The Creative Mind (Part Three)

We're looking at psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly's thoughts on Creativity...and how creative individuals transcend the boundaries of personality...The importance of being both/and...

Csikszentmihaly's second polarity is: Naive and Smart.

Or, to put it in cognitive psychology parlance: Divergent and Convergent thinking.

Divergent thinking is fluid. Flexible. Wandering down rabbit trails and making connections where none existed before. "Naive" in the sense that you're blissfully unaware of The Rules....so you're free to color outside the lines. Exploration and Curiosity.

Convergent thinking is the kind measured by standard IQ tests, and correlates with how well you do in academic settings. It's about rational judgment, logic, and evaluating ideas.

In writerly terms: First drafts are Divergent thinking. Second (and subsequent) drafts are Convergent thinking.

You have to make space for the Artiste and the Editor living inside your head. And make sure neither one bullies the other.

How's your balance?

(Special Tip: No extra charge....

These concepts can help your credibility as a writer. The next time your significant other/child/relation/friend interrupts your creative groove--or catches you staring off into space--try this: "Not now, please. I'm engaged in Divergent Thinking." They may be awed by your Importance, whisper "sorry," and tiptoe backwards out of the room, closing the door quietly.)

Grief and the Searching Phenomenon

Came across this the other day, and it struck me as something that would make for good dramatization.

A lot of research has been conducted on the grieving process. Most of it in the context of losing a person who is dear to us, but don't forget that we (and our characters) "grieve" other losses as well--pets, jobs, our youth, cherished dreams...

So, what's this Searching Phenomenon?

Bowlby (1961) was one of the early researchers in the field of Death and Dying, and he described the "urge to recover the lost object."

This desperate need to recover what was lost takes many forms, and as fiction writers these are helpful to explore, as they are methods of "showing" grief--as opposed to merely "telling."

In her book, Grief, Dying and Death, Therese Rando outlines some of the ways the searching phenomenon plays out:

1) Physical Restlessness.  It may be difficult for the griever to sit still. She may try to sit, but pop back up quickly, moving from place to place or room to room. While it may appear "aimless," there is an aim--she is "searching" for the one she will never find again. She may physically reach out and touch things, exploring her environment, looking for what is no longer there.

2) A draw towards objects and places.  "Searching" can cause the griever to gravitate towards environmental reminders of the deceased. If you (or your characters) associate a certain room, or a city park, a particular chair or a cherished object (a piece of jewelry, a football, a doll, etc) with the lost one, you will find yourself drawn towards that, "looking" for the person. We recently discussed scents in a series of posts. Clothing, especially clothing that still retains the scent of the departed, can be a powerful emotional magnet. In a heartbreaking sense, the griever is "searching" the empty clothes for the lost one who "should" be inside them, while gaining some sense of comfort from "finding" their scent.

3) The griever may experience the illusion of "seeing" the lost one. For instance, in a crowd, someone with their back turned may spark a reaction.... "It's her!"

4) Impulses to speak to, or do things for, the departed, as if they were still alive.  Examples include picking up the phone intending to call the loved one, or thinking "It's time for John's five o'clock medicine."

5) Calling.  The griever may cry out to the lost one, either vocally or silently. Wanting desperately for them to answer. Think about the way a parent might call out anxiously to a child who had wandered away...Calling a person's name is an instinctual part of searching.

Rondo describes this searching process as a necessary part of the grieving: "It is only by the repeated frustration of these intense longings for the deceased that the finality of death is made real."

Grief is a process of searching, not finding, feeling the emptiness of that failure....and repeating.

Important concepts to keep in mind when your fiction takes you into territories of loss.

references: Bowlby, J., Processes of mourning. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. 1961, 42, 317-340

Grief, Dying, and Death: Clinical Interventions of Caregivers; Therese Rando, Research Press Company, Champaign, IL 1984. 

 

What's That Smell? (Part Four)

One last word on scents (for now), and it involves what we could call: Scent-prints.

Not to get All Technical on you, but I find this fascinating. This knowledge might even win you something on a game show. I don't write a lot of Sci-Fi, but if I did, I'd be all over this concept.

Every biological feature of your body has an unseen, genetic manifestation (the genotype), and an outward, physical manifestation (the phenotype).  If you have brown, curly hair, then you have the invisible code for it (genotype) and the visible manifestation of that code (the hair itself--the phenotype).

Our immune systems are no exception.

A string of over 50 genes, along a single chromosome, contains the programming for our immune systems, and this cluster is called the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC). The really cool thing is, MHC genes are the most unique biological code we know. Identical twins excepted, no one shares their MHC pattern with anyone else on the planet...now or ever.

So the MHC is the invisible set of instructions for your immune system (genotype). Guess what the outward manifestation (phenotype) is?

Your body scent.

Yep. True story. You have a body scent shared by no one. Ever. (Unless you have an identical twin hanging 'round someplace).

