THE DOCTOR IS IN

One of the topics we discussed on last Friday's Litopia After Dark was the truism that writers are often

much less scintillating in conversation or interview than on the page. P.G. Wodehouse, for example, was reported to disappoint fans who met him in person; he was affable but dull. In a recent New York Times article, Arthur Krystal points out that Nabokov used index cards to talk about his work on television. I've certainly had the experience of attending readings of authors I admire, and finding their responses in the Q and A sessions either deadly boring or impenetrable, sometimes both.

The logical explanation for this phenomenon is that we have time to perfect our expressions on the page--that we are deep thinkers, not necessarily quick ones. But writers also report--and this is my experience, too--that we don't just think better when we're writing, we think differently--we come up with different ideas; we understand situations differently--when we're writing, even when we're journaling as quickly as we might think. There seems to be something about the act of writing that activates particular brain functions that we might not have access to in ordinary life.

Krystal emailed Steven Pinker for his thoughts on this issue, and Pinker responded that this isn't possible; thinking precedes writing, so our thought processes themselves don't change when we write; it's just that we demand more of ourselves when writing.

After the broadcast, I participated in a reading, which went well. On the way home, my son, who is a powerful receptor of thoughts that are floating around in other people's heads, said, "It's weird--you're really funny when you write, and when you read your writing, but no offense, you're not that funny in regular life."

I drew myself up and said, "For your information, there are plenty of people who think I'm hilarious in real life. Maybe it's a teenage thing."

"Yeah. What I was going to say is, I'm the same way."

Oh. Okay. I find him hysterically funny, so maybe his bar is just higher. I told him about the Litopia discussion and about Pinker's explanation.

"It can't be that. Remember that essay I wrote in five minutes before class, because I forgot we had the assignment, and everybody thought it was the funniest one they'd heard? I wrote it faster than I could think!"

So there, Steven Pinker.

I've been noticing since then that I'm funnier when I write in the voices of characters who I think are funnier or wittier than I am. What is this about, do you think?

(Many thanks to everyone who asked about my second performance class. I'm still here, as you can see. It went very well, and I have a lot to say about it, which I will slap into coherent form when I come back at the beginning of January. Have a happy holiday.)

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog , and she is a regular monthly panelist on Litopia After Dark. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Comments

[Kate Maloy]

Sue, my thought processes differ for different kinds of writing. Sometimes I am very much aware of choosing words, imposing narrative logic, puzzling out the actions that befit a character, and so on. It feels like upper-level thinking, essential but also . . . mechanistic, maybe. Other times, I'm more in thrall and everything comes from some deeper well, It "feels" like not thinking at all, just letting things come fast and forcefully, but I know it is still a cognitive process. It generates imagery, emotion, intuitive stuff--all those things that we have such a hard time finding the language for. So maybe that's how the language finds us. Sorry if this is all garbled. I just can't find the words!