Writing Tips...

Poet And Liar ©
by Linda Broday

Many of us in the writing profession take our imaginations for granted. We've always had it. It's as much a part of us as the beat of our hearts. Yet, without imagination our stories would be as riveting as plumber's manuals.

What is it? Where does it come from? Are we simply born with imagination?

Ambrose Bierce states:

"Imagination, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership."

And, that certainly fits. Writers take a seed of thought and fabricate a story around it. Truth never enters into the equation (well maybe a grain or two of it does,) although the events and people we create could happen exactly as we portray them.

David Hume, an 18th century Scottish philosopher, became enthralled with human mental activity. He concluded that impressions in our brains are copies of actual things we have seen, felt, heard or read about. According to him we have no original thoughts. Case in point - a blind person may know the word blue but he cannot associate it with an image. Therefore, he has no thought of what the color looks like. Same with a deaf person in relation to sound. Our ideas are nothing more than copies of our impressions.

It sure seems to me these people had a lot of time on their hands to sit and think about all this stuff. I think I can punch a hole in his theory. There had to be a first original thought somewhere up the chain. First man - first thought. What about Jules Verne and his submarine in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Or his novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth? What about any number of other authors who accurately portray things far before their time?

It makes me wonder about Divine inspiration. I think some ideas defy logic.

Besides, I question whether some things are lost when a person tries to analyze and put a scientific spin on them. Maybe it's better to accept and thank God we are so blessed.

This very respected philosopher did acknowledge that nothing is more free than the human imagination. "Our minds have the power to mix, compound, separate and divide all of our ideas into a variety of fiction and vision."

Now, there you go. I totally agree with that. We have untold avenues of creativity. I fear I've only tapped into a small portion of ideas that float around aimlessly in that gray matter, waiting for me to draft them into a story.

I don't know about you, but all this thinking is wearing me out. It's way over my head anyway. I think I'll relax, curl up with a generous portion of imagination in a good book.

On second thought, I think I'll put some of those fat, juicy ideas to work. After all, they're only soaking up gray matter. I can lie with the best of them and make readers believe it could happen!

Back to top
Back to Writing Tips