Your particular scent is unique to you. And it is the scent of your immune system. (Now that you know this, amaze your friends at your next party.  "Does my immune system smell off to you?")

Here's another interesting factoid: Opposites do attract. In studies, researchers have found that people are more attracted to potential romantic partners that display different MHC-prints from our own. The psychology of attraction is closely linked to the sense of smell, and we tend not to be drawn (romantically) towards close relatives. Biologically, it's because they don't smell differently enough from ourselves to activate attraction.

What families do share, based on similar MHC-prints, is comfort smelling. Mmm...you smell like one of my clan. You smell safe.

For writers:

a) If you write Sci-Fi, use this. It's a big concept, and in the future it will move beyond Science Fiction and become Science Fact. Since each MHC code is unique, it will play a role in detection, security procedures, genetic manipulation, etc. Lots of story ideas there.... Please send royalties.

b) Both men and women report being drawn to items (clothing, in particular) that have the scent-print of their beloveds on them. E.g., sleeping with a husband's shirt when he is away. A nice little detail you might be able to work into a story sometime.

What are your ideas for using personal scents in stories?

reference: The Scent of Desire, by Rachel Herz; 2007 (William Morrow)

What's That Smell? (Part Three)

How do I smell thee? Let me count the ways....

One fascinating area of perceptual research involves the ways in which human being communicate (often subliminally) through the olfactory sense.

That old adage about dogs being able to "smell fear" on us? True. But did you know that humans can also recognize the smell of fear? And of happiness.

A couple of researchers at Rice University in Texas conducted a neat study to prove this: (Chan and Haviland-Jones, 2000).

They asked a group of male and female college students to watch portions of happy and frightening movies, while wearing gauze pads under their armpits. This allowed the researchers to collect samples of Male Happy Sweat, Male Fear Sweat, Female Happy Sweat, and Female Fear Sweat.

When we experience emotions, it changes the biochemical composition of our sweat--when we're afraid, we emit different protein molecules than when we are happy.

Once they had their sweat samples, the researchers recruited a different group of students--male and female--to sniff each sample and try to identify it.

(You gotta love those college students...they'll try anything!)

The results? People were surprisingly good at being able to "sniff out" these differences.

1) The most easily identified scent was Male Fear Sweat. Both male and female "receivers" picked this one up right away.

2) Female "receivers" were equally skillful at identifying happy scents from both male and female donors.

3) Male "receivers" were better at recognizing happy females than frightened females.

Part of our "Intuition" of emotions...particularly female intuition, comes from our ability to a) detect and b) identify chemical differences in the composition of our sweat.

Females (in general) tend to test better on skills of olfactory perception. They're more sensitive and responsive to scents. (This could explain why my wife brought home a package of scented razors not long ago...Marketers are not dummies.) And when you consider how closely the olfaction system is tied to the emotions, this makes sense (scents?).

For Writers to consider:

1) You could show animals in your story identifying and responding to human emotions.
2) Since olfaction is typically secondary to vision in humans, it might be interesting to portray a character (or even a whole race, if you write Sci-Fi) who rely more on smells than the normal human.
3) Science is full of fun, quirky experiments. Consider involving one of your characters in an experiment as a minor/major part of the plot. Michael Gruber's novel The Forgery of Venus, is a good example. When the protagonist (a painter) takes an experimental drug to enhance his creativity, it has unexpected consequences.
4) When describing fear and terror, don't forget the sense of smell. One of Flannery O'Connor's short stories (Wildcat) makes great use of this. The protagonist is blind...and the tension builds as man and animal become aware of each others presence largely through smell.

references: Rachel Herz, 2007; The Scent of Desire (William Morrow)

Chan, D, and Haviland-Jones, J. (2000) Human Olfactory Communication of Emotion. Perception and Motor Skills, 91, 771-781 

What's That Smell? (Part Two)

Continuing with our discussion of how we perceive smells:

It's interesting to learn that smell preferences are not innate.

The easiest way to check this is to study babies--If our likes/dislikes for smells were hard-wired, then newborns and very young children would show the same patterns of preference that adults do, right from the start.

But they don't...

Herz (2007) explains how infants actually show a preference for the smell of feces, but they don't seem bothered by things adults would consider very unpleasant (rancid cheese); conversely, they don't show any particular favoritism for smells that most adults would identify as pleasant (banana).

Herz notes: "It is not until around age eight that children begin to match the responses of adults in their culture."

And even then, there is wide variability.

The U.S. Army has tried (and failed) to produce a universal "Stink Bomb"--something that could replace the more dangerous method of tear gas when it became necessary to disperse a crowd.

Unfortunately, there is no universally repugnant odor.

Really? Apparently so... A few examples:

Some tribal cultures put dung in their hair as a cosmetic.

