Fishing in the Stream of Consciousness
a technique every writer can use to get to the heart of what matters most
I’m a playwright by trade.
What feels most comfortable to me as a writer are a bunch of talking heads, blathering away on stage, spouting off whatever comes into their minds without dreaming of the consequences. A slip of the tongue and suddenly — drama!
It’s amazing what comes to the surface when we simply let ourselves talk uninhibited. We’ve all experienced it: sitting with our best friend, hands wrapped around a warm mug of coffee, chattering on about whatever comes to mind and letting ourselves be… well, ourselves.
There’s no fear of ridicule, no fear of striking a sore nerve. It’s just you and your best friend and enough memories and conversation to keep you warm for an entire afternoon.
Now, here’s a thought.
What if we had the same kind of relationship with our creative mind?
Introducing: the Stream of Consciousness
If you’re a writer, you’ve likely heard the term “stream-of-consciousness” bandied around the literary world. It’s oftentimes used to describe a technique wherein the narrator’s thoughts and feelings flow freely, uninterrupted by traditional form.
You know the literary heavyweights who popularized it, as they are studied in English literature classes across the world: Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, and most famously, James Joyce with his herculean Ulysses.
Virginia Woolf explains the technique in an essay entitled “Modern Fiction”:
Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness.
Disconnected and incoherent. Not exactly what we’re going for with our writing, at least, not on purpose.
But where there is chaos, truth lurks just beneath the surface.
Our brains are smarter than we think.
Gone Fishing (for Deeper Meaning)
Reading stream-of-consciousness can be daunting. It often looks as though the writer plucked whatever words were within arm’s reach and dropped them onto the manuscript, intelligibility be damned.
Metaphors mix and morph, allusions are made but never explained. Characters talk over one another in a cacophony of voices. It can be hard to read, and even harder to fully understand.
But in the midst of such raging language is a sense of deep and abiding truth.
Again, Virginia Woolf:
They attempt to come closer to life, and to preserve more sincerely and exactly what interests and moves them, she says of those who skillfully wield the technique, even if to do so they must discard most of the conventions which are commonly observed by the novelist.
The truth. Isn’t that what we writers chase, word after word, page after page?
They say the truth will set you free…
…and indeed it will, if you give it space to breathe.
Writing is hard. We all know that to be true. As easy as placing a word after a word after a word sounds, it is one of the noblest and most disheartening tasks ever conceived by man.
Part of the problem is our inner editor. It is nearly impossible to get substantial writing done when there’s a little voice in the back of our heads yelling,
What? Why? How? Stop being so emotional, it’s embarrassing. You’re using the same words over and over, mix it up a little! Who gave you the right to be a writer when you clearly have nothing to say? It’s insanity, you must be insane!
The point of stream-of-consciousness is to squash that little guy in the dust — or at least send him packing for the duration of your writing session.
How to Implement the Technique, or: Shall We Gather at the Stream (of Consciousness)
Writing in this style couldn’t be easier or more natural: simply grab your pencil or your keyboard and let the words flow. And I mean, really let them flow. Don’t stop for even a second to see how you’re doing. It’ll feel strange, and you might think you’re producing what amounts to a pile of rubbish, but just keep going. Keep going. For five minutes, just write.
Doesn’t it feel kinda good?
Now, look back on what you’ve written. Don’t judge. Don’t scrutinize. Just look at the words you’ve produced. If you’re writing fiction, have you discovered anything new about your characters? Did a secret that even you didn’t know they were keeping slip to the surface? How about the plot? Do you feel its foundations shifting?
Non-fiction writers: can you see the heart of the matter more clearly now? Are you beginning to see connections you never noticed before? Is a theme starting to arise in your work?
Above all, didn’t it feel glorious to just write for five minutes and not care what came out in ink? Didn’t it feel wonderful to know that there would be heart in what you wrote, regardless of how it turned out, because you wrote it and you have so many meaningful and fascinating things to tell the world?
Write, Edit, Repeat
Stream-of-consciousness is a powerful tool for unlocking doors we didn’t even know existed in our minds. It’s like opening a floodgate.
Such writing can be incoherent and disorienting. It might not make any sense at all on the surface. You don’t have to keep it this way, if it isn’t your style: once it’s written, let your little inner editor go to town.
But keep the truth. Don’t erase the raw creativity that you unleashed on the page simply by letting yourself be. It will shine through your writing, as the heart of the matter always does.
Let the world see the spark that flickers inside you. For some readers, it will be the light they’ve been waiting to see by their entire lives.
