most writing includes a combination. Here we explore them separately to
show how each can be a powerful tool in your writing.
exercises
- Play with language and build up three short texts using the fol-
lowing techniques in turn:
a) word association
b) phrase manipulation
c) combining words from a word pool.You can add words such
as ‘is’ or ‘of’ to combine the words into short phrases.Try to
make your combinations unusual and striking. - Write a short creative text using one of the following referents:
the mirror, the map or the machine.
PLAYING WITH LANGUAGE
Language-based strategies encourage you to think in ways which are non-
linear, and to make unconscious connections. They coax the associative
modes of thinking which are pivotal to creative endeavour. These exercises
are fun to do, they play games with language, but they can also produce
challenging and unusual texts.
It is essential to have some language-based strategies at your disposal, and
all good writers do. Language-based strategies tend to be very fundamental;
if you start with language you are immediately concentrating on the
medium in which you have to express yourself. As you play with words, new
lines of thought may begin to reveal themselves. If you start with an idea it
still has to be converted into language, and that is the difficult part—because
you can have the most amazing idea in the world, but it is not always easy to
find the right words to express it or fully convey its complexity.
Language-based strategies sharpen your sensitivity to language and help
you to be discriminating, imaginative and unconventional in the way
you use it. Inexperienced writers sometimes fall back on clichés like ‘his
heart throbbed’ or ‘her eyes were full of tears’: these exercises will help you
avoid them. So even if you end up writing in a way which is very different
from the style induced by these exercises, you will find them a useful
technical resource.
Language-based strategies exploit the relation between the signifier and
the signified. According to the linguist, Ferdinand Saussure, the signifier
is the material form of the word—its visual and aural dimension, the way
4 The Writing Experiment