Oblique strategies, for musicians– and for writers
Brian Eno and his collaborator Peter Schmidt created a deck of cards. Each one had a phrase, intended to get a brainlocked musician off his butt and back in process– crucial, when one is staring at a mixing board in a bigtime studio with the money clock ticking away like a dommsday device.
They were called the Oblique Strategies.
Lately, I have had the same feeling, in my writing. it isn’t the inspiration, it’s the process– the choosing of words, the craft of the damn thing. Too many choices, too much new knowlege. It is all jammed up in my brain, trying to get out all at once!
And I have a desire to create some sort of real artifact, so I have begun a set of writer’s oblique strategies. These will be something you can grab when you’re in a dilemma or fog, wondering which fucking way to go. Something tangible (although we can make them into a flash program as well– easypeasy– to hold in your sweaty little hand.
These will be printed onto your basic avery business card stock, and I might add something visual and cool to look at on the back. I’ll distribute the PDFs free of copyright. Here is my first draft, and I want input and suggestions. short quotes from writers, rewordings if you feel like it– and signal boost, please!
- Go Non-Linear.
- Genius Is Expansive; Edit To One-Third.
- Look At It From The Outsiderʼs Point Of View.
- Stealing Is Good.
- Work From The Middle Distance.
- Unreliable Narrator Or, Someone Is Lying.
- Refresh The Beginning.
- Close In To The Point Of Claustrophobia.
- Donʼt Be Afraid Of Cliches. ~ Eno
- Find The Emptiness In The Center.
- Fine Tune The Context.
- Destiny Equals Necessity. Necessity Does Not Equal Destiny.
- Change Character Roles. What Else Changes?
- Think Cosmologically.
- Start Again, Two Elements Back.
- Cultivate Mystery.
- Reverse The Result.
- Straighten The Edge.
- Hide The Edge.
- Flip Expectations.
- Listen To Your Heart.
- Heroism Versus Realism.
- Magnify A Difficulty.
- Identify Isolated, Missing, Or Resisted Elements.
- Find Comfort.
- Go About It Mechanically.
- Flourishes; Baroque Or Arabesque
- Transitions, Stages, Levels.
- Parallel Perspectives.
- Process Is One Of The Thou- Sand Names Of God.
- Consider Musical Forms.
- Balance The Stresses, Contour The Tones.
- Stop. Leave. Dig In Your Heels.
- Wherefore Art Thou That Which Thou Art?
- Tell, Instead Of Show. Then, Show What You’ve Told.
- Go About It Mechanically.
- Remove One Element.
- The Dictionary.
- Reinvent The Wheel.
- Approach The Chaotic Edge.
- More Tangents!
- How Would Your Enemy Approach It?
- Group Divergent Streams / Voices / Themes.
- Prove The Argument, If You Can.
- Emphasise Difference.
- Consider Poetry.
- Map The Unimportant Or Merely Ambient Details.
- Choose Your Words.
- Explicate The Problem As A Simple Dramatic Narrative.
- Desire Approaches The Idea Of An Object, Not The Object Itself.
- Rethink The Objective.
- Write In A New Voice.
- Fuck With The Harmonies
- Amplify Or Telescope The Weaknesses.
- Credibility Check.
- Introduce, And Echo.
- Extravagance.
- Falsify Etymology (Rewrite The Source)
- Introduce An External Narrative, Style, Voice Etc.
- Work A Point Ad Absurdum, Then Draw It Back.
- Explain It To A Minor Or Main Character.
- Eschew Irony
- Add Addendums
- Struggle Ineffectivly.
- Change The Surrounds.
- Less Words, More Spaces.
- Replace The Maguffin.
- Every Idea Has Its Corollary And Opposite.
- Destiny Is The Only (Or Ultimate) Myth.
- Consider The Centre Of This Perspective Or World.
- Mindful?
- Written Oratory. (The Voice!)
- We Are Learning To Make Fire. ~Margaret Atwood
- Breathing Is The Original Rhythm.
