Category Archives: Abstract Ideas

Chapter 12: Abstract Ideas

What About Applications of Abstract Ideas?

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The achievements of people which we enjoy today–diseases stamped out, pain silenced or relieved, span of life lengthened, sanitation supplied to multitudes, knowledge made popular, comforts and conveniences established, all started as ideas. Ideas show us how mankind, by making use of his knowledge and ingenuity, can progressively eman­cipate itself from plagues, famines and social disasters, and subjugate the materials and forces of the earth, here and now, to the purposes of the good life.

The question technique set forth in an earlier chapter may also be effectively used for abstract ideas. Take the following:

  • idea of freedom
  • of power
  • independence
  • strikes
  • labor
  • industry
  • peace
  • education

or almost any other, and apply to it the questions of who, what, when, where, why, how, similarity and contrast, effects and improvement, and the others, and they will guide your thinking on these subjects.

Take the one of transferring an idea to a different group of people. This was the process employed in a more or less educational idea just developed. A library of films of well selected features has just been set up for children, thus doing a much needed job for a different group of people. The films are to be given in special Saturday morning performances, thus utilizing an additional time for the purpose as well.

Another educational idea based on transferring a service to another place is the one of the bookmobile, which is an automobile (panel van) carrying library services to rural districts which are out of reach of metropolitan libraries. Thus we might exemplify independence. Where? In the Congo.

  • National resources: Why must we conserve them?
  • Peace: How has it been accomplished before, how can it be improved now?
  • Speed: What are the effects on the human system?
  • Labor: What are its problems? How can they be solved?
  • Industry: Who are the leaders? Where are its methods leading our economy?
  • Hydroponics: Growing food in water solution instead of soil. How can it help the famine lands?
  • Climate: Can man change it?
  • Atomic energy: How will it affect the coal industry if one pound of uranium can heat a house for 171 years?

Nor do you stop at one question. Use all in the list that can be applied to the subject. Try it out for yourself.

Press Button Ideas? If Only!

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Naturally I am not going into any philosophical or thor­ough pursuit of these subjects, and these examples are of the most superficial quality. I only touch on them to indi­cate a process, which the idea seeker may elaborate to his heart’s content. To the thinker the most trifling external object often suggests ideas which may extend anywhere in time or space. There is no limit to the sphere of ideas you may get by asking the questions suggested. The whole world lies open to your thoughts and feelings. How about the abstract thinker whose thoughts turn to writing?

Of course there is no intention here to tell anyone how to plan or write any particular form of literature. This is limited strictly to a method of approach for ideas when one is stale or infertile. If one pursues writing as a profes­sion, it is necessary to be able to develop ideas at will. It would be fine if one could press a button and out would come an inspiration whenever needed. That’s not the way it happens, however. But a reasonable facsimile can be provided by the method to be described in this chapter.

Which Came First the Idea or the Writing?

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Many people think they must get the idea first and then write. Quite the contrary. There is something about hold­ing a pencil to paper that will start a flow of ideas. At first not necessarily sensible, but, as they say, one word leads to another, and one suggests another, and as you loosen up, you begin to draw more intelligently on your great sub­conscious storehouse.

When an idea first glimmers on your horizon, it clicks in your emotions. You feel that something interesting is on the way. You then pick it up, as it were, and look at it, listen to it, and begin to think about it. What you need, there­fore, is a “button to press” that will stir your feelings. The only things that stir our feelings and give us sense excite­ment are our own experiences. These, for the most part, are the things we see and hear. And the things we see and hear, in their lowest common denominator, are pictures and words.

Does it not, then, seem eminently reasonable, that if you provide yourself with vivid words and pictures that rouse your emotions and make you feel you are well on the way to idea seeds whenever needed?
The housekeeper does not keep house from hand to mouth. She tries to have some reserve stock in the pantry for rainy days. So too with the idea researcher. He at least needs some ingredients from which he can whip up an emergency meal. So we shall now consider an “ingredients larder” that will serve this purpose.

3 Major Conflicts

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You begin by making up a list of characters which you find interesting. At some future time you may glance over it and select a character that suits the mood of the moment, and use him in your story. No one can say for you what kinds of characters would appear on your own list. You must make it yourself and keep adding to it as new interest­ing types suggest themselves. They might include chemist, congressman, tailor, union leader, poet, chauffeur, jeweler, miser, flirt, florist, bishop, invalid, interpreter, explorer, auc­tioneer, football coach, or any others. Make a similar list for women.

