Cultivating Curiosity ~ Valerie Ronald

 

When my daughter took her niece to the museum, little Hazel was fascinated by each different display. With her nose pressed to the glass, she asked the same question every time. “What does it do?” Her auntie had to think quickly to come up with answers to satisfy the curiosity of a three-year-old.

Curiosity is natural in young children˗˗preschoolers ask an average of 26 questions an hour! However, as people age, curiosity often declines due to reluctance to ask questions or reticence about revealing what they don’t know. A strong desire to discover and understand keeps the mind active, boosts the memory, and improves learning capacity. Cultivating curiosity is a way to slow down the aging process of the mind.

Curiosity is a writer’s best resource because it works as an engine for generating ideas. It drives the creative process, sending a writer down trails of inexhaustible possibilities for writing projects. It fuels the imagination, prompts research in areas of genuine interest, and brings fresh energy to the page, keeping readers engaged.

Curiosity need not be limited to the real world. It crosses over into the imagination to explore possibilities beyond our physical limitations. A prime example is the complex fantasy realm of Middle-earth conceived by author J.R.R. Tolkien. He created a highly detailed mythological world with multiple people groups, languages, histories, and environments. As Professor of English and Literature at the University of Oxford, Tolkien lived and worked where his considerable intellect and curiosity could access extensive resources to inform his epic trilogy.

If I wrote only about what I know and have experienced myself, my writing portfolio would be limited. Curiosity sends me searching for the answers to why and what if?, opening imaginative possibilities I can transform into words on a page. I may live a simple, quiet life, however, the possibilities of where my mind can take me are endless.

A short story I submitted to an InScribe FellowScript Fall Contest grew out of my curiosity about living in a church no longer in use. A Stone Ghost was written because of the following questions and the answers I imagined: 

Who would be interested in buying an old church? ˗˗ A sculptor creating larger-than-life statues requiring open space and high ceilings.

What affect would the atmosphere of an old church have on a man embittered towards God because of his wife’s death? ˗˗ He plans to sell its valuable stained-glass window, then changes his mind when moonlight through the window illuminates one of his statues, sparking an encounter with God.

What catalyst needs to be added to make the story plausible? ˗˗ A motherly woman who asks the sculptor probing questions that help him look at his own pain, then take a step toward healing.

As a curious writer, I constantly observe details and scenarios I can file away for future writing projects. People’s mannerisms, conversations, and responses noted during social interactions give me material for creating believable characters. Curiosity about an environment motivates me to investigate it further, with the possibility of incorporating it as a setting. With vast amounts of information available at my fingertips on the internet, I can accurately write about places I have not been to myself. Eye-witness observations may have the advantage of my unique viewpoint, but they are not always possible.

Trying to write without employing the resource of curiosity seems like an impossible task. Curiosity gives us permission as writers to explore wherever our imagination wants to go. Because we are writers, we won’t be labelled obsessive when we spend days researching obscure topics like the history of shepherding or symptoms of Asperger syndrome. We will be considered curious.

Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.
– Leo Burnett

Valerie Ronald writes from an old roll top desk in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, with her tortoiseshell cat for a muse. A graduate of Langara College School of Journalism, she writes devotionals, fiction, and inspirational prose. Her purpose in writing is to encourage others to grow in their spiritual walk.