In earlier times, before the advent of refrigeration, rotten meat and fish were often served. Accounts from that period suggest that the odor and flavor of rotten food could actually be preferred by some, as it was considered more intense. (I'll bet it was!)

And in her book The Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman describes the smell of durian fruit as a cross between "a sewer and a grave." Yet people in Southeast Asia consider it a delicacy.

Smell preferences are learned, not inborn.

The key is first associations: What were you feeling when you first encountered a new smell? (Remember from Part One: Our sense of smell and our emotions are tightly linked.)

(It's interesting that the closest thing to a universally preferred smell is Vanilla--and the chemical components of vanilla are present in human breast milk, as well as many prepared baby formulas. First associations with comfort and nurturing.)

For Writers to consider:

1) Could one of your characters loooove a scent that many people find unpleasant?

2) Could two of your characters argue over whether a scent is pleasant or unpleasant?

3) Could one of your characters put dung in her hair? (Just kidding...unless you actually write tribal stories or prehistoric epics like Clan of the Cave Bear. Notions of cleanliness were different back then, before Head and Shoulders shampoo commercials.)

4) Particular smell preferences (and how intense those preferences are) can be another way of differentiating characters...and might even play a minor (or major) role in your plot.

What about you? Anything you love to smell that others generally avoid? Or scents you can't stand that others tend to enjoy?

reference: Rachel Herz, 2007; The Scent of Desire (William Morrow)

What's That Smell? (Part One)

It's a piece of Standard Writing Advice (SWA)--and a good one--not to ignore the sense of smell when describing the fictional world. Let's spend some time getting better acquainted with this underrated stepchild of the senses.

First, olfaction is not only given short shrift by writers--it tends to be held in lower regard by humans in general.

World languages, for instance, consistently have fewer words for smelling than for any other sensation.

And when people are asked to rank the five senses in terms of which they would prefer to lose (assuming they had to lose one), smell typically tops the charts as being most expendable.

(Try this experiment around the office, or at your next PTA meeting. If the five senses were Survivor contestants, Smell would get tossed off the island first.)

What many don't realize, however, is that when humans lose their sense of smell, it can have devastating effects on their well-being.

Anosmia (smell-blindness) is the term, and it can result from exposure to certain chemicals, the formation of nasal polyps, or head injuries (particularly hard blows to the face). It can also be genetic, present at birth. In addition, some individuals have this difficulty only with specific odors...but they can readily smell everything else.

While some persons are able to cope well with this limitation, for many it has profound impact on their emotions and sense of life-satisfaction. In the long term, depression and mood disorders are more common in those who have lost the sense of smell, than in those who have gone blind.

(Interesting note: Depression is commonly seen in Parkinson's patients, and the loss of smell can be one of the early symptoms of Parkinson's.)

The reason for this connection between smell and emotional well-being seems clear: Humans are hard-wired that way.

The same neural structure of the brain--the limbic system--is responsible for interpreting olfactory signals and for activating emotions. In fact, one of the names for this part of the brain is the Rhinencephalon (literally, the "Nose-Brain").

Within this limbic system, the hot-spot of olfaction and emotion is the almond-shaped amygdala. Using brain-imaging technology, we can see that when we experience a scent, the amygdala activates, helping us both to the identify the smell, and connect it with emotions.

Researcher Dr. Rachel Herz, in her book The Scent of Desire (William Morrow, 2007), says this: "No other sensory system has this kind of priviledged and direct access to the part of the brain that controls our emotions."

A few applications for writers to consider:

1) When describing scenes, characters, objects, etc... Don't neglect the sense of smell.


2) Sensitivity to smell (or not) is a character trait. Some persons have very keen noses, others (Anosmics) cannot smell at all. This ability (or lack) may be another element you can use to differentiate characters.

3) If want your characters (and therefore, your readers) to feel emotion, understand the power that fragrance has to impact this. Show your characters reacting emotionally to good/bad smells.

More on the psychology of how we perceive smells, next time...

This Is Not A Drill

I was reading a collection of Flannery O'Connor's letters last night (Collected Works, Library of America, 1988 p1013), and came across a reference to Writing Exercises.

Writing to a friend in December of 1956, she commented, "Experiment but for heaven's sake don't go writing excercises. You will never be interested in anything that is just an exercise and there is no reason you should."

She went on to suggest that anything you write should have the "promise of being whole."

Myself, I'm in Flannery's camp. Never had much luck creating isolated paragraphs or scenes, without the context of a story to give it meaning. But I can see both sides.

Some people may see it as a freeing experience: No pressure, no expectations of creating something worth saving. And that freedom from pressure may allow the necessary breathing space in which to improve a particular element (e.g., "write a scene in which two characters disagree, but neither wants to openly admit the conflict").


What do you think? Are writing exercises a necessary part of your craft, like a musician practicing scales? Or do they strike you as artificial?