“In the beginning was the Word.”
Go back far enough in time, the branches of human inquiry—art, religion, science, philosophy—start to merge. They collapse into a single, unanswerable question tied up with the notion of origin. And at the bedrock of all of them—I am convinced—is Narrative.
The “Word” is a translation of the Greek Logos—historically understood as ‘the controlling principle of the universe.’ So, in the beginning was the logic. The intelligence. The organization of what is, and what will be.
Put another way, in the beginning was the Narrative.
Why does this matter to the writer?
Because writing isn’t simply a matter of putting words on paper or computer screen. Writing is, I’ll argue, a process of divination and the writer, by vocation, is a magician.
Witchy? Yes, it is. Because writing is the dark art of ordering the invisible and making the unconscious conscious. Just like magic, writing is the alchemical mastery of transformation, of turning one thing into another.
Three Reminders for the Creative Journey
As you sit down to work on your story, remember to take a moment to move beyond the mechanics of “Plot,” “Character,” and “Theme,” and remember these three things:
- Engage the Impulse: You are tapping into the most basic and profound human impulse. You aren’t just writing a book; you are tapping into the bedrock of the psyche.
- Order the Invisible: Your task is to comprehend the process by which something undergoes a change, by which it transforms from one thing into another. You are an architect of the invisible.
- Writing Starts Before Words: Your story doesn’t begin with a character name or a setting. It begins with narrative—with the creative principle governing your story.
A caution that my next post leans further into witchy territory and endeavors to make the argument that it is more helpful to conceive of writing as magic than as art.
Finally, note that this post is adapted from a video I made some time ago. If interested, you can watch it here.