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| James Joyce |
What is it?
According to Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
Narrative technique in nondramatic fiction intended to render the flow of myriad impressions — visual, auditory, tactile, associative, and subliminal — that impinge on an individual consciousness. To represent the mind at work, a writer may incorporate snatches of thought and grammatical constructions that do not seem coherent because they are based on the free association of ideas and images. The term was first used by William James in The Principles of Psychology (1890). In the 20th century, writers attempting to capture the total flow of their characters' consciousness commonly used the techniques of interior monologue, which represents a sequence of thought and feeling. Novels in which stream of consciousness plays an important role include James Joyce's Ulysses (1922), William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1929), and Virginia Woolf's The Waves (1931).
Virginia Woolf, Faulkner, and Joyce? They're literary masters! Why isn't the narrative device more popular? Why don't I use it?
Um, because it's difficult to pull off. Have you ever tried to read the novels by one of those authors? "Flowing, fast read" isn't one way I would describe the reading experience. Change of thought mid-sentence. Often a lack of plot or character development.
So why are you writing like this, Clarissa?
Well, for me, I love trying new writing challenges and also, it fits the story I'm telling but is it easy? Not at all.
Have you ever tried streams of consciousness writing? Did you succeed?
"Such fools we all are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street. For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can't be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June."Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/stream-of-consciousness#ixzz1FpapAIOC
-Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Picture Source: here
I've never tried writing a story using stream of consciousness but I have used it briefly for characters that needed to have that voice. It can work but it's hard to pull off!
ReplyDeleteI wrote a short story like that years ago - it's tough!
ReplyDeleteWell, it never became overly popular because those writers you've mentioned dealt mostly with some very egocentric topics and issues, using lazy, bored people as their main characters, people who were trying to find problems instead of solving them.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm a psychologist, I've never really got to like stream of consciousness. I prefer progressive things not overly introspective ones.
Never tried this but I think it's worth a try sometime. What a great writing exercise. Glad you shared this, thanks!
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Joyce. I CAN'T read Falkner (not technically true--I made myself once, but I'll never do it again) but I think Woolf pulls it off because her heroine is often some sort of crazy. The scattered thinking, while it is really how people think, is NOT how we expect sane people to think. So for certain voices, I think it's suited. As for ME... I've journaled that way and find it a helpful way to discover things I hadn't known I'd been thinking... I think for a first draft it might be great, but for a finished draft? Yeah... crazy person.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think my poetic style can be a bit stream of consciousness, but then, I also try to cram a lot into few words, so it doesn't go on forever.
ReplyDeleteThat's the main thing I remember about Virginia Woolf's writing. The sentences never seem to end.
I didn't enjoy reading books by those authors when they were required reading. And I've never tried writing like them.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post...
ReplyDeleteI'd like to try writing stream of consciousness. I would be a great way to flex your writing muscles.
like Sierra I've only used it briefly for my own character's inner dialogue. I can't imagine trying (or wanting) to use it throughout an entire book nor do I think I would enjoy reading it except in brief spurts.
ReplyDeleteI have loved Virginia Wolff for many years, in fact if you read my children's books you can see her influence on my work.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I catch myself doing this without meaning too. I think it can be easier if you are fully involved and all your defenses are dropped while you write. If you just allow your brain to do the talking...it happens.
ReplyDeleteLOL, this is the style I have to try NOT to write in. Basically because my streams are more like flash floods :)
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
Jules @ Trying To Get Over The Rainbow
Hi Clarissa .. I love the passages you give us on her purposeful wanders through London .. they do describe life so well - now I can see it more.
ReplyDeleteGo for it .. good for you to keep trying new ways .. all the best - Hilary
It's easy to become carried away and indulgent with this style. Just because it reads as stream of consciousness, doesn't mean that's how it was written, all out in one splurge and done and dusted. It still takes just as much editing and refining to make sure it says what the writer wants it to say.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a challenging writing exercise. About the only time I've done this is when writing in my journal.
ReplyDeleteI agree with mooderino. Just because it's suppose to flow from your mind doesn't mean that a modern writer shouldn't have a purpose. I think you can either make your story count with this way of writing or make it completely useless.
ReplyDeleteSounds too deep for me.
ReplyDeleteAs it is so challenging to read, I can see where it would aid you by trying a bit with your writing. It would give you a different take on a scene.
ReplyDeleteMason
Thoughts in Progress
Clarissa - You know, I have to admit I've never tried writing stream of consciousness. I'll be honest, it's not my cuppa when it comes to reading, and it is a difficult form to write. I like your exercise, though, and I might try it. But so far... nope.
ReplyDeleteI had to write stream of consciousness for writing exercises in college. It is hard to pull off well. It can be difficult to read, too. But challenging yourself and your writing is what makes us better writers! Good luck with it and have fun!
ReplyDeleteI love SOC writing. It's one of my most favortie things to do as a writing practice. I've gotten some very interesting characters because of it.
ReplyDeleteI used to do stream of conscious writing regularly but only as an exercise to free up my imagination. No way I could write a story. My internal editor wouldn't allow it. For me, writing is ruminating over every word. It's the part of the process I enjoy most and very possibly why I don't appreciate the work of Joyce, Faulkner, or Woolf.
ReplyDeleteI do think free-writing is a great exercise, though.
