Baptism of the Imagination, Part 2

(Photo of the entrance to Glendalough, a former monastic community in Ireland, by Ethan Harrison, student at Taylor University.)

Here is the second installment of my Parnassus interview. . . .

KC: To what extent can writers of fiction write on something they don't know? How much credibility belongs to the imagination?

WV: (Referring to a current work of fiction in progress I answered. . . .) Well, I can write about Irish children, but it is going to take me a lot more research to make sure I'm right on with certain things. Irish children are probably going to have to come into this story, at least peripherally. So, I'll need to make sure I get those little bits right in terms of how they speak and how they are dressed so as to make it realistic to whatever the time period is--probably a fairly recent time period. You mentioned the role of personal experience, imagination and research in your sample questions, but personal experience could include books that I've read....

I think it takes all three. You have to write about what you know to some extent. Lewis, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, writes about four children evacuated during the Blitz. He knew about that. He had children come to his house, so he already knew about the information presented in that piece. He also knew about myth because he had practically soaked in it for the previous forty years up to that point. He knows about children's stories like The Aunt and Amabel and Five Children and It, all those Nesbit stories. So, is that research? It's all back research. It's all there. He doesn't have to go out and get it; he has a reservoir there in his brain from having read this stuff. He needs all that. However, ultimately, for him, it starts with imagination. It starts with that "picture" in his mind. It's almost like revelation. Where does it come from? Where do those "pictures" come from? Who can explain that? I think it takes a bit of all three--personal experience, imagination and research.

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