Melting Snow

Memory and Creativity

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Remember the emotions,
with the traumatic event,
and dive into the novel or short story.

The "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  prompt for DAY 1449
“To write things as they happened means to enslave oneself to memory, which is only a minor element in the creative process.” Aharon Appelfeld answering a question by Philip Roth Do you agree with this statement and, as far as creativity goes, is writing fiction more creative than writing only stark personal experiences?

People's memories are affected by their emotions, which may explain why siblings remember the same event differently. Time, also, affects a person's memory, the more time that passes between the event and recounting it the clearer or dimmer the memory gets. I suspect that the passage of time may have other effects on an individual's memory. These are only my opinions, which resulted from conversations with my siblings about things that occurred when we were children.

Memory, for an author or any creative artist, is a diving board. Use the memory, and the emotions it arouses, to begin the writing process. Once the memory, with its emotions, are down on paper or in a document save it, and let your muse take over especially if you are writing a novel or short story. If you are writing a memoir or a personal journal/blog entry, the memory should be as close as possible to the way you remember the event.