The Timelessness of Well Crafted Writing - Day 1 of contemplations on Storytelling

In recent months I have been dedicating myself to a study of the crafting of story. Reading a breadth of fiction, taking time to read screenplays and stage plays, watching a range of cinema by the director/writers who’s storytelling resonates close to my heart.

There is a feeling which emerges when the crafted artifice delves into timelessness. When reading or watching, if we pay attention to the impact made, it feels like a sinking into a valley. Singing notes of being that ripple deep into layers of unconscious self-hood and re-emerge silently, unknown to our conscious mind. Unknown, in all but currents of deep emotion. These feelings breach the conscious mind of the reader or viewer like the opening of a Black Sea by a whale, vast and knowing of their own habitual depth. Transforming the perception of the sea itself from an unbreakable boundary between states, to a vellum, thin, ephemeral and - most vitally - permeable.

I have come to think this is one of the signals of mastery of a craft. When the creative channel is able to direct its mental capacity, to bring forward from the vastness something that was long forgotten. Like the eruption of crude oil from deep within the earth.

So storytelling becomes a craft of excavation. Exploring how far can be travelled down into this depth before the route home is lost.

As I continue to study the power and tools to retrieve the timelessness and craft, I hope one day to travel the depths, and return with the boon of creation.