I recently started attending an improvised comedy course – because apparently I don’t have enough wacky hobbies and creative outlets already. A lot of the fun of improv comes from jamming together things that don’t quite match, for example picking sentences out of a hat and then fitting them into whatever scenario you’re acting out, which for me led to a cave diving expedition turning into a misguided attempt to spark romance.
This reminded me of something I used to do with my writing years ago. When looking for story inspiration, I’d scour my notebooks for fragments of ideas and description, jam a bunch of them together, and then work out what sort of story they could make. It didn’t always go smoothly, but it led to some of my more successful stories, like the mutant whale hunting adventure Distant Rain, which made its way into an issue of Murky Depths.
Dion Winton-Patrick is currently running a similar exercise as a series of challenges for writers on his blog The Fine-Toothed Comb. Each challenge involves incorporating specific words and an image to create a story – words and an image that might not go together in obvious ways. The results are some intriguing and imaginative flash stories.
Why do I mention all this? Mostly because I’d gotten out of the habit of using this approach. These days, I’ll come up with one idea and work out from there. It tends to make my ideas more coherent, but you can go too far with that. A little randomness and eclecticism in the inspiration can give a story rough edges, pieces that are at odds or create interesting contrasts, just like in real life. This can make stories richer and more convincing.
I’m not saying it’s the cure to all writing ills, but I’m planning on picking up some of that approach again, taking a deep dive into a decade of notebooks and finding whatever fragments grab my attention. If I have time, I’ll also be rising to Dion’s challenge. Because right now, I think my writing could do with a few more rough edges. And hey, maybe it’ll be good for my improv skills too.