Material from the imagination

EXPRESSION OF IDEAS FURNISHED BY IMAGINATION

Advantages and Disadvantages of Imaginative Writing. Ideas furnished by the imagination are no less your own than are those furnished by experience, and the same freedom in the choice of language prevails. Such ideas are, however, not likely to be so clear and definite. At the time of their occurrence they do not make so deep and vital an impression upon you. If not recorded as they occur, they can seldom be recalled in the original form. Even though you attempt to write these imaginary ideas as you think them, you can and do change and modify them as you go along. This lack of clearness and permanent form, while it seems to give greater freedom, carries with it disadvantages. In the first place the ideas are less likely to be worth recording, and in the second place it is more difficult to give them a unity and directness of statement that will hold the attention and interest of the reader until the chief point is reached.

An imaginative series of events may conform closely to the real and probable, or it may be manifestly improbable. Which will be of greater interest will depend upon the reader. In relating fairy tales we tell events not possible in the real world, but in relating tales of real life, however imaginary, we should tell the events so that everything seems both possible and probable. An imaginative story, in which the persons seem to be real persons who do and say the things that real persons do and say, will be found much more satisfactory than a story that depends for its outcome on something manifestly impossible. He who really does the best in imaginative writing is the one who has most closely observed the real events of everyday life, and states his imaginary events so that they seem real.

Ideas from Pictures

Improbability

Write a short story, using one of the subjects below. You need not tell something that actually happened, but what you tell should be so told that your readers will think it might have happened. 1.	A trip in a sailboat.

2.	The travels of a penny.

3.	How I was lost.

4.	A cat’s account of a mouse hunt.

5.	The mouse’s account of the same hunt.

6.	My experience with a burglar.

7.	The burglar’s story.