Today I’m sharing an insightful 2014 piece by Jon Brooks entitled Quentin Tarantino’s Telepathic Writing Technique.
It is packed with concepts and ideas that I hadn’t before run across.
Brooks introduced me to ‘mirror neurons’, which “fire both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.” [Wikipedia]
Okay, where does Quentin Tarantino come in?
From Tarantino’s 2013 Oscar acceptance speech: “You guys [friends] don’t realize how important you are to my process. I don’t want input; I don’t want you to tell me if I’m doing anything wrong. Heavens forbid. But, I write a scene and I think I’ve heard it as much as I can, but then when I read it to you – I don’t give it to you to read, I read it – but when I read it to you, I hear it through your ears. And it lets me know I’m on the right track.”
As he reads, then, Tarantino’s mirror neurons fire and he picks up the listeners’ reactions to his work.
What does that mean for the rest of us who are not quite chalking up multiple Oscars?
Take that one extra step beyond reading your work aloud–find an audience who follows the rule of: No feedback, please! Brooks justifies this rule with his observation that people often don’t effectively express their impressions and misguided feedback may well lead you to the toss the whole project.
Brooks closes with this: “You want to know what you think about your work as a first-time reader, not someone else.”
Considering our current pandemic conditions, you may be relegated to telepathic writing over the phone. Hey, it’s called playing the cards we’re dealt, right?
I also tried recording a piece of my writing aloud–and then listening to that recording. I’m not sure if that recreated the mirror-neurons experience, but I will try it again. It does add some distance between yourself and your work.
So, give it a try.
Let me know how telepathic writing worked for you.
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