September 1960 — VOL. 41, No. 7 —
Imagination
Helps Communication
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The basic skill in every profession and
in most businesses is the ability to organize and express
ideas in writing and in speaking.
No matter how clever an engineer may be technically, or
an executive managerially, or a research man creatively, he
does not show his worth unless he communicates his ideas to
others in an influential way.
Language is the most momentous product of the human mind.
Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger,
and man's most trivial word, there lies a whole day of creation
- or, as we would say it today, a whole chapter of evolution.
A business man is not called upon to present the elegance
of a wit, a novelist or a poet. He must express himself accurately,
clearly and briefly, but he need not denude his language of
beauty and appeal.
The purpose of the writer is to communicate effectively.
He needs a feeling for writing the right thing in the right
way at the right time: not a barebones recital of facts, unless
in a specification or legal document, but a composition of
words which will convey his meaning and his sentiment.
This requires use of imagination, which is the cornerstone
of human endeavour. John Masefield, the Poet Laureate, wrote:
"Man's body is faulty, his mind untrustworthy, but his imagination
has made him remarkable."
Writing imaginatively cannot be taught. It can be studied
in examples - the writings of Dafoe, Shakespeare, La Fontaine
and Jules Verne show what can be done, but not how to do it.
In this, writing is on a par with art and the product of an
artisan's hands. The painter can no more convey the secret
of his imaginative handling of colour than the plumber can
teach that little extra touch he gives a wiped joint. All
three, writer, artist, artisan, have secrets springing from
within. After learning the principles, they go on to produce
their works inspired by the dignity of accomplishment due
to their gifts.
Look at the drama built into small events by choice of words
and use of imagination: Dafoe gave us Crusoe recoiling from
the footprint in the sand; Homer gave us Achilles shouting
over against the Trojans and Ulysses bending the great bow;
and Bunyan gave us Christian running from the tempter with
his fingers in his ears. None of these was an epic event,
but by their mastery of putting imagination into their communication
these writers painted scenes which stirred us in the reading
and linger in our memories.
A good piece of writing, whether it be a novel or a business
letter; does three things: it communicates a thought, it conveys
a feeling, and it gives the reader some benefit.
The writer's tools
What are the writer's tools? A wide range of language, for
variety and to avoid the commonplace; active verbs, to keep
the action moving; similes, which make words paint a thousand
pictures; metaphor and parable, to make meanings clear, and
rhythm, which contributes to smooth, easy reading.
To these tools, the writer adds imagination, always being
careful to bring it within the scope of facts. Art in writing
must not be used as an escape from reality.
This sort of writing is not so simple a thing as fluency,
which soap—box orators have in abundance. It is not so
simple a thing as grammatical exactitude, which can be hammered
into boys and girls by a teacher.
But when it is properly done, imaginative writing is very
powerful. Look at Cyrano de Bergerac in the drama by Edmond
Rostand. The hero was valiant and romantic, but very sensitive
regarding the size of his nose. This sensitivity prevented
his making his court to the beautiful Roxane, but he wrote
ardent letters to her for a handsome and stupid friend. The
power of the written word won Roxane's love for his friend
by proxy.
Good writing needs to be appropriate to the occasion, the
purpose, the reader and the writer. It must not be too pompous
for its load, or hesitant about what it seeks to do, or beneath
the intelligence of the reader, or too arrogant for the writer's
position.
Writing is only serviceable and good with reference to the
object for which it is written. You say: "That is a beautiful
dress"; but let the dress slide from the model's shoulders
and lie in a heap on the floor, and what is it? A heap of
material. Its virtue resides in its fittingness to its purpose.
What is written imaginatively in the daily work of office
and industry will get desired results. If the writer looks
further, what is written with imagination will live on when
this Atomic Age is ancient history. Why? Because imagination
is the one common link between human minds in all ages.
Imagination in writing finds expression through the use
of accurate and illuminating equivalents for thoughts. You
may show your imagination by dealing with something unfamiliar;
by calling to attention a commonplace fact that is generally
overlooked; by bringing into view familiar things in new relationship;
or by drawing together relevant thoughts in a nosegay tied
with your own ribbon.
An imaginative writer can look out upon the sprawling incoherence
of a factory or a city or a nation or a problem and give it
intelligible statement.
Something about style
The style in which you write is the living embodiment of
your thought, and not merely its dress.
When you put words together you convey not only your purpose
in writing but your character and mood, both of which are
important to your reader's understanding.
Let the occasion dictate the manner of your writing. Sometimes
a manly rough line, with a great deal of meaning in it, may
be needed, while a different set of circumstances demands
the lubrication of sweet words. A blinding light is not always
the best illumination: the delicate colours in moss—covered
rock are enhanced by overcast, misty air.
Knowledge of techniques does not give the writer this discrimination.
Technique is always a means and not an end. If we allow rules
to govern our writing we become tongue—tied by authority.
As Rembrandt remarked to someone who was looking closely into
one of his paintings, seeking the technique, "pictures are
intended to be looked at, not smelled."
