Storytellersunplugged

Before reading this essay, I suggest going back and reading Other Worlds Part 1: The Far Seeing Eye if you haven’t yet. If not, the following likely won’t make a lick of sense to you.

I’m going to operate on the assumption that many won’t, however, so I’ll do my best to summarize, and expound.

Two months ago I told you about The Far Seeing Eye, a kind of looking glass I use to peek into other times, places, and possibilities. Other worlds.

I talked about how sometimes those other worlds resonate so strongly that they manifest themselves in the form of stories.

We call these stories fiction, but sometimes (at least for me) the act of writing draws them so near to me (or me to them) that I feel like I’m there. These are the times I enjoy writing most, when everything resonates. I feel like the story is telling itself, and I’m just doing my damndest to keep up, and not screw it up.

Sometimes it all feels so real to me. I can only hope it’s the same way with my readers. That kind of resonance is what I strive for as a writer, and crave as a reader.

This is something no one can accomplish without using their Far Seeing Eye.

Most of us have one. Some are stronger than others, some see in black and white (as we are supposed to see our dreams) and some in eye popping 3D Technicolor. Some are ever directed to the skies, the future, and the worlds that may exist up there, some forever directed inward, to the darkest niches and caverns of the human mind. Some forever roam the faces of others, finding meaning and humor in the world through another’s perspective.

It’s a special thing, but by no means rare.

If you think I’m being too esoteric, I’ll bring it down to Earth a bit.

Imagination; a thing as common as dirt, but precious as diamonds.

For a reader, the Far Seeing Eye of imagination is enough. They are, after all, only experiencing another world that has been previously tapped and translated. Please don’t mistake my usage as the phrase only experiencing as a dismissal – experiencing another world through the pages of a good book is a fantastic thing – but there is a great difference between what is required of a reader, and what is required of a writer. It is the difference between enjoying Beethoven’s 9th on your CD player and actually sitting with the orchestra, transforming notes on a page (or in your head) into music with a man-made instrument and your own God-given, but self-honed, talent.

A writer must first find those other worlds – and often, I think, those other worlds find us, compelling that magical, but oh-so-common, Far Seeing Eye to turn toward them. Wanting us to discover, experience, and share them.

Or, to paraphrase the great Stephen King, a story is a fossil, and writers are archeologists.

Finding those strange new worlds is often the easiest thing in the world, but if we want to truly experience and share them, we cannot just watch them from afar.

That is why we need doors. Two doors, to be precise.

The first is simple, but not always easy. We need to step through and close a door between us and the rest of this real world to which we are anchored. That door can be physical or metaphorical, but you must find it, step through it, and use it to shut yourself off, even if for only a few hours a day. Closing that door against distraction is a commitment to ourselves, and one that we must make often, much to the displeasure of our spouses, children, and friends. Sometimes they understand why we need to do this thing, this shutting off – shutting out – but quite often they don’t. The regular use of this door is just as important to those we shut out as it is to us. It helps them to get used to our self-imposed reclusion, to accept it, even if they don’t understand it.

The second door, like the previously covered Far Seeing Eye, is purely metaphorical, but just as real (two states that can co-exist only in the metaphor stretching ramblings of the creative class), and just as necessary. It is the opening in this mundane reality that we call into existence with our imagination, our talent, and our need to use that talent. We draw it in thin air, or on a blank sheet of paper, or a computer screen. Then, through an act of will, we open it.

Opening it, then stepping through, putting our own feet on the dirt of whatever world we’ve imagined, that is the big final step. We are not just spying on it’s inhabitants from far away now, but walking with them, maybe even taking up residence in their heads (this is nothing strange, since our real selves are firmly anchored back in the real world, half-seeing the notebook/typewriter/computer we’re seated at while our mind wanders).

These two doors, like the purely metaphorical eye, also have names.

Door #1 is called Cerno. It is your determination, your resolve. Without it, you will not succeed.

Door #2 is called Ingenium. It is your talent, but it is also your nature and your character. It compels you, and guides you to the worlds with which you are compatible.

Mark these doors, and use them often. If you let them stand unused too long, the hinges may rust, then freeze. When your determination atrophies and your talent loses its voice, you may not even want to open them again.

This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit, but it works for me.

So, now that you’ve taken that big step through a pair of magic doors and found yourself in another world, what comes next?

Deus ex hominum.