I find that I more readily return to essays than books when I seek inspiration. I am constantly rereading Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in Dark Times.
Likewise, I keep Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own close by. When I feel I’ve been emailing too much and thinking too little at work, I dip into Tolkien’s 1939 lecture, given at St Andrew’s, On Fairy-Stories.
Tolkien throws down a challenge for all storytellers. He says that if a storyteller’s art is good enough, he can make his audience suspend their disbelief. Now, suspension of disbelief is familiar and admirable territory of course, but Tolkien argues that it’s a substitute for the real thing.
If the storyteller is really creative then he makes a Secondary World, which your mind can enter. Once inside this world, everything is true. The moment disbelief arises then the art has failed. “You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from the outside,” he says.
I love reading this essay because he imaginatively describes the moment that we are all pursuing, as both producers and participants. Even though he gave this lecture some 80 years ago, we still thoughtlessly refer to this moment as “magic” or the “wow”, subtly obfuscating our agency in its craft.
Tolkien warns us to “leave magic to the operations of magicians”. Magic is simply fooling people, whereas storytelling is an art form.
Ruth Gill is the head of interpretation at Historic Royal Palaces and the creative director for Kensington Palace
Likewise, I keep Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own close by. When I feel I’ve been emailing too much and thinking too little at work, I dip into Tolkien’s 1939 lecture, given at St Andrew’s, On Fairy-Stories.
Tolkien throws down a challenge for all storytellers. He says that if a storyteller’s art is good enough, he can make his audience suspend their disbelief. Now, suspension of disbelief is familiar and admirable territory of course, but Tolkien argues that it’s a substitute for the real thing.
If the storyteller is really creative then he makes a Secondary World, which your mind can enter. Once inside this world, everything is true. The moment disbelief arises then the art has failed. “You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from the outside,” he says.
I love reading this essay because he imaginatively describes the moment that we are all pursuing, as both producers and participants. Even though he gave this lecture some 80 years ago, we still thoughtlessly refer to this moment as “magic” or the “wow”, subtly obfuscating our agency in its craft.
Tolkien warns us to “leave magic to the operations of magicians”. Magic is simply fooling people, whereas storytelling is an art form.
Ruth Gill is the head of interpretation at Historic Royal Palaces and the creative director for Kensington Palace
