The act of writing is fairly accessible; it isn’t hard to acquire a pen and a pad.
Making writing into something visceral—drawing/cajoling/enticing/choke-slamming your reader into a whirlwind tour of your crazy-ass mind—that’s something else entirely.
The pen is usually out of ink. While the pad has someone elses logo on it prompting me to write something about why I took it from that hotel, whose pens didn’t work, but I end up recommending it to those I know! “What was the best part of your visit, they’d ask?”. I’d reply: Memories that didn’t need to be written down, and a pad of paper to remember that the next time that I felt the need to write something down! Everyone clapped when they read what I wrote, just not with that pen, and not on that pad, but it was memorable anyway, they said. I’d like all of that etched on my headstone someday, just with a chisel that isn’t as dull as this comment……
Okay that’s only half the post. The other half is supposed to be where you tell us what to do to make is visceral. However, I give you much credit. Many others who did write the second half failed to explain the process, and thus left the reader frustrated and feeling ripped off. Thanks Club Man for your honest non-divulging of the Real Way to Write Viscerally.
Ha! There’s no real answer to that aside from trial and error. If I wrote in a way that was visceral to people a thousand years ago, it wouldn’t play today, in all likelihood. And my stuff probably won’t hold up in a thousand years, so the visceral stuff is where the “art” part of writing really comes into play. 🙂
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You know you’re so right. I was reading Big Two-Hearted River by Hemingway yesterday and I thought I don’t know how the story hit people so deeply… These fishing experiences he describes were clearly familiar to them in a way they aren’t to me, and must have meant things to them they don’t mean to me.
I personally was never excited to read or see Harry Potter, so yeah, there’s definitely some guesswork involved. I think Jungian archetypes and a hero’s journey are pretty prevalent in peoples’ psyche, though. 🙂
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Well said! Also, thank you for reading my article as I am fairly new at this and have a long way ahead of me :).
Kent Wayne 
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