Seeing Like a Writer

What happens when we pay attention differently?

Note: for folks who prefer to read instead of watch or listen, an article version is at the end of this. If you’re watching or listening on a podcatcher, you can find the original article at DonnKing.com/113.

I went looking for a bench and came home with a question about how we experience the world.

I hadn’t been to Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville for years. But I’m writing a novel that includes a scene along the Tennessee River, and I wanted to get the details right. I remembered a bench beside the boardwalk, but I couldn’t find a photograph or description that confirmed it was there.

So I decided to go see for myself.

I’ve spent years looking at places through a photographer’s eyes. This time, though, I wasn’t trying to make beautiful photographs. I was taking pictures of stairs, narrow trails, changes in the landscape, and details that might help me reconstruct the experience later.

I was looking at Ijams like a writer.

That got me thinking about the ways writers observe everyday life: the interesting phrases we overhear, the facial expressions we notice, the small details we collect without knowing whether we’ll ever use them.

But why should writers have all the fun?

In this episode, I explore what might happen if any of us deliberately paid closer attention to the world around us. Maybe the world wouldn’t change much. But our experience of it might.

And that could make a difference in how we live.

The Big Takeaway