Words With Impact: Honest Code: Scale

Workshop: Discover Words That Sing

“The capacity to recall the sensory impacts and perceptions of one’s early years is obviously also a vital part of the talent in question: but a further dimension of recall is needed for the physical world of childhood, which, we tend to forget, is out of scale in surroundings proportioned to adults.”  Mollie Hunter

As are our fantasy worlds out of scale to our normal every day experiences. Not just the right word then to describe heat, or cold, or color, or temperature, but also the emotion that resonates along with them. Crawling into a blanket-made fort for a child may hold all the anticipation of a dangerous journey, or a return to a safe haven. We need to be able to echo that experience as adults too.

The settings and description need to be in accord with both the age and the story itself. Too often I concentrate on the description and miss the added impact of the feelings. This, I think, is what can lead to a superficial treatment.

Then I remember the first time my youngest son saw the stars at night.  He was only two and did not have the vocabulary to describe what he saw. So he flung himself backwards and spread out his arms as if trying to hug the sky or hold it somehow.  Pure speechless astonishment poured out of him. That night we, who did possess the word vocabulary, saw the night sky in a new way. 

Reflect on a memory where you were astonished beyond words whether positively or negatively. What word or sensory concept helped you to process the experience?

That’s the code we’re watching out for. The one that is a higher reach or scale than our ordinary or automatic every day normal.  When we need some extra impact.

Action Steps: Writing Images

1. Using your stained glass window, begin a word journal according to each theme you listed.

2. Next to each choose a non-verbal image that captures the main emotion you recall as your experience.

3. Write down any words that impact you as you read or brainstorm through the months ahead, and place them in your journal under each category you have chosen.

Share: One of the wordless images you selected.

Read deep, marcy