Imagination may be more important than knowledge: The eight types of imagination we use

An Application for writers

I posted a map of imagination much earlier on in this blog.

Imagination may be more important than knowledge: The eight types of imagination we use.

Here is an application developed for writers by the Argumentative Penguin published in The Writing Cooperative.

Understanding your Creative Engine — the 8 types of Imagination

The real engine of creative writing is the imagination. The ability to create new people from scratch, to put them into scenarios and to tell stories. If you cannot imagine, you cannot write. It is the single most important thing for you to understand about your process.

There are 8 types of imagination. I’ll broadly explain them according to the psychological model. For those of you who enjoy additional research you can have a look for Hunter (2012). Then I’ll highlight how they might specifically apply to writing and your work as a writer.

The more you understand your thought processes, the more efficiently you can work.

According to Murray. The Eight subsections of imagination are:

1. Effectuative imagination

2. Intellectual or constructive imagination

3. Imaginative fantasy

4. Empathy

5. Strategic imagination

6. Emotional imagination

7. Dreams

8. Memory Reconstruction.

It’s important to note that there is some overlap between each of these types of imagination. They don’t function entirely independently from each other and many of them combine during the course of every day.

Effectuative imagination

This is what allows us to synthesise existing ideas together from existing information. If I were to offer you a penguin and dog-poop sandwich, you probably don’t have to try it to know that you won’t like it. You simply took the existing information (the ingredients) and made a brand new construct (the sandwich).

As a writer you can think of yourself as a conduit for creating new ideas from existing information already in the creative sphere. You’re creating something new from something that already exists across all of human history. You’re joining a canon of writers who already exist and who have set templates and genres.

It’s important that you read, the more you read, the more information you have to draw on for your imagination. When you’re an avid reader, you’re an avid imaginer, when you’re an avid imaginer then you’re much better prepared to be a true story wrangler. You can take existing things and you can make them into something new. This is the heart of good scriptwriting.

Intellectual Imagination

is when you’re able to work from an existing plan or a definite idea and is guided towards a distinct purpose. Intellectual imagination is a very conscious and deliberate process.

For those of us that have a dream about a great piece of work, the one thing that we’re determined to write over the course of our lives. We want it to be absolutely right. In order to do this, we have to imagine — we have to research and we have to create something spectacular consciously and with a lot of effort and care. We may spend more than a decade or two researching it and creating something that transcends the financial reward we may get for it. The book Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett is a great example of this.

Imaginative Fantasy

This is when you’re able to generate new ideas from scratch and can be guided or unguided. This is what most writers and artists are good at. We usually have a moment of inspiration and go off to explore wherever the fantasy may take us. Lots of my time spent as a writer is done walking. Walking and thinking and daydreaming. Letting my brain go off in it’s own direction and return with things that haven’t been thought of yet.

Any time you walk into a library, just take a moment to stand and bathe in the collected imagination of humanity. Stories have been created in thousands of genres, millions of characters (some of whom are more famous than any living person) and billions and billions of words. All simply to take the story from one person’s head and implant it into someone else’s. Imaginative fantasy is the soul of creativity.

Empathy

This is a capacity that human beings have to mentally detach from ourselves and experience what another person is experiencing from their point of view. It allows us to take an imaginative stroll in someone else’s shoes.

To be a good writer I think you must have a great deal of empathy. I think it’s important for all the characters you write that you’re able to see the world as they see it. How else would you be able to create rounded characters otherwise? There is nothing worse than characters that feel false, particularly characters who are written as two-dimensionally evil. Even the most evil person thinks they’re the good guy. To understand that, you’ve got to have empathy.

Without empathetic imagination working at a high level all your characters will invariably sound like you.

Strategic Imagination

This is primarily concerned with ‘what could be…’. It’s the ability to spot opportunities and visualise what might happen if you were to take them. People who have an excellent strategic imagination will have a realistic understanding of their own skills, and be able to spot opportunities to develop

For us as writers, we need to be able to think about the limits of our abilities and our development. I would never begin to write a fantasy novel, I don’t have the staying power. I’ve played out the scenario in my head and can see me getting paralysed by the different writing requirements. Perhaps as I become more confident in my writing — but at the moment my strategic imagination is giving that eventuality a big thumbs down.

If it helps you to give strategic imagination a catchy name, then you can call it ‘wisdom’.

Emotional Imagination

This is a slightly trickier one to define. It’s concerned with manifesting emotional dispositions and extending them into scenarios. We need imagination to fuel our emotional states, we need to imagine the monsters to feel fear, imagine the scenarios playing out in our lives to make us feel anxious.

As writers, we need to be aware of our emotions and the emotions of human beings more generally. If we know how we can create fear, how to create sadness, laughter and we have the ability to play on those emotions — then we can generate form and structure that plays into this facet of our audience’s mindsets. Any time you’re starting to feel a lump in your throat whilst watching fiction, give a round of applause to the writer. They just hacked your brain.

Dreams

These are an unconscious form of imagination that we do when we’re asleep. Scientists are still deciding what these crazy little night visions are all about — but for those of us that dream, it can be a fun and sometimes scary way to access our imagination.

Dreams are great for writers. And I mean genuinely great. I strongly recommend keeping a pad and pen by your bed. Some of the best dreams I’ve had make the short list for pitches to production companies.

As your unconscious mind often deals with conscious problems whilst you sleep — you may find that the answers to your scripting problems appear fully formed in the morning (please please please please let that be the case!)

Memory Reconstruction

When we retrieve our memories of people, objects and events we use our imagination to regenerate the images. Memories are subconscious stored bits of information dragged into our conscious brain and our imagination often fills the gaps where memory hasn’t been curated properly.

A large part of my writing is memory reconstruction. I write conversations that I’ve had, I write people that I’ve met, I write about my relationships with real people and I give them different names. A lot of who we are and what we do goes into our writing. Memories made flesh.

Conclusion

Imagination is key to writing. It’s the engine that drives creativity. Imagining is key to human existence, not just for writers but for all of us. Without an imagination we cannot function emotionally, our memories wouldn’t work, and we’d lack the capacity to travel forwards or backwards in time. The strength of our imagination may be what makes us unique as a species.

For those of us that make a living by monetising our imagination — it’s important to keep this engine well oiled and functional. This isn’t something passive that happens. You have to take active steps on how to keep it running.

There are techniques you can use.

But sharing those techniques is for another day and a different article. Today I have a fairly hectic schedule of writing to adhere to. I hope that you’ve found this article informative and useful and that you’re already connecting the dots and working out which bits of your own imagination you will need to work on.

Subscribe below: