liberating to be able to sit with pen and paper and just go for it!) Through these experiments, I realised quite quickly how much thinking I do when I write, often rewriting until it sounds right – by which time I’ve edited the ‘me’ out of it. Hmmm...too much air and not enough fire.

Equally, I realised I struggle with water – the emotional side of things. One experiment was to create a list of ‘I remember’ statements, a la Joe Brainard, and read them aloud alternately with a partner. Mine were all statements of fact, like sweets being weighed out from jars, or warm milk in small bottles, or hating netball. My neighbour’s were all emotional, and began ‘I remember feeling…’ More water needed, perhaps.

The four hours sped by, and gave me lots to think about in terms of which elements my current WIP – Rurik - really needs. Less air, certainly; I can pick out distinct sections that I’ve worked and reworked, because now they stand out. Almost as though a different person has written them. And I definitely need to look out for the fire – the ‘spark’ that makes the work special. There’s a flicker of flame every now and again in Rurik, but not enough to make it stand out from the crowd.

If I'm honest, this made me quite despondent for a while. I've tried so hard with Rurik that I may well have ruined him by working him over too many times. But equally, I know there's a lot of good in him as he stands, especially a flippin' good storyline. Question is, with an MS that’s been rewritten so many times, do I rewrite yet again, or am I better off starting a new project?

Maybe I'll send Rurik out into the world anyway, but try to ensure my next project has a better balance of the elements from the word go...or is that me being too airy?