On Circular Writing

I have been asked, once, in the past for any creative writing exercises that had been subjected to which had a lasting impression on me. Suffice it to say, the only exercises that I have undergone are through a high school creative writing class that was more about keeping the mutinous cretins in the room from exercising their right to use words that referenced nether regions and unspeakable acts that was course du rigeur in their high forms of art. On my own I have put thought to exercises that could possibly chip away at the time we spend thinking of that most beautiful of sentences, and, being inert until it descends upon us only to be completely unnoticed by the reader. Writing is difficult juggle of voice, description and action, urged along by a narration, only fractions of which will become apparent to the reader. The writer's unwritten contract with the reader is that he will give resonance, or make sense enough to drive the reader's curiosity, and if this is broken the reader is perfectly entitled to put the book down. How does the writer prevent this from happening? 

The main crux of anything is meaning. Without an inspired logical chain of events instilled in the reader's mind, the writer cannot perform the duties of his office. But logic is a bitter medicine that must be hidden in foods or dissolved in sweeter drinks in order for the pill to metastasize and take hold. Above all else, meaning holds the absolute position. 

If one understands what they want to say, and can put it down in simpler language and paint in broad strokes, then this proposed exercise has salience--it is entirely procedural in nature, and works best in small sections to affect the development of ideas into digestible text that the writer has full license to return to again and again and cause it to evolve without angst directed towards the nature of what he has created. In concise terms, circular writing derives from a statement that can be as simple as a single clause. Marrying it to creative writing would begin thusly: "He went to the store for milk." 

Here we are deprived of any proper nouns--the reader can fill in any noun with any possible blank, as the writer has only given a vague canvas. However, motion has been retained. Supposing that the reader understands English, there is not a single incomprehensible element to this sentence. Although in this stage the reader does not know how it is implied that the subject went, or specifically what kind of store it was he went to, these values can be transcribed in their absence. What must then be provided by the writer is to use this base to ultimately make a final sentence, paragraph, page or full work. With something this general, it is best applied to an eventual form that is small. If this constitutes the beginnings of something much larger, while doing so is entirely possible, it is more conducive to the development of the form to break up individual events into a quasi storyboard outline. Soon this sentence can evolve in the following way: John walked down the black path in the wintertime, where each step was uncertain when taken, but left a sure record of what had passed in the footprints left behind. He was walking to the ShopCo--the unfortunately named chain store whose arrival in town some two years ago had supplanted every smaller business in no time at all. They were close, loathe to shut their doors to any weather, and had milk, which is specifically what John was on his way to buy.

With this, regardless of its unartistic trappings, we have a paragraph that fulfills all of the conditions left by the structural sentence. Our "he" is now a "John," the store now has a name and a rough contextual significance, and we know what John is on his way to get.

This process would be better instructed through first rewriting the clausal sentence into something with proper nouns, i.e. John went to the shopco for milk. This can then be rewritten to: John went down the black path in winter to the shopco to get some milk. We now have several elements that can be expanded upon. The writer can say simple things, and sketch general ideas that he is envisioning in his mind's eye, and realize that as separate elements, these things can be individually expanded upon for heightened understanding or depiction in the reader's interpretation. Things like "the black path" might be better left untouched for a more ominous and percussive effect in the style. They may be expanded to reflect a more florid style of writing, such as--"John scuttered along the dappled blacks and whites of the path that stretched across the bower of his childhood memories."