The characters chosen for any one story should be in contrast; otherwise it is less likely that convincing conflicts will take place. Since conflicts are the essence of a story, lists of these should be drawn up in the same way. The conflict must always be a problem, a dilemma, a forked road, a difficult choice to be made, resistance set up against the hero or heroine. Conflicts are in three major divisions:

  1. between man and nature or man and society
  2. between equals or seeming equals
  3. psychological conflicts—man against himself

Now you do the same with a list of interesting places which can be picturesque locale, such as:

  • newspaper office
  • stock exchange
  • slum
  • beach
  • lonely road
  • prefabricated house
  • cotton mill
  • agricultural experiment station
  • Alaska
  • Jungle
  • Banquet
  • Museum
  • Docks
  • coal mine
  • airport
  • planta­tion
  • frontier
  • gymnasium
  • summer resort
  • court
  • customs office
  • department store
  • governor’s mansion
  • telegraph office
  • and so on

Repeat this with a list of desires such as love (various kinds—girl’s, man’s, mother’s, etc.), money, fame, honor, beauty, jewelry, knowledge, secrets, automobile, legacy, and the like.

Love, Relief, Achievement and Other Lists

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Another list will be objects or conditions to be relieved of, such as poverty, sickness, blindness, deformity, hunger, lone lines, ridicule, suspicion, etc.

Also have a list of obstacles to achievement:

  • Poverty
  • Weakness
  • Imprisonment
  • Ignorance
  • Mistaken identity
  • Rivals
  • Enemies
  • And so on

There are probably hundreds of obstacles to love which the fiction writer should collect for ideas. Lover is a political or religious enemy. Duty to pro­fession stands in the way. Lover and loved are business rivals. Match is opposed by a parent. Difference in rank stands in the way.

In the same way, every factor of the piece may be the subject of lists which may be used as thought stimulators and combined to suit.

Collect titles, as these are often stimulating:

  • Television Love
  • Lost Evidence
  • Uninhibited
  • Fake Mother
  • Irate Santa Claus
  • The Lost Vote
  • The Crooked Road
  • False Pardon
  • Contact
  • The Secret
  • The Silver Thimble

How To Automate Your Creativity

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You can also list from time to time, surprise twists or endings.

It is said that there are only thirty-six possible dramatic situations. They have been fully written up in Polti’s classic book, and appear in many other books for writers. Of the thirty-six, some are not practicable due to conventional taboos. Those who write fiction in any form should look into these situations and list possibilities under each of them, available for the moment of idea-drought.

Another aid is a set of plot cards, which can be dealt to make all sorts of combinations. Each card contains several factors: a list of male characters, a list of female characters adjectives describing each, settings, complications, plot problem, climax, and so on.

Such devices do not mechanize creativeness at all. You always make your own combinations and add your personal knowledge and experience and individuality to these vari­ous factors. All they do, and all they presume to do, is to give you that tremendously valuable initial push to start you going. For the purpose intended, they are entirely legitimate and need give no one any inferiority sense as to his originality.

Single words that are dramatic and colorful to you should also form a list. Here might be some suggestions: Birth; high; low; first-born; heritage; illegitimate; foundling; birth­mark; birthday.

Lists of possible themes should also come in handy such as:

  • Abdication
  • Absent-mindedness
  • Accusation
  • Adolescence
  • Adventure
  • After-death
  • Alumni
  • Anniversary
  • Antiquarian
  • Auction
  • Autosuggestion
  • Betrayal
  • Bitterness
  • Blindness
  • Bombs
  • Bribe
  • Buried treasure
  • Captive
  • Cause and effect
  • Challenge
  • Child delinquency
  • Conscience
  • Crisis
  • Cross exam­ination
  • Defiance
  • Deception
  • Disguise
  • And so on

Wordsmiths Create Visually, Too

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Writers need pictorial help too, and artists certainly do. Getting it is largely a job of clipping illustrations from re­liable magazines, old books, catalogs, advertisements and other sources, indexing and filing them under suitable classifications.

A fine nucleus of photographs can be secured free of charge or for but a few cents each, from the research de­partments of industrial organizations, chambers of com­merce, government agencies, moving picture stills, museums and so on. There are also many second-hand bookstores and those dealing in old magazines which are wonderful sources, not only for unusual ideas, but accurate descrip­tions and authoritative information concerning them.

