A Sketch, Not a Plan: Borrowing from Other Mediums of Creative Expression
sketch by Howard J
From Barnstorm nonfiction reader Mason Cashman:
It took me a while to accept that drawing is not my medium.
That is to say, the crafting of a visual image using something like graphite or the like is not my most articulate means for expressing what I develop in my head. Plowing through my sketchbooks – and the reams of spare copy paper (with the perforated sheets and strips of holes on the sides) that my father took home from work – I would scrawl out dozens of sketches for a specific image or illustration before attempting the more time-consuming, and usually more resource-sapping, final piece. Though I almost always found myself near-debilitatingly frustrated by the distance between what is in my head and what results on the page, sketching before final execution helped me to close that gap. But whether or not due to this frustration, I moved on to other mediums.
In her recent article for Lit Hub, Aimee Bender opens with an anecdote of her friend's expression of that same frustration, albeit with writing. Bender’s article centers around embracing "writing without a plan," such as without an outline or intended plot sequence. She emphasizes how there is sometimes relief in accepting that we cannot exactly replicate what's in the mind's eye via words on paper.
In reading Bender's musings, I had to jot down her linchpin quote from novelist Iris Murdoch: "Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.”
Simple yet evocative, Murdoch's expression of letting go of that plan — your mind’s eye’s “perfect idea” of a story — provided me with romantic notions of freeform essays and lyrical effervescence, but also a pang of doubtful disagreement.
And where else would this quote land but in my sketchbook.
Though I've now found writing as my primary expressive medium, both my family's storytelling practices and my own artistic pursuits keep me coming back to the process of sketching. But now, I use words.
**
Writing appeared to me through the process of receiving and learning to retell family stories. My grandmother was our family's storyteller, an archivist of family history and legend, and she taught me, while I listened on her knee, about the power and value of delivering a message the right way.
With my small shaky hands, I took this to mean recording what I see and hear in order to deliver the truth – whatever "truth" may mean.
In time, "truth" expanded from just the factual to the emotional, too. My notes on my grandmother's stories — scribbled while I listened intently or smashed into my phone's notes app during our last few visits before her recent passing — got me closer to the core of her storytelling lessons.
My grandmother was a fervent letter writer, a joyous thank-you-note mailer, and a dedicated orator of details we never knew we wanted to know. Through this, her storytelling practice often emphasized the importance of knowing your tone, empathizing with your audience, and pacing your delivery of critical information. As I filled pages of notes on her stories (most of which are sadly lost to time and childhood naivete in the face of impermanence), my scratchy jotting gradually reflected my own gravitation towards the emotional throughlines of stories, rather than their physical happenings.
I later came to realize that this was the origin of the first step in my present writing practice: I was sketching out stories based on their emotional cause and effect, critical character interactions, movement and location, and intended resonance.
That point of disagreement with the Bender's employment of Murdoch's line, consequently, struck one of my grandmother's lessons head-on:
Go in with a plan, as going without is often more difficult than it's worth, but be flexible in the delivery.
Bender does acknowledge that her encouragement to write without a plan is not for everyone, and notes multiple prolific authors who write from an outline, a roadmap, or a solid picture already in their head.
I've come to accept that my current process - "sketching" if you will - sits somewhere in the middle of this, almost halfway between wandering through the wooded clearings at daybreak and following Google Maps directions to that regretfully visited new barber shop.
More directly, a sketch is not an outline or a solid plan. It is simply an attempt at roughly placing on the page an approximation of the mind's eye's "perfect idea" of a story, the one that just prompted you to sit down to write.
With that rough sketch - and I do mean rough, as this is before a first draft and doesn't even have to be full sentences or complete words - you can then begin working at honing the idea’s delivery. Where an outline or roadmap calls for nearly step-by-step following of the presented plan, a sketch gives guidelines while encouraging you to modify and develop the piece's structural and emotional delivery as a fuller draft is put onto the page.
**
Justifiably, you might be asking why any of this matters. To answer that, I'll encourage you to try something: approach this idea from the angle of writing as art. Artists of all practices borrow techniques and methods from artists of all other mediums. We as writers can and should do this as well. Consider any other means of creative expression that you have undertaken, past or present, and the processes by which you did it. Drawing, painting, dance, photography, horticulture, cosmetology, carpentry, any expressive pursuit.
What processes come to mind? Is it something to do with tracking emotional expression through movement? Maybe trimming a line from a story and grafting it elsewhere? Or to borrow from Anne Lamott, possibly focusing only on what is within your 1-inch frame?
These processes are rife with opportunity to pluck methods for your writing practice. In doing so, we find ourselves bringing fresh approaches and perspectives to our stories and their deliveries.
An ever-resonant storytelling lesson from my grandmother comes from her own means of creative expression, which she also taught me: baking.
If you know a process works, trust it and follow it. But that should never keep you from trying something new.
For the sake of example, here is my initial sketch of this essay:
Sketching process / Bender LH article / Mem’s lessons on story
*Drawing is not my medium
ref to - Aimee Bender on Lit Hub about "writing without a plan"
- Murdoch "wreck of a perfect idea" - agree and disagree. Why?
>>Frustration with drawing as disconnect between desire and end result.
!Yes part of that is skill and honing the craft, but part if finding which craft and which methods of that craft best fit your intended outcomes. [don’t outright state?]
SKETCHING: Define? I still sketch but now with words.
-Possible origin line of this practice: Memere as storyteller - listening, "truth" - note taking to be sure I remembered correctly. - Notes effectively became outlines of her stories, ergo our family's legends.
>>Over time, notes shortened - my own shorthand? q if ID on self docs. Done while listening, and after the fact to detail out.
>>>Realized notes got shorter - mini outlines emph emotional flow, narrative tension, plot points. Not specific details or refs.
***Epiphany: This is sketching with words. I'm seeing the story as a whole in my head, then placing it roughly into words as vague shapes and forms of narrative, emotion, movement.
-Murdoch does say that some people write from an outline, but encourages all to try going without one sometimes.
>>Sketches become basis or inspirations for full pieces, not an outline or roadmap.
--> not often write on top of the sketch, but take it as a first-thoughts-out on the concept. - stories/essays can bend and change as they flesh out, but the sketch is there to help me keep some guardrails and direction.
!Why does this matter?
A) value in learning from other expressive practices
B) Many of us as writers have past creative or expressive pursuits that inform our approach to putting down words – Encourage to work at understanding how for self
C) "sketching" out what’s in Mind's Eye as that Perfect Story Idea can help circle back to it, refine it as you go - no need to write or outline the whole thing at once.
Mason Cashman is a nonfiction reader for Barnstorm Journal. He's a writer and photographer, current MFA candidate in Creative Nonfiction Writing at the University of New Hampshire, enthusiastic family history archivist, and frequent procrasti-baker. He studied multimedia journalism at Emmanuel College of Boston and Bauhaus University of Weimar, Germany.