We do not find ourselves tripping over technique in the
inspired paragraphs of great literary works. Think of the
forcefulness, the meaning, the simplicity of expression, in
Lincoln's Gettysburg address, in Churchill's "fall of France"
radio broadcast. Then contrast the great golden phrases of
political campaigners, rising from nothing and leading to
nothing: words on words, dexterously arranged, bearing the
semblance of argument, but leaving nothing memorable, no image,
no exaltation.
At the other end of the scale are those who write speeches
and letters stodgily. Too many people who are nice people
at heart become another sort when they pick up a pen or a
dictaphone. They tighten up. They become unnatural. They curdle
into impersonality and choose starchy sentences. Their product
is like a page printed with very old and worn—out type.
In the vivid prose which marked some seventeenth century writers,
James Howell wrote: "Their letters may be said to be like
bodies without sinews, they have neither art nor arteries
in them.'
A letter in which something significant is attempted - a
sale, a correction, a changing of opinion, the making of a
friend - cannot be written in a neutral and bloodless state
of mind.
In letter writing, imagination must supply personal contact.
When you call in your stenographer to write a letter you are
entering into a personal relationship with the reader. He
is no longer a statistic in a mass market. He and you are
human beings talking things over.
Most business communications have lucidity rather than emotion
as their aim, but none except those which are frankly and
openly mere catalogues can afford to exclude humanity. There
should be some in—between space in your letters, some
small—talk between the important ideas, some irrelevancies
which temper the austerity of business.
The reader's interest
No matter what your letter is about, the reader will want
to know: "How does this affect me?"
It is a literary vice not to seek out the reader's interest.
You may tell him what you want in impeccable language and
forceful manner, but you fall short of success unless you
pay attention to what he wants or can be made to desire. Your
ideas must enter, influence and stick in the mind of the recipient.
As a writer, you may protest that some of the failure in
communication may be blamed on the receiver, but it is your
responsibility as sender to determine in advance, to the best
of your ability, all potential causes of failure and to tune
your transmission for the best reception.
Granted, something must be expected of the reader. Every
writer is entitled to demand a certain amount of knowledge
in those for whom he writes, and a certain degree of dexterity
in using the implements of thought. Readers who demand immediate
intelligibility in all they read cannot hope to go far beyond
the limitations of comic strip language.
However, the writer is bound to eliminate every possible
obstacle. He must not grow away from people. He must anticipate
their questions. Let the salesman stand at a bargain counter
and listen to what goes on in the minds of prospective customers.
He will see women who spend ten minutes examining socks advertised
at 35 cents a pair - do they stretch? are they washable? will
they stay soft? are they tough enough to wear long? Those
women are not up on the plateau of bulk sales, but down where
a nickel counts.
That is the imagination of preparation. Then comes the imagination
of expression. The most important demand of customers is for
friendliness in those who seek to do business with them. A
man may pride himself upon being an efficient, logical person,
unswayed by sentiment in business matters, but at some stage
in his every business deal there is a spark of emotional appeal
and response.
You need to study your audience and then write what you
want them to understand in the form that is most likely to
appeal to them. Any other course is like the childish custom
of writing a letter to Santa Claus and burning it up the chimney.
Give imagination wings
If you do not wish your letters to be read yawningly, write
them wide awake. When a good idea strikes you for a letter,
ride that idea on the dead run: don't wait to ponder, criticize
and correct. You can be critical after your imaginative spell
subsides.
The search for the exact word should never so usurp the
writer's attention that the larger movements of thought on
which the letter's argument depends are made to falter and
so lose their fire. The first draft of a piece of writing
should be done at white heat. The smoothing and polishing
may follow later.
Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in every
instrument which works upon the mind.
By "novelty" it is not meant that the letter should be artificial.
Great art consists in writing in an interested and straightforward
way.
A good writer is not always original. You cannot hope to
reproduce in your own words how Keats felt as he listened
to the nightingale singing. It is far better to copy his ode.
Mr. Churchill could not help it, even if he did not desire
it, when his "blood, toil, tears and sweat" echoed Garibaldi,
or when his first speech as Prime Minister, declaring it to
be his policy "to make war", echoed Clemenceau's "Je fais
la guerre." Shakespeare took his plots wherever he could find
them, from older plays, English chronicles and Plutarch's
Lives. His originality consisted in the skill with
which he made a story over and covered the skeleton with the
living flesh of his language.
If a man has vision and sympathy - ingredients of imagination
- and adds sincerity, he will be able to beautify the familiar
and illumine the dingy and sordid. Montaigne one of the world's
great essayists, said: "I gather the flowers by the wayside,
by the brooks and in the meadows, and only the string with
which I bind them together is my own."
Variety in expression is as necessary to a piece of written
matter as it is to an attractive bouquet. Monotony in a letter
is like a paralyzing frost.
The Greeks knew this: they set off the loveliness of roses
and violets by planting them side by side with leeks and onions.
Some fastidious or critical people may complain of unevenness
in your writing because it is not sustained at a peak. But
there is no one more tiresome than the man who is writing
always at the top of his voice.
