Unlocking Hidden Creativity: The Role of Passive Inspiration in Writing
If you've studied the writing process before you are probably familiar with the "steps" of the writing process: prewrite, plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish. Inspiration is a major part of the prewrite stage of writing, often the action that triggers writing to occur in the first place.
If that inspiration is active, it's when we are searching for prompts in the form of generators, pictures, questions, golden lines -- basically anything to aid in getting our writing started.
If that inspiration is passive, it's when we are simply living life and absorbing those elements for a later piece of writing. The aspect of passive inspiration I find so fascinating is that it can sometimes be so passive that we don't even realize we are being inspired until well after the fact.
Take for example my recent visit to the state of Washington and the area around Seattle. This was actually the second time in my life to visit, the first time being when I was about eight years old.
Looking back on my first visit I can't say I remember explicit details of the trip. I know we took a boat out on the water, that we went up in the Space Needle, that we visited the zoo, that we camped in one of the many parks, and even took a trip to Mt. Saint Helens. It was a unique experience for an eight year old from Arkansas, but as far as I can recall I never actively thought: "Hey, I should write about that time I went to Washington!"
However, Washington would appear in my writing in other ways and I didn't realize it until this second, more recent trip. While visiting, we took a day trip to Mount Rainier and it was there, walking down one of the many nature trails, that I realized I HAD written about this place before. I wasn't just walking a trail in Washington, I was walking along the world of giants I had written into my novel draft in 2020!
I want to stress here that I did not do this purposefully. I didn't think or research Washington at all while I was writing that novel and (as I said) I had only been there once. Once was enough.
As I wandered down this trail, I couldn't help but feel like I was stepping into a world I thought had been purely from my imagination, but was actually a memory from my past. I realized that, without me knowing it, I had been inspired to use the sensations of this place in the real world (towering trees, springy ground, vibrant greens) to inspire a setting in a fictional world (towering giants, less gravity to bounce, vibrant greens).
As teachers and writers, we talk a lot about the drafting process and even pre-writing as a form of research. Write what you know, we are told and probably repeat to our own students. However, it's important to remember the other aspect of pre-writing: living.
Because sometimes, just experiencing the world around us can inspire us in unknown ways.
I'd love to hear if anyone else has experiences with passive inspiration. And if you’re looking for a place with like-minded writers, come join us for a Time to Write workshop and put that passive inspiration to work!
