As Eye See It

As eye see it

The French impressionist painter Claude Monet said, “To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.”

This may be the single most useful suggestion for anyone trying to learn how to paint or draw. In order to reproduce the appearance of something, it is important not to have any preconceived ideas about what the thing should look like.

When most children are asked to draw a house, they produce a square with a triangle on top and finish up with a door in the center flanked by two symmetrically placed windows. This image is the child’s symbol for a house. It makes no difference what house they are drawing; this symbol will always be their result.

Art teachers tell their students that they must see lines and shapes. Beginning artists are intimidated by the prospect of having to draw a mouth or an eye. It is more manageable and possible to reproduce the lines that make up the thing you are trying to draw than thinking about the thing itself.

I don’t think this idea of leaving preconceptions behind is only valuable in the visual arts. If a musician is trying to write an interesting rock and roll song, it would be helpful not to start with a slavish adherence to the words and structure of “Johnny be good”.

The greatest artists come up with new ideas that aren’t mere restating of previous work. In the Beatles’ catalogue, songs like “Back in the USSR” and “Get Back” are interesting exceptions. They are rare examples where the band used stock structure for a song.

So how can we use the idea of staying away from symbols in the work of writing?

I think there are two ways that writing can be guilty of overuse of symbols. The first is to mindlessly copy the style of another writer and the second is the use of clichés.

It is important for writers to read. We don’t write in a vacuum. The more we read the work of great authors, the more inspiration we will have for our own work.

Perhaps the trick is to read widely. Don’t limit yourself to one genre or style of writing and don’t obsessively stick to one writer. If you are do thrillers and all you read is James Patterson, there is a good chance that you will end up sounding very much like James Patterson.

There are writers that inspire me to the point that I would like to be able to write books something like what they produce. However, it is important that I don’t take so much from my heroes that I start to sound like them.

I admire the work of Haruki Murakami and I’d love to write something as strange as his books, but I hope that I never come up with anything that anyone would mistake for a Murakami book. Musicians and painters don’t aim to produce work that is just like the Rolling Stones or Vincent Van Goh.

The second problem of avoiding cliché can be helped with an attitude like Monet expressed. When we decide to write about something, it might be helpful to see the world as a Martian would. A sense that everything is new and filled with delightful mystery is a useful attitude for writers.

If we can look at the world and think what a strange and wonderful place it is, our excitement about the things around us may shine through our work. If we can see the people and places of our stories with innocent eyes, there is a good chance we will create something interesting and original.