How Do You Actually Become A Better Writer?
Part 2: Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
This is part 2 of a 3 part series on the practice of learning to write by emulating the brilliant minds that have done it before. If you haven’t yet, read part 1 to get all caught up. It’s okay, it’s short.
Okay, ready? Let’s go. Well, almost. First we need to have a little history lesson.
Wait! Come back!!
When we are all done here, you’re going to pick a short story, scene, or poem to try and emulate yourself. But for our example, we’re going to be working with the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The first thing to know is that Sam was fond of opium. Like, really very fond. What happened with this particular poem is, one day, while sitting in his cottage, he did some opium. Okay, a lot of opium. And when he awoke, there was a brilliant poem, start to finish, just sitting in his brain, waiting to be taken down on paper.
This is clearly ridiculous.
He started frantically writing it down, and managed to scribble 54 lines before a strange visitor from the nearby town of Porlock knocked on his door.
This is completely absurd.
By the time he got rid of this unwelcome visitor, he had completely forgotten the rest of the poem, and had no other choice but to submit the unfinished cliffhanger of a poem to his editor (or whomever) as it was.
This is so obviously preposterous, so absolutely bananas, that it might actually be true. Either way, Coleridge managed to get a half finished poem published while simultaneously creating a literary trope (The Person From Porlock) that still exists and is referenced today. Not bad Sammy, not bad at all.
It also, by chance, gives us the perfect base for our exercise. It’s a relatively short work, unfinished, and written with a mix of rhythm, meter, rhyme, and free-form. That last bit is important; either too much or not enough structure in the work you want to copy will make your job much more difficult.
Even if the writing you choose is finished, it’s helpful to continue the story from the ending point you’ve chosen, whether it’s the piece’s actual end or a random point in the middle. If it’s the latter, try and use something you’ve never read before- it’s going to be much more difficult to be organic and creative if you already know where the author intended to take the story.
Okay, we’re going to look at the actual poem now. Give the whole thing a read through, and then we’ll break it down together.
Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chafly grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And `mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And `mid this tumult KubIa heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight `twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Step 1, done! That was easy. Now, when I was actually working on this project, I read that through maybe 100 times before I was done. We’ll get into all the nitty gritty details in part 3 of this series, but that repeated reading is just as important of a step in the process.
If figuring out line length and rhyme scheme are learning the notes of a song, reading the sheet music, then reading and re-reading your chosen piece are listening to the song being played, feeling the emotion. Is it longing? Happiness? Angst? In writing as in music, there is no wrong answer here. If the song or poem or story sounds melancholy to you, then it’s melancholy. It’s not important which emotions and tones you decide on, as long as you carry that through into your own writing.
Coleridge leaves things pretty open ended here; it could be a love poem, an epic adventure, a morality tale, or a story about taking a nap in a field. In fact, he hasn’t really started a story at all, but merely laid out some random scenes. It feels at turns mysterious, romantic, angry, a little sexy, filled with longing, and not a little bit melodramatic. You may get other and entirely different feelings- go with those. I won’t show you where I took it yet, in case you decide to use this piece yourself when we’re done.
In some ways this makes things easy, because we can go literally anywhere. But that type of freedom can also be overwhelming. Either way, if you find yourself constricted or overwhelmed by the piece you’ve chosen, it’s okay to recognize that and pick something else. You can always come back to it for your 2nd, 3rd, or 97th attempt.
