The Grasshopper Issue 30: The Role of Fear and Wonder
These two powerful states are interconnected in stories
“She listened. She listened through him to the sound of thunder and of rain that fell upon the mountain miles away, that split open the sky and set an awful tremor on the trees.”
N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn
Late last night, having woken up, I turned on the TV and watched a PBS doc on the Native American writer, N. Scott Momaday. Momaday published a remarkable novel, House Made of Dawn, in 1968 that addressed what we now know as PTSD through the experiences of a returning Native American soldier. The book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature, a first for an indigenous American writer.
His story embraces the two seemingly opposite states of fear and wonder in language that sings even when describing a man barely hanging on to a life he no longer knows.
The source of fear is obvious but the sense of natural wonder that pervades the story is the bedrock it is built upon. Momaday captures that sense of place that is so central to Indian culture, in magical language.
I can only speak for myself but these two moods are the core reason I read novels. But thinking about writing them is a bit like gazing into the sun- not easy and not something to think too much about.
The possibilities are dazzling, and blinding at once. Achieving that would be a hell of a writing assignment. It could keep a writer busy for a lifetime, and it has for many.
“People may think that only with power and riches will they be secure. Yet the truth is that those with great power and wealth are the people with the greatest fear, jealousy, and anxiety.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Other Shore
Fear and wonder need each other, and we need them
This newsletter comes out the day after some of the most contentious US midterm elections in history, a time of great fear and apprehension about the future of our country and our own well-being.
Those primeval fears are being used very effectively by both sides but, at this point we are all sick of it, profoundly sick of it. And I know why, or I think I do. It’s the lack of fear’s partner in this life: wonder at the beauty of it all, even in the darkness.
This is not a political publication, it is about writing, and by extension, creativity in general. When I read, whether fiction or nonfiction, I am seeking these two extreme experiences, experiences that drive plots and offer ways they are resolved. In non-fiction an example might be a biography of someone who endures great difficulty to accomplish great things. Tesla comes to mind; the actual genius, not those crappy cars.
The agony and the ecstasy, if you will.
As a writer, recognizing the importance and challenge of using fear to motivate both characters and readers is important, especially if a story is flat and missing something. Everyone has fears in the night, those existential ones that don’t always hold up in the bright light of day (wondrous light, luminous light).
Exceptions to this might include pure horror writers who build fear upon fear to simulate life in their writing. Though the popularity of the genre is beyond me, I acknowledge its impact on readers. Because I don’t read or watch that stuff, I can’t comment on the genre writers’ use of wonder as a survival mechanism. But I’m quite sure they are dependent on it.
In my political reading and writing these days, fear is omnipresent and those fears are pretty primal things like war, climate change, cost of living, and the education of children. To dwell in this fear world daily I resort to a couple of paths to wonder. They recharge my engines.
I always have a book I can dip into for a few minutes to give me something to contemplate that is outside of the material world. Right now it is Thich Nhat Han’s translation of the Heart Sutra, with his brief, direct commentary. Or it might be any transcriptions of Roshi Shunryu Suzuki’s brief lectures on the art of meditation that cut directly to the chase. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is a great place to start.
Spending a few moments with these rewires the system and puts my use of fear in my writing into perspective. Both will tell you that life, and writing, not only needs this balance, but that the imbalance is in fact, perfect balance, when both are present.
If your work is not getting the response you want, I’d suggest parsing it for those moments where it touches on these primeval emotional states. If it doesn’t, with both states present and in balance, you may have identified your basic problem.
It may tell you that you’ve been holding back and not putting your heart into it completely. Scary as it is, doing that is how you find wonder in being a writer.
I never intended this topic to actually be topical. I have been thinking about this for a while, for this newsletter and in my own work. But maybe politics drove it to the forefront in relevance.
I read a lot of budding writers on Medium and elsewhere and sometimes I wonder why their work is flat and often derivative. When you copy a meme or someone else’s style or subject, you rarely bring the passion to it that the original writer has. It is so much more interesting, and rare, to read a new writer who is struggling to put fear and wonder into their work.
After all, those things are vital components of life, right?
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You’ll get this shortly after our elections. Hopefully the sky will not have fallen, though it may be that chunks of it will be raining down. Most of us will live and some will live to write about it, either as journalists or on a personal level, as our country navigates the outcomes.
Just don’t forget the wonder, if you do write about the world. It’s the important part. M