IMAGINATION or INSANITY?

By Sharon May

One morning my spouse, Peggy, asked me if I thought Stephen King was insane. Not your typical morning coffee question. 

Apparently, a woman in her water aerobics class had just finished It and complained about its dark ending, which led her to throw the book at the nearest wall. She and her companions concluded King had to be insane if he could create such monsters and dark endings. Peggy wanted my take on the subject since I was a writer.

King may be insane. I have no clue as to his mental state. Many authors have been, depending on the definition of insane used. But my answer was that he has a vivid imagination, which all authors rely on. That is how we create fiction.

So how do we imagine what we don’t know? According to cognitive scientists, imagination is influenced by our environment, our memories, and what we know about how the world works. You may ask yourself what world horror writers live in, but an alternative world does not make them insane or evil, any more than the science fiction writer, romance writer, or mystery writer.  

Some people may think I had a dark childhood as I often write stories of child-abuse, sexual-abuse, violence, and murders. Nothing could be further from the truth. My childhood was the envy of others. Those horrible events I write about happened to others. I was just keenly aware of the world beyond me.

I don’t consider myself evil just because I can imagine evil. Imagination allows me to roam a world the victims and assailants might have lived in so I can capture what otherwise average people, some of whom I vaguely knew, experienced.

But entering alternative worlds through imagination can lead one to forget, at least for a while, the world around us. With both writing and reading, imagination can take us away for hours on end. One loses a sense of time and place. It can be likened to an out-of-body experience. When I write, I’m unaware of everything but the story. A poet friend says he goes so far away at times that he’s surprised he comes back.

So how close to insanity is this place we go while writing? What is the difference between a psychotic break and writing fiction? Awareness. The insane are not aware that the world they have gone to is made up, not real. Think of Jack in The Shining, who thinks his several hundred page manuscript is brilliant though it is one line typed over and over.

Writers, no matter how far we drift from the real world, will eventually hear the phone ring, finally realize the pain in our backs from sitting too long, or suddenly know it’s time for lunch. We may be frustrated we have to leave our imaginary world behind for such mundane and trivial matters, but we do come back. At least, until we write again.