Where Writers Learn

The imagination is central to making stories, for when a reader reads one of our stories, it takes place in her or his imagination. Whether the story is true or invented, realistic or fantastic, it is never taking place, for the reader, in the world around her; it is always taking place in an world inside her head, an imagined world. (In this respect a story, whether told or read, is different from a play, which is taking place in front of the audience’s eyes.)

If we want our stories to speak to the imaginations of readers, then, we need to know something about the faculty of imagination.

You may want to take some time to review the imagination practices (lessons 16-20).

The imagination is the mental faculty that thinks in pictures. It is a storehouse of images taken from direct observation of the world around us, from books and magazines and movies and anything else we encounter that we pay attention to. From this storehouse we select images to use in our stories, and we combine bits and pieces of images in order to make new ones. Finally, we use the medium of language to transfer the pictures in our minds to the imaginations of our readers.  Read More