I'm going to write about ...
... something else: The Ki-Shō-Ten-Ketsu structure
Here’s a prompt. I’d like you to write something in response.
What’s the first thing you think about?
Fruits, vegetables, flowers, snowflakes all have individual shapes and patterns. The patterns always follow an internal logic that often goes unnoticed.
By this point, you’ll probably have thought - or will be thinking, ‘Yes, but what does this picture showing a cross-section and segment of a grapefruit have to do with the illustration by Carol Michelin above?’
Maybe you’ve worked it out already. Structure provides inspiration for this month’s writing course and competition and in a previous post, I promised I’d outline a short lesson based around the Ki-Shō-Ten-Ketsu structure, which is all about reconciling differences and finding common ground. Here’s how it works:
See what I did here?
So what’s the point?
Let’s go back to the beginning.
The Ki-Shō-Ten-Ketsu structure invites us to contemplate a prompt differently - from the very start, it offers us an opportunity to consider not just the subject of a prompt we might be given, but to also consider something which is totally unrelated and find a way of reconciling it.
It’s a wonderful way of bringing new insight, a sense of creativity, and a deep appreciation for the interconnectivity of things into our writing.
But it’s also more than that.
The Ki-Shō-Ten-Ketsu structure invites us to look at the world differently - to look at it ‘slant’. In reading this, you focus on the words, the characters. What would you see if you focused on the negative space around them?
I hope you use this exercise to produce something in response to this month’s competition.
What will your first thought be?
Will it be something you see in Carol Michelon’s illustration which appears above?
Or will it be something totally different? Something totally unrelated?
Let the process of reconciliation begin!
For details of this month’s competition, see my previous post here:
Deadline for submission is Midnight on 25th January 2023, GMT. Submit the winning entry and you win a $10 Amazon gift voucher. The first 50 writers who submit entries to the competition each win a copy of my new book, Master the Art and Craft of Writing, and all entrants win a sampler of exercises drawn from it.
Everyone’s a winner. It’s free to enter. What do you have to lose?