The Yin and Yang of Writing

Isn't it rich? 

Isn't it queer?

Losing my timing this late

In my career?

-- Send in the Clowns

It's not my timing that I've lost. Indeed, it has nothing to do with losing anything. Rather it's discovering something, this late in my career, that gives me the same melancholy feeling as the words of that song does. At 75, I am late in my career, and I regret not realizing there is a yin and a yang in writing until now.

I am not pretending that I discovered something new. While I've not taken courses in writing, I have no doubt what I've discovered on my own is taught, in some form or another, in writing classes. I could've Googled it to find out. 

But I didn't.

Because I wanted to talk about how and what I discovered as a personal tale, rather than as a lesson.

What I realized is that there is a yin and a yang in writing - as there is in all things. This realization came to me while reading Beth Brower's The Uncollected Journals of Emma M. Lion. Or more precisely, in rereading them. 

Yin and yang, usually symbolized by the circle above, can be thought of as a combination of opposite, but interconnected forces, that interact to form a dynamic system with the whole greater than the two parts. These forces are fluid, each with the seed (the little circle) of its opposite within it. The white "yang" is considered active, expansive, bright, open, and male, while the black "yin" is reactive, passive, dark, mysterious, and female. Everything has elements of both within them, in varying degrees, at various times. 

Including writing.

Though in the case of writing stories, the  colors of yin and yang are usually reversed. Black, or the color of the ink, is the active force of yang in writing. It is the color of the letters, the words, and the sentences that drive the story forward, the active, expansive force of the story. The yin, in writing, is white, or the paper. This yin has two characteristics, the visual - the light space surrounding the dark lines and blocks of words. And the metaphorical, in the sense of making up all the parts of the story that are left out as unnecessary, implied, unsaid, and/or left a mystery. 

It is the importance of yin, the white space, in writing that only now has struck me. I came to realize this because the Emma M Lion books are written as journals. As such they are composed of a series of dated entries, sometimes just a line or two, and sometime brief paragraphs separated by time and subject, and at other times verbatim transcriptions of scenes and dialogs. The variety of these different types of entries, and the variety of the white spaces that enclose them, eventually struck me as intralegal to the story and the way it's told. But these books have a a lot of metaphorical white spaces as well, which are even more powerful. Beth Brower, in writing as if we are reading a journal, often leaves things unsaid, half said, implied, or simply mysterious. It is the brevity of words, descriptions, or events that opened my eyes to how one can use the yin of writing - the lack of writing - to enhance the story. What you don't write is every bit as important as what you do set down in words.

To take one example; she has one character who limps from a mysterious injury. Other than being tall, his character is described in terms of a looming storm. She  didn't need to do more than that for us to build our own image of a man, brooding, with contained, but pent up energy. In addition, he, like all the other characters, major and minor, have pasts, parts of which are slowly revealed in little episodes over the course of many books. This is the metaphorical "white space" of writing; the things not described in words, but implied. This yin of things not said serves to hold the interest of the reader every bit as much as what is said. And it implies that even the minor characters, which we know very little about, will, someday, step forward and play their part in the story as it goes on. This is the power of white space, of the mysterious yin.

I hope to give more mind on this type of white space going forward. What can I leave out, hint at, mention in passing, or suggest?  Is it important? Or is it busy work? Is an elaborate description essential? These, of course, are judgement calls, but considering that if not saying something works better than stating it, will probably make me a better writer. It can also regulate the rhythm and pace of the story - sometimes  saying less speeds things up, sometimes saying less pauses the story a beat or two as the reader considers the little mystery resulting from not saying everything, depending on what is said.

As someone who uses ten words were five would do, this realization has had a profound impact on me. Not that I was totally unaware of this on an instinctive level. Often those five extra words are there because the come from the character within the story who is narrating the story, and is used to build the character. But now, by putting a name of the art of saying less, it will make me more mindful of what needs to be said, and what needs not to be said, even by the character. 

But this yin, this white space, is more than mere word count. 

I also have come to appreciate restraint in making everything crystal clear. Everything doesn't have to be spelled out. I think you can trust readers to read between the lines. And sometimes it might be useful to keep them wondering, not quite sure what exactly is going on - that's life, after all. Readers find the mysteries fascinating. Why cheat them of the fun of wondering? There will always come a proper time to clear up mysteries, if they're important. Until then, I think you can use hints and little mysteries as story-strands, threads, that tie readers to the story and pull them along through it. 

In summery, seeing the story as both words said and unsaid will make me mindful of what I'm saying, how it needs to be said, and if it needs to be said.

I've also come to realize that there is the physical yin as well in books. The yin of what you see on the page. In how you use white space visually. The white space on the page is an important as the text. Ideally, a page contains an interesting play of dark text, words sentences and paragraph, and light white space giving a sense of solidness when required, as well as a lively fleetingness, a rhythm of fast passages and slow ones; yin and yang when it is appropriate in the story.

For example, long paragraphs of dialog can make for speeches instead of conversations. Massive paragraphs of description can make for slow reading. Or skimming. Visually they are large, square, solid blocks of text. And when you consider the text as the yang of writing - the driving force of the story, these large, square blocks of text are hardly an active and driving force in the story. They can bring the pace of the story to a crawl. The opposite of what the text should be doing.

Of course, there are many reasons, many moods, and variety of pacing necessary in stories. At the proper time, blocks of text can serve a proper purpose in a story. As does lines of text that run, dance, and play like a brook, in the "air" of white space, when such liveliness is needed. In considering the feeling one wants to create, I think that one needs to not only consider the words, but how they are arranged on the page. How they look, not just how they read.

English has all sorts of rules on how to construct sentences and paragraphs, which, if take literally, will make one's writing formal. Creative writing is a different beast altogether, which need not, or should not, be constrained by formality.  

The mindful use of white space on a page by they mindful use of lines of text and length of paragraphs, will, I think, make for better, more evocative writing. It is a matter of writing with a rhythm, rather than as a dull drone. 

So, my takeaway with my discovery of the yin and yang of writing is that visually and metaphorically I need to open my eyes to what I want to say, what I need to say, and what is just as important, what I don't need to say. And to say it with a pattern of light and darkness, lines and spaces, that dance.