See Something...Say Something

You’ll recognize that slogan from a popular crime prevention campaign, but forget that connection for a moment. Think with me about what it means to see the significance of something and put that significance into words. Too often we’re guilty of passive observation, or, in biblical terms, we “have eyes but do not see” (Jer. 5:21). That leads us to write a meaningless description of it.

Creative coach Eric Maisel offers a good example of this. “One Saturday morning in Paris I step out from the apartment building where I am staying onto the rue Saint Gilles,” he writes. “Across the street is ‘something’—now, how shall I describe that something? I could say ‘on the other side of the street a father and his three children are approaching.’ How little that description would capture of what I feel to be true about those figures! If I wrote such a phrase and left the matter at that,…I would be playing it safe. I would bore you to tears” (A Writer’s Space, 165-66).

Since Maisel is a Jew, he immediately realizes that this is a Jewish family returning home from temple. (“Though I don’t know how I know that,” he admits.) He notices there is no mother in this group—why? They are in a hurry—why? The children are laughing—why? As a writer, he has a choice: He can notice these details and deduce their significance, or not. And if he doesn’t grasp the significance of what he sees, he can’t describe it to us.

“Writing is interpretation,” Maisel notes. “You are obliged to offer yours. If you want to say nothing, offend no one, tell a happy little tale, and otherwise act the innocent, that choice is available to you. Just remember that even then you are saying something and that we are watching” (A Writer’s Space, 169).

Joe Allison writes both fiction and nonfiction, and has been a member of the Indiana chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers since 2010. His most recent book is Hard Times (Warner Press: 2019). He lives in Anderson, IN, with his wife Maribeth.

Writing as a Lover

Sister Wendy Barrett’s video tours of fine art galleries gathered an enthusiastic following twenty years ago. When a recent convalescence allowed me to retrace her steps via YouTube, she reminded me of some vital principles of writing as well as the visual arts. For example, she noted that a masterpiece focuses our attention on things that the artist loves intensely. Then she observed, “Art only works when it comes from love.”

Indeed it does. If we pursue our art as an idle hobby or a way to earn extra cash, the result is flat and uninspiring.  But if we write to see the world more keenly and caress it with the fondness of a guileless lover, the result is true romance. Readers want to share that with us.

It's easy to lose sight of the romance of our work, but we can cultivate this attitude with deliberate care over time. Mull over a scene slowly and carefully, like a landscape painter choosing palette colors. Study the facial features of a character with anticipation, like a mother peering at a babe in a blanket. See not only who the character is, but what sort of person the character has been and might become.

Readers sense when we are doing this. They recognize when we are writing as lovers, even though we must describe some distasteful aspects of our beloved.

Love makes the difference between art and artifice. So how do you want to write today?

Joe Allison has been a member of the Indiana chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers since 2010. He lives in Anderson, IN. His non-fiction books include Setting Goals That Count and Swords and Whetstones.

The Color of Shadows

Monet's Saint-Lazare Station

“So what color is Aubrey’s top?”

My junior high creative writing students answer in chorus. “Blue!”

“All right. But what kind of blue? What shade?”

“Dark.”

“Fine. What shade of dark? Blueberry? Midnight? Cobalt? Indigo? Slate? Royal? Lavender blue, dilly-dilly?” At this point, their eyes fix on Aubrey’s shirt. Some squint. Like an Impressionist, they peer through lashes to blur the edges and get a general sense of the color. “Or are they the shade of your brother’s eyes when he discovers that you have ransacked his room again, violating his clear directive to stay out?”

Why would I press them so?

It's not what you look at that matters. It's what you see.

~Henry David Thoreau

On another morning, we went out to look into the grass. Droplets of dew still clung precariously from the tip of each blade. They lay down on trash bags, tummy earthward, and peered among the leaves of grass. "Write all that you see," I adjured them. "And see what you cannot see when you're standing." After about twenty minutes, some began to whine. "I've written about all there is to write about?"
"Really? Have you really? Then look closer. There's a diminutive garden down there. Look. See it? How does it feel? The earth is damp; how does it smell?"

If you look at a thing 999 times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it for the 1000th time, you are in danger of seeing it for the first time. ~ G.K.Chesterton

The next day they examined a dead fish, a rainbow trout, to be exact--head still attached. After the girls got over being squeamish and the boys were done trying to think of things to say to incite groans from the stoutest among their fellows, they examined the fish from every conceivable angle.
Forty minutes later, as they were leaving for their next class, some asked, "What are we doing tomorrow, Ms. Clifton?"
"I think we'll examine a fish . . ."
"Again?"
". . . on the inside." More groans.
What motive could I possibly have to torture them so with the carcass of a pitiable fish?

Look, look, look, look, look! ~ Richard Halliday

One who returns to a place sees it with new eyes. Although the place may not have changed, the viewer inevitably has. For the first time things invisible before become suddenly visible.
~ Louis L'Amour

I want to awaken them to their world. I want them to truly see--what is, what almost isn't, and what could be.

No shadow is black. It always has a color. Nature knows only color . . .
~ Pierre-Auguste Renoir


Writers can learn much from visual artists. My younger daughter, who has two art degrees (illustration and photography), taught me a few things about painting that so easily apply to writing, also.

It's fun to go shopping with her because she puts colors and patterns together in ways that never would occur to me. Her artist's eye pairs them up for stunning effect. She sees the colors that went to make the colors, and she knows what will complement.

To the artist, gray isn't simply gray. It is white with the merest touch of black. It is a warm gray, with some yellow or red mingled in. Or a cool gray with the faintest blue undertone. The artist works diligently to arrive at the perfect color mix. Should the literary artist be less precise?

The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind couldn't detect.

~Mark Twain

My daughter also taught me that shadows are not simply gray, that they have color. I still practice at seeing that color, but I'm learning. I want to write with the clarity and precision of an artist's careful eye.
Our gracious Lord gave us five senses with which to experience our world. May we use them to the full to communicate Him through our words.

Seeing is of course very much a matter of verbalization. ~ Annie Dillard

Note: Back in my college days, we read Annie Dillard's essay "Seeing." I recommend it highly.

Write on!
Because of Christ,
Sharon Kirk Clifton

Resource: Color list