I enjoy the music of their words, and it's good to read them occasionally, but to write like that? nope, not my style (not a whole novel, anyways)
ReplyDeleteAlthough I find it interesting and may incorporate bits here and there, I think I will leave it to the masters. :)
ReplyDeleteI tried stream of consciousness for a scene in which the MC was drowsy, tired, and about to fall asleep. I thought it worked, but who knows. :)
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven´t tried it, but I might try it in a short story or flash fiction story. I have read short extracts written in the style and found them interesting, but I don´t think I´d enjoy a whole novel. I want plot, she whined ;)
ReplyDeleteWell, I'll let everyone know how I get on. Who knows, maybe I'll give up if I think it doesn't work well.
ReplyDeleteI was experimenting with Virginia Wolf as a literary inspiration (for a literary competition) when I wrote the hook for LINES:
ReplyDeletehttp://notexactlyblogging.blogspot.com/2010/10/lighthouse-literary-competition-and.html
Streams of conscious thought. :D
Oh it's a true art form and such a literary skill and something I will never ever even attempt to pull off, ever!! So yay to all you fab writers able to do this!! Take care
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oh yes and I love it - I love reading it and I love writing it too. Sometimes it comes out in my writing and it is like a river - it just carries one along.
ReplyDeleteI have an award over at my site for you - if you don't want it or are just fatigued with awards then let it lie - otherwise you are most welcome to it!
I use stream of consciousness when I have writer's block. It really helps to get some of those pesky words on the page!
ReplyDeleteI always wanted to read Ulysses, but never got the time to really sit down and concentrate on it. The only thing I've read by Joyce is Dubliners >:)
ReplyDeleteCold As Heaven
An interesting concept, but I'm not sure stream of consciousness writing is right for me. I need my plot and characters, and above all, story in action.
ReplyDeleteI have to confess to really disliking Mrs Dalloway and any streams of consciousness. I've written examples for uni, but it's definately not my taste. Good for you for branching out into new territory :-)
ReplyDeleteIt makes me feel crazy to try to write like this and I have to be in a special mood to read it :-)
ReplyDeleteOne whole semester at graduate school (for the MFA) I took the Virginia Woolf class. It took me most of the semester to "get" it, but when I did, it was awesome. Never did Faulkner, though, beyond the short stories, but I keep wanting to try. Did some Joyce and only remember The Dead; in fact, recently reread it to use a piece of it in my memoir. It's gorgeous! But, I don't think that the current reading public goes for much of this kind of writing. They want the quick read IMHO.
ReplyDeletep.s. I just remember that I did a stream of consciousness piece when I was 19, in a creative writing class. This kind of writing I would say borders on prose poetry.
ReplyDeleteHowdy, CLARISSA ~
ReplyDeleteWhen I was much younger, back in the “serious” drinking daze of my twenties, I always had the desire to write a Stream O’Consciousness poem while heavily intoxicated. I figured that being drunk would emphasize the randomness of my thoughts and enhance the project.
I knew, of course, that the poem would include numerous typographical errors – what with my typing it in a “laminated” condition and all – but I made up my mind to leave every error in the finished product as a testament to its authenticity. And aside from that, one of my often used slogans back then was: “An artist’s mistakes are half of his art”. So, it seemed like this was a match made in Heaven.
The Stream O’Consciousness Poem never happened though, for a variety of reasons: Either I would have too good a time with my partying friends that I would forget to go to my bedroom and type a Stream O’Consciousness Poem. Or, I wouldn’t feel I was drunk enough to really sit down at the typewriter sans conscious thinking, allowing the subconscious to be let loose to do its thang. Or, I would be TOO drunk – too drunk to sit at a typewriter and type anything. So, that project, unfortunately, went unrealized.
I came pretty close to it once, however: I awoke that morning with quite a hangover – one of those where I didn’t feel physically ill but my mind was just kind of short-circuited and zipping all over the place. I loaded my huge manual typewriter - that weighed a ton - into my pickup truck and drove down to Venice Beach in Los Angeles, where I parked, sat in the bed of my truck and typed a letter to this girl I had become interested in, who was now living half the world away.
I literally typed every thought that came into my mind while I was parked there on a little side street near the beach. It wasn’t a complete “free-association” stream of consciousness thang because I WAS attempting to write something that had some sort of understandable thought process underlying it, but other than that, my “self-editor” was on vacation and I just let it rip, making up my mind in advance that I would send this letter to the girl, even though the “near-insanity” of it might scare her off. (It didn’t.)
I posted the letter during Arlee Bird’s “April A To Z Blogfest” last year, under the letter “D” (for “Dylan”). If you’d like to read it, you’ll find it HERE. (You can scroll down to the letter, posted in blue text.)
I keep a copy of that old letter in my Bob Dylan compact disc ‘Blood On The Tracks’, along with an old photograph of the young woman I sent the letter to. It’s the only somewhat Stream O’Consciousness writing I ever did. And I know the letter is just crazy sounding, but to be totally truthful, to this day, it remains one of my favorite things I’ve ever written (and I’ve written a lotta stuffs!)
~ D-FensDogg
‘Loyal American Underground’
I enjoyed the paragraph, but I can see how it would be tough to read a whole book like that. In fact I think I have and I really had a hard time making progress through it. On the other hand, I found many blogs write like this, perhaps it's the journal aspect that brings it out.
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