For various reasons, I’ve been spending a lot of time just recently thinking about restriction - both in life and in writing. When we sit down and contemplate the blank page, the possibilities ahead of us are endless. We can write a story about a man called Fred. We can write a story about a time-travelling squirrel. Our story can be set in the real world or it can be set in a fantastical universe where rivers flow backwards and chocolates grow on trees. The time period could be 1805. Or the time period could be 3067. In our stories, we can do parachute jumps and talk with animals and solve quadratic equations. This limitless number of possibilities is very exciting. But what I’ve been thinking about over the past month or so is whether it also creates a problem. There is too much choice.
Paradoxically, constraints are liberating. I am terrified by the freedoms of choice -- for example the menus of an Indian or Chinese restaurant. Give me a set menu any day. I can write unfashionable formal verse limericks, sonnets, etc - but not the kind of free poetry more accepted today. The last stanza of a published poem ("Freedom in Captivity) by the little-known writer David Lewis puts it thus: "In writing poems, sonnet forms / Like all prosodic rules and norms /
Do never tie: they liberate / Allow us, bounded, to create."
The challenge of meeting constraints (finding a rhyme, a rhythm, a line with a specific number of syllables or beats ...) pushes writers into pursuing ideas and avenues they would otherwise have ignored. What is true for formal poetry is just as true for flash and micro fiction.
Paradoxically, constraints are liberating. I am terrified by the freedoms of choice -- for example the menus of an Indian or Chinese restaurant. Give me a set menu any day. I can write unfashionable formal verse limericks, sonnets, etc - but not the kind of free poetry more accepted today. The last stanza of a published poem ("Freedom in Captivity) by the little-known writer David Lewis puts it thus: "In writing poems, sonnet forms / Like all prosodic rules and norms /
Do never tie: they liberate / Allow us, bounded, to create."
The challenge of meeting constraints (finding a rhyme, a rhythm, a line with a specific number of syllables or beats ...) pushes writers into pursuing ideas and avenues they would otherwise have ignored. What is true for formal poetry is just as true for flash and micro fiction.
Great post, Matt! And time-travelling squirrels? Love the idea! :))