In a post on Writer Unboxed, Barbara Linn Probst examines two approaches to story: rain forests and rhizomes. “A rhizome is a root system,” she explains. “Unlike a tree that grows from a central trunk by branching into smaller and smaller divisions, a rhizome expands laterally, equally. There’s no primary source, no hierarchy; you can enter the rhizome at any point and go from there to any and all other points through an interconnected, nonlinear network.”
For writers, a rhizome approach is helpful when you’re considering big picture questions. Should you outline or wing it? Should you write in chronological order or skip around? Should you start with character or imagery? “If you think of a novel as a rhizome, you can say yes to all these options,” Probst says. “You can enter the world of the novel wherever you like, and make your way through the network. You can leap-frog, follow side-paths, retrace your steps and begin again, move up and down and across.”
In other words: Do as you please. This is your novel, and there are many ways to approach it. “Rhizomatic movement has its own logic, its own form of connectedness between the various points,” Probst says. “It’s not like the ‘logic’ we’re used to, however, which is based on a sequential, causal notion of A leads to B. Rather, it’s more associative and intuitive, unfolding by evocation and correlation.”
The “rain forest” view, you can see how your various elements fit together in your story ecosystem. For Probst, the rain forest is what the story is about. “A concise Aboutness statement is the canopy, under which the core elements (characters, motives, conflicts, and so on) can find their place,” she says. “It’s the story’s raison d’etre, but is not itself a story.”
As you approach your story with a rhizomatic, intuitive, associative process, Probst suggests you do a few things:
- Give yourself permission. Start anywhere, Probst says. That might be an image or a theme that interests you. Let your mind wander.
- Pick an evocative item and toss it into other scenes. “If you notice something that seems to have strong evocative power, try inserting it—not too often, and not obtrusively—into a couple of other scenes,” Probst suggests. “How does its presence change the scene? What new connections and echoes and possibilities emerge, just by adding this item, which is already charged with meaning?”
- Turn your story into a visual-spatial drawing. Probst suggests using drawings and diagrams to map the relationships between your story elements. Start with a character, setting, object, or figure of speech and place related people, settings, and objects around it. Draw lines to connect your original items to the other elements. What does each link suggest? Do any of the individual elements connect to each other, outside their relationship to your original item? “The thicker the cross-connections, the denser and richer the tapestry, the more profound and multi-layered the resonance,” Probst says.
These exercises can help you approach aspects of your novel outside the plot-driven cause and effect chain. You still need some form of this structure, but you have permission to approach your work in other ways that complement the method you use to tell your story, Probst says.
