Oblique Strategies

Can Literature Change This World?

Some of the writers at The 24-Hour Room have been doing prompts together in our virtual Studio this Fall. The flurry of craft posts I made to this EON Substack during October was created (in part) with the goal of inspiring that group, which gathers weekday mornings at 8 a.m. Eastern for about 45 minutes of silent communal writing, followed by a brief discussion of whatever we have or haven’t managed to accomplish. At the end of October, one stalwart of this group, Stephanie Mankins, suggested we use Oblique Strategies to keep the prompt-driven writing sessions going, and so, on November 5, I relaunched a bulletin board begun back in 2021, which displays dozens of daily draws from the Oblique Strategies card decks created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt to spur creative work with unexpected ideas and approaches. (If you’re not already a member of The 24-Hour Room, there’s a quick free sign up to access the bulletin board, or you can order a deck of your own at Brian Eno's website.)

On November 6, I drew this card:

It felt appropriate to me. During the first twenty-four hours after the election, I kept flashing back to a day in college when some things went haywire for me and I punched a pane of reenforced glass. Thanks to the chicken wire, minimal change was brought about by that action: a window needed replacing, I had a number of cuts on my knuckles, and the few people who witnessed it probably made some negative judgements about my character. None of the things that had originally distressed me were remedied, of course. For me, the most notable thing was what I saw about myself: I hadn’t thought I was like that.

Ever since then, I’ve known the range of my own possible responses to frustration includes violence and self harm. I don’t approve of these tendencies, so I work pretty hard to keep them in check, which is, perhaps, partly why I find myself judging others who do not manage the same self-control rather harshly. A few years ago some people who rented an apartment in my building revealed themselves to be pretty out of control. We heard disturbing things when we ventured into the common hall: what sounded like plates or glasses beings thrown against a wall, the teenage son screaming “fucking cunt” at his mother. At least one dining chair ended up in splinters. This family didn’t seem to be hurting each other bodily — I think their aim was intentionally poor — just each other’s feelings and the housewares, so I didn’t call the authorities or anything, just allowed myself a cocktail of sour grapes and schadenfreude. As rich or famous as they might be, I felt better than they were.

Last week, when things shifted, or revealed themselves long since to have shifted, in the American body politic, when I started thinking nostalgically about that youthful window punch, I also found myself reconsidering my former judginess of the plate smashers. That day in college, I had acted on my feelings, rather than squelch them. Was it actually okay, what I’d done? As for the neighbors, maybe were more honest, more in touch with their feelings than me, expressing instead of repressing their rage? The Talking Heads’s “Burning Down the House” kept playing through my silent brain.

I was attracted to the “Destroy” card because it seemed to justify punching some windows, breaking some chairs. But I wasn’t sure. Burning down a house is a great metaphor for forcing radical change, but it’s a terrible, abhorrent thing to do in reality. And anyway, chairs and windows and even houses aren’t “the most important thing.” What is the most important thing? For me, it’s the Earth, it’s other beings, it’s other people and the interconnections among us. For me, it’s in particular the communication between people that we call art. Once I got there, it was easy for me to chose option one: “Destroy Nothing,” but I couldn’t have gotten there without “Destroy the Most Important Thing” on the table, and I thank Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt for offering up that polarity.

The following day, November 6, Stephanie, who’d suggested Oblique November, drew this card:

and added the following beautiful note to introduce it:

Water is frequently transformative, but always essential.

Here is Marilynne Robinson, in Housekeeping, describing a house that was built on land that was once the bottom of a lake.

“Sometimes in the spring the old lake will return. One will open a cellar door to wading boots floating tallowy soles up and planks and buckets bumping at the threshold, the stairway gone from sight after the second step. The earth will brim, the soil will become silty water, and the grass will stand in chill water to its tips.”

How does it function in your story?

Does it reveal something about your character? Maybe, like my mother, your character doesn’t drink water. Only coffee, iced tea, or vodka tonics. Or maybe your character is obsessed with drinking water.

Does it define your setting? Landlocked or oceanfront. On the banks of a river, which, depending upon which side you live, can represent either a promise or a threat

Can it manifest as motif? As rain, ice cubes, urine, or sweat. As relief, in the form of a hot shower or an open water swim. As disaster, in the form of a hurricane or flood. —Stephanie Mankins

I love the universality of that prompt. Water is common to all life as we know it. It encompasses polarities, it can take on three states of matter, it contains multitudes. There is so much we still have to write about, in our quest to communicate, to play a part in changing this currently quite disastrous but also amazing world for the better.

I’m pleased to say we’re now planning to keep up the 8 a.m. ET live prompt-driven writing sessions indefinitely. Join us in our virtual Studio, if that’s your kind of thing. Or just stay tuned for the rest of November, for Oblique Strategies prompts from this Substack.

Good writing, from Elizabeth Gaffney and The 24-Hour Room.