#30. Alice in Wonderland Special! Writing Tips From Wonderland -According to the Cheshire Cat

After some deep-thinking insights stick around for some fresh rounds of Exquisite Corpse word play, where pure randomness, imagination (and fun!) will be our guides.
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It is time to enter a Wonderland of creative writing ideas.

Hello imaginative people! I’m Anna Tizard and this is episode 30 of Brainstoryum, and it’s the 3rd in my Alice in Wonderland mini-series (although of course, you can listen to any of my shows in any order).
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Today we will meet with the Cheshire Cat who has a unique message for us about writing and about life, if we care to stop awhile and gaze up at the tree where he sits, a furry, stripy body wrapped around a knowing grin.
For there never was anyone who stepped into Wonderland who wasn’t lost; and not one of us has begun real life knowing exactly where to go and how to get there.

After some probing insights we will also enjoy some fresh rounds of Exquisite Corpse word play, where pure randomness and imagination will be our guides.

But for now, it is time once again to enter Wonderland.

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The Cheshire Cat is probably my favourite character in the book and in the Disney animation. He really is the most comfortable character in Wonderland; he seems to understand that world better than anyone else there and is perfectly adapted to it. And - all the other major characters Alice meets along the way become frustrated with her. They reject her logic, they criticise her questions, and they ridicule the sensible things she says as she tries desperately to make sense of this strange world in which she finds herself.

When I first tried reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a child, I didn’t really like it. Everyone’s so rude and horrible and derisive of Alice. But not the Cheshire Cat; no. He questions her assumptions, yes, but he isn’t cruel to her, and he doesn’t accuse her of being different to anyone else in Wonderland. And I quote:

“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
 
The Cheshire Cat is the only character who effectively tells Alice that Wonderland is a state of mind; a state of being utterly dysfunctional, at odds with the real world, not fitting in with its rules of logic and common sense, which, let’s face it, aren’t quite so common as all that. We are all out of sorts from time to time. When we’re stressed or when things aren’t going our way, we are at odds with the world to varying degrees – and we all have the capacity to be at odds with ourselves.

The Cheshire Cat doesn’t judge, and doesn’t discriminate. He’s saying that everyone has their own way of being; everyone who’s in Wonderland is there because they’re out of sorts with the real world and with logic. Alice is no better but no worse than anyone else there. He might rebuke her questions but he doesn’t get angry with her or agitated. He has a kind of Wonderland zen.

The Cheshire Cat is also a bit of a trickster character. Being at one with Wonderland gives him a sort of power, and elevates him above the others. His understanding of the place, his acceptance – his embrace – of its weirdness, its madness, goes deeper than it does with the other characters: he gets Alice into trouble with the Queen of Hearts, and is utterly immune to the queen’s authority, her tyranny: he simply disappears when she wants to cut off his head; he disappears whenever he feels like it, as if he’s a part of the fabric of this place. He is the grin that lingers in the tree tops for as long as he fancies; observing, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, but thoroughly unbothered by it. Just – a bit cheeky, and rather wise, as well.

The Cheshire Cat has some rather grounded and sensible things to say, if you look at them as philosophical statements. When Alice is lost and begs him which direction she should go, he says, “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

“I don’t much care where – ” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“ – so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat “if you only walk long enough.”

Literally and metaphorically, if you don’t know or care or decide which way you’re going, it doesn’t matter where you go. Things will happen to us. Life happens. Change happens whether we like it or not; whether we’re prepared for it or not. But the flipside of this message is: If you can make up your mind about where you want to go, you’ll have a sense of purpose, a direction; and hopefully, you can find a way to get there. It sounds almost ludicrously simple but it can happen to any of us, when we rush into things and don’t really plan, or just let life carry us along like a boat spinning on a river, without really doing any steering – we might end up anywhere, or somewhere we really don’t want to be.

But we can’t plan everything, nor should we try. Spontaneity, a sense of adventure or going with the flow are also aspects of life; and sometimes it can even feel like life has some secret messages for us that it’s trying to convey, completely beyond our control.

As an authors, as readers, are we not on some level seekers after these secret messages, these potential meanings, the patterns underlying it all?

As a discovery writer, I pretty much always begin drafting a story without any plot outline: lots of writers find it helpful to know in advance all the steps of the story, but for me, that dulls my creative urge to explore, and listen. To me, each story has its own pulse, its own secret intent that I’m trying to discover as I draft out my ideas. I’m halfway between making a pathway and finding it.

But after my initial explorations, there’s a point where I must sit back and decide what I think this story wants to be – and where it’s going.

Who the protagonist is and what their fears, desires and obstacles are, is usually the first main decision, or discovery. (It’s somewhere between the two.) But the very next one will be: how does it end? Even if I don’t know much about the journey the main character must go through to get there, knowing the destination really helps crystallise all sorts of things, including how I should go back and adapt the beginning. For the beginning contains a seed of the ending, the promise (and the threat) of what’s to come.

I’m not looking for an exact map at this stage, just a sign post, to tell me the destination. But that’s all I need, as a discovery writer, to move past the initial rough sketches of scenes and ideas and to forge a pathway for the protagonist. Understanding the nature of her struggle and knowing her final destination, my mental compass is pointed, and I have a sense of where I’m going, even if I can’t see the twists and turns in the path yet.

Part of the challenge is psychological: I have to trust my imagination – my subconscious mind – to fill in the gaps that make up the journey. The winding path of the story; the many forks in the road that will surprise me, so they will definitely surprise my readers. And I never publish anything that hasn’t surprised me at least twice. (That’s my personal publishing policy.)

So as authors and imaginative people, let’s be a bit more like the Cheshire Cat: not seeing our journey as a battle, or a source of frustration. Instead, accepting (as much as we can), that perhaps we’re all a bit at sea, we’re all at odds with life sometimes, and at odds with that story we’ve just started drafting; but if we have a sense of purpose in what we’re doing then we have a signpost to look to when we’ve lost our way.

Now before we move on to Exquisite Corpse game play, I want to share with you another publishing opportunity I’ve come across on the world wide web. Fanatical Magazine is looking for unpublished scifi, fantasy and horror stories between 2K and 6K words. At the time of recording, they say they £20 per accepted story, and they are open for submissions all year round. For more information, visit fanaticalmag.com. As always, check the terms and conditions of publishing before you submit your work anywhere.

Right. As the Cheshire Cat fades from the tree, his stripes spiralling into the air leaving only a white grin, let us open up our imaginations to new story possibilities. It is time to see what lies within the socks of destiny.

Listen to the game play at the link at the top of the page. (Magic cannot be transposed!)