Chuck Palahniuk: Explore the issue through a metaphor
On “Dangerous Writing.”
Author
:My best writing teacher, Tom Spanbauer, taught me “Dangerous Writing,” and by that he meant that a writer had to explore an unresolved personal issue that couldn’t be resolved. A death, for instance. Something that seemed personally dangerous to delve into. By doing so the writer could exaggerate and vent and eventually exhaust the pain or fear around the issue, and that gradual relief would keep the writer coming back to work on the project despite no promise of a book contract or money or a readership.
Moreover, the writer had to explore the issue through a metaphor. Like zombies. Or Fight Clubs.
Everyone has a mother. Everyone’s mother will die. Few people want to read about your mother’s death, even if she’s a movie star. A metaphor allows other people into your story. Better yet, it charms you into going deeper into the pain than you’d otherwise go. You forget what you’re actually writing about, but you don’t.
Plus with a metaphor you’re not approaching the pain head-on. According to Michel Foucault, going in direct opposition to an issue only gives it more power. It makes the pain worse. But to come in at an angle, with humor or a metaphor, that works. Case in point, during the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” protests over gays in the United States military Andrew Sullivan wrote of one group of demonstrators who wore elaborate hats and carried picket signs that read, “Gays in the Millinery.” Sullivan wrote, “Foucault would’ve loved that.”
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