"A word after a word after a word is power" - Margaret Atwood

BRIDGET WHELAN

A blog for readers and writers

A blog about the stories we tell each other and how we tell them...

Thursday 26 May 2011

The art of not knowing

Philosophers, historians, sociologists, even theologians have precise tools available to them. But we makers of poems and stories and essays wouldn’t trade with them. Wielding the mighty instrument of speculation – to try to know what we can’t really know – is the most thrilling experience available to an artist.
David Huddle writing in the May 2011 edition of Brevity, the online journal of concise creative nonfiction.

2 comments:

MorningAJ said...

Language CAN be a precise tool. Should be, in fact. But the ideas behind it aren't always so clear cut.

BRIDGET said...

Or knowledge...Wait until you are confident that you are possession of all the relevant information before writing and you will probably not out pen to paper.
There's a point when speculation is the only answer...as long as you keep faith with the reader and there's no blurring of the line between what is known and what is surmised if you are writing non fiction. But of course if you're writing fiction than anything is possible
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