Imagination

I just read Stephen King’s introduction to Nightmares & Dreamscapes and he had something to say about imagination that really resonated with me. He was talking about his childhood, and here are his words:

“I knew even then, you see, that there were people in the world—-too many of them actually—-whose imaginative senses were either numb or completely deadened, and who lived in a mental state akin to color-blindness. I always felt sorry for them, never dreaming (at last then) that many of these unimaginative types either pitied me or held me in contempt…”

I wasn’t quite as observant as King when I was a kid. It never occurred to me then that anyone could lack imagination. My own imagination kept me company 24 hours a day. Every moment was magic. The sky filled itself with battleships and pirate galleons; the woods were populated with living shadows, both human and inhuman. Even at night my imagination never slept. There were nightmares sometimes, but always my dreams were vivid, intense, otherworldly. I couldn’t understand why others laughed at such “fancies.” Didn’t they have the same experiences?

What I did know, though, was that I was laughed at, pitied, and held in contempt by many when I shared the thoughts and ideas that excited me. I was told many times that I read too much, that I needed to get my head out of the clouds, that I needed to pay attention to the ground instead of the sky, that I was wasting my life away daydreaming. When I was little, it hurt. I began to develop an inferiority complex. When everyone is telling you that you’re going about life all wrong, you often begin to believe them. Fortunately, I realized in time that they were the ones who were doing it all wrong.

I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I’d given in to the criticisms. I may not be a great success by any stretch of the ‘imagination,’ but I never have to suffer from boredom. And I often think that I’ve actually lived many lives instead of just the one. I’ve lived in the Old West, lived on other planets. I’ve known heroes and villains, monstrous aliens and gentle ones. I’ve explored across time. All of that inside a couple of pounds of spongy pinkish matter.

When Josh was little I actively tried to cultivate his imagination. Yes, it meant he had a few bad dreams. But I hope he’ll realize over time what a true gift a good imagination is. I think he does. Whenever a child's imagination is stifled, the human race comes a little closer to extinction.

Now I think I’m going to go daydream. The sky is blue, the woods are dark. And there are worlds within worlds.

Art copywrite (c) The incomparable Lana Gramlich, whose imagination I greatly admire.
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Crazy stuff

I'm still a member of the Science Fiction Book Club, and occassionally pick up hardbacks of old classics, or sometimes omnibus editions. They also have a section of their offerings devoted to graphic novels, and to movies. This month, stuffed in with such fare as Missile to the Moon where "Lunar She-Devils lure Earthmen into their lair of doom" and Dinosaur Valley Girls, where an "action-movie actor" is cast into the past and must use his "prodigious skills to win the cavegirl of his dreams" while being tempted by a "tribe of love-starved exotic cave-women," there was--perhaps--the greatest come-on for a movie ever. I give you: Babes in Kong Land.


It's good that I stumble upon such fare once in a while. Just when I begin to feel smug in my own imagination, something like "Babes" is waved before my face and I know I am but a child. I dare say I would never have imagined quite this sort of scenario. I bow to the creators, and I know I can never watch this DVD. I just don't see how it could live up to the promise of the description.

On the other hand, this Andromina: The Pleasure Planet sounds interesting. After all, who wouldn't want to visit "the most famous pleasure planet in the galaxy?"

The World Building Impulse

Why does imagination take the forms it does? As a kid I wandered our farm and through the woods and fields for miles around, and while I walked I invented stories. But more than stories, I invented whole worlds and painted them with cities and deserts and rivers and strange animals and plants. The first world I invented was Thanos, and it was actually a future earth after aliens had invaded, conquered, settled and then abandoned it to the savage humans who remained. New cities had arisen, new tribes of humankind, and there were "leftovers" from the conquered years.

When I told my parents or siblings about Thanos they laughed and shook their heads. And when I told my friends they looked at me like I was weird. People said I was imaginative, but to me it just seemed natural. I wondered why everyone else didn't do it too. I also knew that plenty of other people had good imaginations and told inventive stories. My dad told some whoppers, but his stories were much more versions of the "tall tale," and always involved the world "almost" as it was.

As an adult I find that my writer friends are highly imaginative and tell wonderful stories. Candice Proctor and Laura Joh Rowland take the misty features of history and turn them into concrete realities that a reader can see, hear, and smell. They reinvent the past so that it becomes current reality. Sidney Williams takes the environments of small rural towns and common people and slides them a little to the left so that they're overlain by a world where vampires and werewolves and stranger things play. Wayne Allen Sallee writes of a real Chicago, but in ways that warp the perspective, that make you feel things you've never felt.

But Wayne has told me that he doesn't feel that comfortable when he tries to step out of the real Chicago with his writing, and I know that Candice is just not that interested in wholly imaginary worlds. (Forgive me Wayne and Candice if I've misrepresented you. Please let me know.)

Why is this? Do I love imaginary worlds because I want to escape? I don't think so. I like the real world OK. I'm not unhappy or desperate to flee an intolerable existence. I just like inventing weird stuff. I like it more apparently than Candice or Wayne or Laura, although Sid is a bit closer to me here. What accounts for these differences? I'm glad they're there. If you depended on me to write the books about historical Japan or England you wouldn't have very many. Those worlds are not where my imagination lives. But I like to read those sorts of books. I like to be transported to historical places. I'm glad that every writer's imagination doesn't take the same form. I just wonder why?

Envious

Sometimes I'm envious of movie makers. They want to show something horrific, they just splash it on the screen and it's in your face. You may turn away, but the image has already imprinted itself on your neurons. Visual stimuli are potent for all humans other than those who are blind. We can see what is put before us.

Writers don't have the same luxury, and that's because our medium is not a silver screen but the imaginations of our readers. Literally, readers determine the effectiveness of our prose. Unless the reader can imagine what we describe, we fail. And while visual systems work largely the same in all people who see, imaginations come in a tremendous range of forms and strengths. Ever wonder why others rave about a book that you couldn't force your way through? It's because that book engaged their imaginations and not yours.

This doesn't mean that your imagination is weaker. It's just different. Or, maybe your imagination is stronger than the average. Maybe you weren't engaged because the images that others saw were old hat to you. I think this explains in part why rereading well-loved books from our childhoods can be disappointing. Our imaginations have moved on since that time, have grown fuller with experience.

I began thinking of such things because I'm trying to write a scary scene and it is damn hard. I can see the scene perfectly. If it happened in real life it would scare the bejeebers out of me. But how can I translate what I see into the words that will make others see the same? I suspect that I can't, at least not perfectly. Instead, to write this scene I have to step outside of myself and into a potential reader's imagination. I have to analyze how my words might be interpreted by someone with a different kind of imagination. And I have to remember what is perhaps the most important rule of writing horror.

Let the reader's own imagination do most of the work. The writer is only a facilitator of that process.