What We Can Learn From Jack Kerouac

What is Spontaneous Prose?

Jack Kerouac is best known as one of the architects behind the Beat Generation, a group of influential counterculture writers active in New York in the 1950s. One of the most important in the lineage of contemporary writers, Kerouac also pioneered his own unique method of writing.

His best-known work, On the Road, was infamously completed in a long and dwindling series of pages and notes eventually compiled into a single 120-foot-long scroll. Prior to the writing of the novel, Kerouac developed his "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose," wherein he details a writing style influenced by the stream of consciousness with an emphasis on the disregard of proper form, grammar, or editing. It was with this continuous method of writing that he completed his famous novel.

When working on a first draft, be it a script, novel, or essay, the writer often finds themselves stuck on the details. Maybe settling on a concept, struggling with certain plot points, or just not being able to find that one thing that works, writer's block is very real. Allowing yourself to engage in spontaneous prose is a way of completing the hardest part, getting something actually written.

I find this method best for getting past the initial hurdle of writing the first thing, as it gives you a foundation to work with. As you go through the process, you may find that certain aspects may need to be changed or that others can be added. Either way, it gives you the basis to explore your concept in a more freeing way.

I have included all of Kerouac's nine essential principles in non-beatnik terms and how it can help you actually get started on that first draft.

Set-Up

The object is set before the mind, either in reality, as in sketching (before a landscape or teacup or old face) or is set in the memory wherein it becomes the sketching from memory of a definite image-object.

The first step in the process is to use something – anything – to be the force for what you will write in that moment. Set your object of inspiration, something physical, a concept, or a scene you have laid out in your head. Hold onto that image, and write about it.

Procedure

Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of image.

Remember, language is a tool for you to use. As such, you can play with it. The goal of the method is to create a rhythmic flow by which your story may lay itself out. There should be no consideration for the proper conventions of form or style, as it inhibits the innermost thoughts.

Method

No periods separating sentence-structures already arbitrarily riddled by false colons and timid usually needless commas-but the vigorous space dash separating rhetorical breathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown phrases)--"measured pauses which are the essentials of our speech"--"divisions of the sounds we hear"-"time and how to note it down." (William Carlos Williams)

Again, disregard any formal conventions. Grammar takes a backseat to the story. Only include pauses when your mind takes one, like the jazz musician drawing a breath. This helps to form a style that is dynamic, mimicking the natural pauses and flows in spoken words.

Scoping

Not "selectivity' of expression but following free deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline other than rhythms of rhetorical exhalation and expostulated statement, like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance, bang! (the space dash)-Blow as deep as you want-write as deeply, fish as far down as you want, satisfy yourself first, then reader cannot fail to receive telepathic shock and meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his own human mind.

Expression should not be controlled. There is no time to think that something should be changed, edited, or deleted. That is for revisions. Right now, there should be no inhibitions towards whether something is good or not, but simply if it feels right. Never explain yourself and allow for the emotional moment to come and go. It is for the better of the depth and engagement of your piece.

Lag in Procedure

No pause to think of proper word but the infantile pileup of scatological buildup words till satisfaction is gained, which will turn out to be a great appending rhythm to a thought and be in accordance with Great Law of timing.

You can use the wrong words. If you think of multiple descriptors, put them all in. None? Keep going. This process is not for sorting out the flow of your language. It's to stop worrying about it.

Timing

Nothing is muddy that runs in time and to laws of time-Shakespearian stress of dramatic need to speak now in own unalterable way or forever hold tongue-no revisions (except obvious rational mistakes, such as names or calculated insertions in act of not writing but inserting).

Pacing is natural. You know how long the scene should feel for that moment. Have a combined sense of urgency and purpose. Don't dwindle, but don't rush. Only stay for a moment, for as long as it should last.

Centre of Interest

Begin not from preconceived idea of what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards swimming in sea of language to peripheral release and exhaustion-Do not afterthink except for poetic or P. S. reasons. Never afterthink to "improve" or defray impressions, as, the best writing is always the most painful personal wrung-out tossed from cradle warm protective mind-tap from yourself the song of yourself, blow!-now!-your way is your only way-"good"-or "bad"-always honest ("ludi- crous"), spontaneous, "confessionals' interesting, because not "crafted." Craft is craft.

Perhaps one of the most important rules in all of writing. Write about what interests you. If it is a pain to put on the page, then don't do it. Prose should flow from a place of excitement, ensuring that your story can keep your own attention. This helps to better ensure a dynamic work, as not only you will want to be there, but those reading it will want to be there with you, too.

Structure of Work

Modern bizarre structures (science fiction, etc.) arise from language being dead, "different" themes give illusion of "new" life. Follow roughly outlines in outfanning movement over subject, as river rock, so mindflow over jewel-center need (run your mind over it, once) arriving at pivot, where what was dim-formed "beginning" becomes sharp-necessitating "ending" and language shortens in race to wire of time-race of work, following laws of Deep Form, to conclusion, last words, last trickle-Night is The End.

Yes, technically, you can have a rough outline. Emphasis on rough. If there is a moment you want to include, then make sure you do. If you have the beginning and end worked out, then write around that. If you have something better developed in your mind, then don't be worried to stick to it. Prose should be there to help you work it out, or to create something new around your pre-structured beats.

Mental State

If possible write "without consciousness" in semi-trance (as Yeats' later "trance writing") allowing subconscious to admit in own uninhibited interesting necessary and so "modern" language what conscious art would censor, and write excitedly, swiftly, with writing-or-typing-cramps, in accordance (as from center to periphery) with laws of orgasm, Reich's "beclouding of consciousness." Come from within, out-to relaxed and said.

Get into it. This is exactly how you will be able to finish your draft. Staring at a blank page or blinking screen does not cause words to appear in front of you. Writing without thinking allows for a rhythm not only in language, but within the pen. Write and keep writing for as long as you can without getting a cramp. It leaves you with more material to work with later.

Finishing Your First Draft

The work that comes out of experimenting with spontaneous prose is there to create a flow out of your ideas. Possibly the worst part of writing anything is sitting down and getting started with it. By removing all second-guesses, the writing can come much more naturally.

This method is one that is supposed to be as time-efficient as possible, meaning you go at the speed of your thoughts. The main purpose is to create a first draft to work with. Remember, all first drafts are supposed to be bad. That is why we have editing. The important part is having a foundation that you can come back to later and expand upon. What you may find is that certain aspects of your story can come together much easier, maybe they don't, and you need to pivot.

What Kerouac's method allows for is the ability to think outside of the typical structure of how we believe we are supposed to write. It gives you permission to relax and focus on the story. By first engaging with the nine principles, you can then work on the more technical aspects of your writing and refine how you want to structure your project.