Use words honestly
The effort to bring up the highlights must not blind us
to our obligation to be moderate. To be dynamic and forceful
we don't need to give the impression of breathlessness. Strong
words lose their force if used often. Don't say "the roof
is falling in" when you mean that a crack in the ceiling needs
patching. If you habitually term a dull party "a disaster"
what have you left that is vivid enough to cover your feelings
about an earthquake?
From the moment that a writer loses his reverence for words
as accurate expressions of his thoughts he becomes second—rate.
Even experienced writers testify to their constant search
for the right word.
Follow the spirit of what you are saying in the way you
write it. Sometimes you will use little, jolting, one—syllable
words; in another composition your meaning and feeling may
be conveyed better in cascading syllables like Milton's, or
in earthy words that fit the urgency of the occasion.
There is no better way to learn the feeling of words than
through reading poetry. The use of synonyms so necessary in
poetry gives us a grasp of language and readiness in its use.
Exercise your imagination by looking up the wide choices of
words meaning the same thing, in varying shades of strength
and attractiveness. A handy book to have on your desk is
A Dictionary of English Synonyms by Richard Soule (Little,
Brown, and Company, Boston).
Be careful to use qualifying words only where they contribute
something to the sense you wish to convey. An excessive use
of qualifiers vitiates the force of what you write.
Correct modification is an essential of perceptive accuracy,
but every modification means a deflection in the reader's
flow of understanding.
To test this, take some magazine which professes to popularize
news events, and strike out every adjective and adverb which
seems dispensable note how much more authoritative and less
tinted by opinion the items appear.
The business man should test business reports and letters
by asking "What omission of fact or skimping of research or
expression of prejudice does this adjective cover up?"
Pictures in words
Our writing creates pictures in the reader's mind. We use
metaphors to sharpen and extend the reader's understanding
of our ideas by presenting him with images drawn from the
world of sensory experience: "She has roses in her cheeks;
he has the heart of a lion." If we say that a brook is laughing
in the sunlight, an idea of laughter intervenes to symbolize
the spontaneous, vivid activity of the brook.
In 240 words of a single soliloquy of Hamlet, Shakespeare
gives us these imaginative phrases, now part of our everyday
language: to be or not to be, the law's delay, the insolence
of office, the undiscover'd country from whose bourne no traveller
returns, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 'tis
a consummation devoutly to be wish'd, there's the rub, shuffled
off this mortal coil, conscience doth make cowards of us all.
Metaphors are not confined to poetic writing: they occur
in science and business writing, too: the flow of electricity,
the stream of consciousness, the thinking machine, getting
at the root of the problem, falling into error, indulging
in mental gymnastics.
Local colour is an element in imaginative writing. Your
highlights and your expressive phrases do not have to come
from the classics. A good writer, even on the most prosaic
of topics, will mix his own mind with his subject. True imagination,
no matter how strange may be the regions into which it lifts
its head, has its roots in human experience. What arises in
your writing from what you have been through will be more
vivid than what you glean from the writings and experience
of others.
Background for imagination
If the imagination is to yield any product useful to the
writer, it must have received material from the external world.
Images do not spring out of a desert.
The writer will train his mind to roam, to seek food, to
experience events. He will read widely, observing words at
work in a multitude of combinations.
A library has evocative power. Merely to sit within view
of good books draws out the goodness in one. A library has
driving power, too: it challenges us to convey meanings and
feelings as these writers did.
The books in an executive's office should not consist solely
of directories, almanacs, Canada Year Book, and the
like. In literature are recorded all the thoughts, feelings,
passions, and dreams that have passed through the human mind,
and these can play their part in the efficiency of the letter
writer today. Even on the battlefield, Napoleon had in his
tent more than three hundred volumes ranging through science,
art, history, poetry, travels, romance and philosophy.
To do all that has been suggested takes time. It requires
preparation, practice and participation: preparation through
reading and study, practice through revising and rewriting,
and participation through putting something of yourself into
every letter.
We must get out of the vicious system whereby we spend a
forenoon verifying the price to be quoted to a customer, while
refusing to spend two minutes in reconstructing a clumsy sentence
in the letter we write him. To be slovenly and feeble is not
only discourteous to the persons we address but bad business,
because it leaves the door open for misunderstanding.
If you are going to describe an event or a product, do not
be content with black marks on white paper: at least stipple
in the background and use some colour in the foreground.
It is necessary, too, to be in earnest. Many people dream
away their lives, talking of the writing they mean to do,
and in the end they fall asleep, still babbling of the green
fields of literature.
If you make only average grades in your letters when you
could with a little effort top the class, you are bound to
be disappointed with yourself. The writing of letters, business
or personal or professional, is no mean ministry. It deserves
the best that can be given it, and when it is rightly done
it absorbs the mind wholly.
Why not be one of the knowledgeable elite instead of one
of the conforming average?
They are probably best who, having a subject on which they
wish to express themselves, sit down to write about it in
a loving way. As Cyrano de Bergerac described his genius:
"I have but to lay my soul beside my paper, and copy!"
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