- Blow Something Up.
- Subtract.
- Adopt The Reader’s Perspective.
- Explicate Difference.
- Sentimentality Disguised As Honesty.
- The Physical Metaphor.
- Authorial Intimacy / Distance.
- Linked Sections Or Chinese
- Boxes?
- Brick By Brick.
- Remember How Basslines Function.
- Who Is The ‘Fairy Godmother’ Here?
- Drop The Matter And Work On What You Really Want.
- Humanise Perfection.
- Everything Is True In Its Own Relationship, But No Further.
- Cruelty Disguised As Honesty.
- Lenses (How Do You See?)
- Listening Is A Magnetic Thing.
- The Persistence Of An Ocean Liner, Plowing Its Way Through Endless Seas.
- Repetition
- Work In A Different Media.
- How Does Complexity Form? … Think Patterns.
- Grammar Check.
- An Important Question To Ask Is ‘What Wouldn’t You Do?’ ~Eno
- The Thesaurus.
- What Is Outside The Window?
- Imply Ambiences Or Energies.
- Consult Another Text.
Anything you hate, love, want to add, or replace? I would like to have 120 of them, maybe?
http://dharma-slut.dreamwidth.org/91427.html | comments | Comment at Dreamwidth
I don’t publish or post any written work. I do however write, always have done. One thing I use, when stuck in that place, is a “mind-map” from the center or core idea out. Anything which comes to mind goes down, whether already included in the writing or not, down it goes, until I am dry.
I don’t look at it again for a few days. It can be interesting what then strikes me and suddenly seems so clear.
I have a co-writing project, and we are in the process of retconning a lot of the earlier chapters because of the things that one or the other of us wrote, almost accidently, that made it all clear!
I think some of these aphorisms approach your technique; How Does Complexity Form? … Think Patterns. (maybe I should change that to “think snowflakes?”)
approach the chaotic edge.
Linked Sections Or Chinese Boxes?
Sorry for the delay in replying.
The terms you note are not known to me though they may be similar to mind mapping.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
I have to say, mine are rarely as complex as the one shown in the link but it gives you the general idea.
The Bad Guy takes the Chessboard and Turns It Around
Recheck the Focus on that Point of View Camera
Close Your Eyes and Consider All the Other Senses
Think of Multiple Things Characters Can Show You At Once
Consider the Loops Left Hanging Out on the Edges, Unexplained
Defend Kindness and Generosity
Oooh, good ones!
This one is going right in;
“Close Your Eyes and Consider All the Other Senses”
Discussion;
“The Bad Guy takes the Chessboard and Turns It Around”
I have two that are similar; “reverse the result” and Flip Expectations” both inspired by Mary Catelli’s recent post– are they close to what you mean?
“Recheck the Focus on that Point of View Camera”
I have a handful so far, dealing with POV– get closer, back up, look at the center, look at the edges…
“Think of Multiple Things Characters Can Show You At Once”
I like that– on of those things that can’t be said too often, huh?(Well, I probably say it too often…*_^)
“Consider the Loops Left Hanging Out on the Edges, Unexplained” gotta get taht one more concise. Soundbites, baby!
“Defend Kindness and Generosity” isn’t always the right advice for a narrative. For instance, keisha has no time for kindness and generosity– until she learns to trust. So maybe– “defend or defy kindness and generosity”
(I wrote “Find comfort” in much the same spirit)
Re: Oooh, good ones!
1) turn the chessboard around–no, not reverse expectations, although that is also useful. In calculating plotline, it is very useful to flip things around and consider the existing board from the POV of the bad guy as if he were the hero. If you were telling his story, and you wanted him to win, what would you have him do next? Not what is *handy* for the official hero, but what is the best, smartest thing for the villain to do? It may not be the showy thing, or the thing which will allow the hero to flex his thews or something, but what’s going to make you respect the bad guy as a person with his own rules and ambitions? The more damned awkward he is for the hero, the more you respect him, then the more it’s worth something to overcome his Evol Plans, and the hero has earned your respect as a reader.