Picture files or collections are therefore almost indis­pensable, not only for the initial impetus to an idea, but for giving it definite and graphic expression. Pictures of accidents, sports events, tenement scenes, children, indus­trial processes, personalities and a limitless number of other subjects are very worth while.

All these aids give you a point of departure—elements to combine. You don’t have to gaze at a blank wall and wonder why the good Lord left a vacuum where your brain was supposed to be. You simply go through your collection or file of notes and pictures, and select the tiling that seems to click at the moment. And all the while you are enrich­ing your life by living by proxy the experiences you would otherwise miss entirely.

How To Turn On the Idea Tap

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Ideas which are expressed in words are magnets that draw other ideas toward them. The Chinese have a saying, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Ideas and words begin to flow when you make the initial effort.

In addition to collections of single words and pictures, there may also be suggested the use of thought-provoking phrases and sentences. Epigrams, aphorisms, proverbs and other bits of philosophy often contain stimulating idea germs.
We have:

  • “When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window”
  • “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”

Sometimes such little bits of wisdom embody all the factors of a good piece of fiction.

Many ideas occur by means of reversals or twists of fa­miliar statements, such as the paradoxes of Oscar Wilde, Chesterton and others:

  • “Work is the curse of the drinking classes”
  • “I can resist everything except temptation”
  • “Genius is born, not paid”

Today we can alter a worn-out alibi for our troubles by saying, “Don’t you know there’s a peace on?”

Why a Word’s History Is a Great Thing!

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The history of words is a fine source of ideas revealed by the dictionary and gives much graphic point to one’s thinking. Since words are quite fundamental to ideas, here are a few examples.

“Sincerity” is a curious and interesting word, and its his­tory as a word is revealing. Mankind first thought in terms of concrete things. Going always from the known to the un­known, such abstractions as he could master were founded on his experience with tangible, visible objects. Many words that we use today to denote abstract ideas are words of this kind whose meanings have been enlarged or expanded by figurative interpretations. This gives great pictorial quality to our language. Thus the literal meaning of the word sincere is “without wax.” The term was originally used to designate a piece of pottery that was perfect, for old time potters hid the defects in their wares by the use of wax. Consequently whatever was genuine or free from decep­tion was said to be sincere or “without wax.”

Again, the word “scrupulous” is from scruple, a small sharp stone as in a man’s shoe. A person thus afflicted naturally proceeds carefully. Scruples are small considera­tions and indicate exactness. Our word “supercilious” comes from super, meaning over, and cilium, meaning eyelid. It means raising the eyebrows in disdain and thus expresses contempt or haughtiness.

To “ponder” means literally to weigh; to “ruminate” refers to the cud-chewing of cows; “brood,” to meditate, goes back to the hen sitting on her eggs. The cow and the hen ought to have a lot of good ideas, but we don’t know about them because these two barnyard friends do not follow step five of bringing them out to the view of public opinion. Or do they?

Why Clarity of Thinking Reaps Dividends

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The use of metaphor and simile also bring into relation what is not obvious, in accordance with the idea-producing process. The unimaginative mind is literal, prosaic, imita­tive, stereotyped, un-enterprising and limited. The crea­tive mind is poetic, figurative, sees new relations and pro­ceeds imaginatively.

Clarity of thinking is always increased by the use of the correct word. Since our thinking is frequently so vague a matter, consisting merely of impressions and generalities, hardly thinking at all, it cannot be too much stressed that it is of help to write down one’s thoughts, thus compelling the use of specific words and making the idea concrete if it seems of value. Words have so many and such slippery meanings, and we are so easily biased in using them, that misunderstandings arise to confuse our own thinking, not to speak of anyone we wish to inform about our thoughts.

Another pitfall should be noted. We are so accustomed to think in words, and to accept the word which is a symbol for the real thing, that confusions often occur. Many peo­ple made mistakes in thinking due to this false use of words. A professor was lecturing on atoms, explaining that an atom is such an infinitesimal thing that nothing smaller could be conceived. A student wanted to know why. The professor replied, “Don’t you know that atom is a Greek word and that it means something absolutely indivisible?” Poor neg­lected electron with its electronic age!

From these various examples we can see that while the chief use of writing has been for communication of thoughts, the improvement of thinking as a result is fully as important.