Fiction Course: Superficial Wisdom

How to Make Contrast Dance

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The last thing you want your writing to be called is "superficial." However, to make contrast in fiction work, a synthetic element must be implemented. Robert Louis Stevenson says of this that

"Style is synthetic; and the artist, seeking, so to speak, a peg to plait about, takes up at once two or more elements or two or more views of the subject at hand; combines, implicates and contrasts them; and while, in one sense, he is merely seeking an occasion for the necessary knot, he will be found, in the other, to have greatly enriched the meaning, or to have transacted the work of two sentences in the space of one."

One of the best ways to contrast a beautiful metaphor, image, or scene is with an aphorism. Or what I call "superficial wisdom." Douglas Glover describes the first aphorism below

"Aphorisms are synthetic, artificially constructed, highly formal little sayings. The first we know of were written by Hippocrates in a book called, yes, Aphorisms. For example, “Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult.” Notice the balanced antithesis, short and long, which reminds us once more of Alice Munro and Stevenson and Wyatt. Notice also the succeeding elements, the juxtaposed nouns and modifiers with the verbs elided, which is, I gather, typical of certain Greek poetic forms. The effect is terse, startling, almost iconic."

Some other famous aphorisms with beautiful synthetic contrast

“Life is a dream; when we sleep we are awake, and when awake we sleep.”

(Montaigne)

“Vision is exorcism.” (Laurence Durrell)

“All reformers are bachelors.” (George Moore)

“The man of action is always ruthless; no one has a conscience except an observer.” (Goethe)

Aphorisms can be found in any genre of writing. Nietzche's writing is filled with them. Many of the best novels play with extended aphorisms where two opposites dance with each other for paragraphs at a time.

So, let's practice adding aphorisms to our writing.

Create three simple aphorisms like the ones above. Focus on the human condition. Here is an example - Wisdom speaks in silence; only ignorance echoes in noise.

Pick a paragraph you've previously written, add an aphorism, and post it. Did it make it better or worse?

Create a 150-200 word passage that features a single aphoristic thought that DANCES on the page!