2) Checking that focus is reading for continuity of focus, checking where the POV is going as an editorial concern in its own right. Too many people *claim* they’re doing tight POV focus, right off the hero’s shoulder, but they’re sloppy about it and let the thing zoom all over. Oh look, he couldn’t possibly have overheard that conversation with Susan, your plot falls apart! So checking that the focus stays where it belongs is important there. But in omniscient POV, it’s even more important to be careful where you’re aiming that thing. Continuity in film-making, man.
3) Multiple things is stuff like what objects the character fiddles with while struggling to talk about something, what’s outside the window when they’re thinking about something else–world-building or set-building. It’s also about back-story for a chara. When a guy starts idly shaving callouses off his knuckles with a bowie knife–you know how the damn callouses start cracking and bleeding when they dry out, damn annoying to leave a blood trail–that tells you something quite different from a nervous showgirl trimming her nails with tiny scissors.
4) Loops are strange little details, like hints left hanging out, awaiting hookup with some other story bit that you don’t have yet. Why did so and so do that? Why are they fond of cinnamon? Why do they smell of honey and oil? And so on. I’m not thinking of anything better than, “Look for the Loopy Bits,” which really doesn’t explain itself.
5) Defend Kindness is at a broader scale in the story than any one chara or set of them. Given a decision point, the heroine taking the mean choice, the petty choice, will turn off a reader. “Defending competitiveness” in a lot of stories is about one-upping, out-shouting, proving how powerful a chara might be. An awful lot of “powerful family dynastic stories” try to do this–me and my pack of brothers can beat up your ratpack of brothers, and here’s how we do it. I find it a great turnoff. It’s much more fun to see a chara figure out a way to be positive and help out other people without also killing themselves/playing martyr. This idea would work if you restated “Find Comfort” not so much as the chara seeking it, but the chara offering comfort.
You’ve got two “Go about it mechanically”s there. (Which is good advice, but maybe not twice.”
One that often gets me unstuck is “Stop caring so much”, or “Just make stuff up”. You can get stuck looking for the absolute right thing, and it can help to put something approximate in for now just to get you moving again. (You can edit it later to put the more perfect thing in then.)
random commenter
ha, funny you mention that the cards are for musicians and song writer, we use them in theatre rehearsals all of the time :0)
Re: random commenter
yeah, I guess they would work perfectly for that– maybe for any performance art. Choreography?
Re: random commenter
definitely, they are pretty nifty :0)
Other suggestions
“The Time Is Now!”
Throw in something that you intended to do at some point — at this point.
“How about Whats-His-Face?”
Change POV.
Eno’s shadow is a form of it’s own “light” at times.
And have added you because I like your style. So- here’s my hopefully useful or at least amusing try at adding to your project.
I followed you here from Samantha’s
“Read the dialog aloud as if you ARE the character”
That’s a phase variant of character “voicing” concepts which has helped me in walking thru Retconning, let alone first drafts. POV can be expanded by getting vocal- at least it’s worked for me.
The next step beyond is to invert that semantic-
“Envision yourself as the character *HEARING* that bit of dialog”
There’s an old joke which captures the above Strategy tool.
Q- What ruins a night, let alone your life worse than saying the wrong name whilst making love?
A- HEARING the wrong name whilst making love.
Oh, almost forgot to give the multiplier upon that joke’s meme- it’s truly Gender/speaker agnostic! Any combinatorial of participants in a moment’s lovemaking can be in either aspect. Which makes it a truly awesome literary tool for random tangents- or showing how forgiving lifemated souls can be in a story. IRL- I rather suspect it would be not so easily handled eh?
Re: Eno’s shadow is a form of it’s own “light” at times.
Those are good, thanks! and– glad to have you here
“Read it aloud” is almost always a writer’s tool, IMO.