Discovering the Philosophy of Writing.

An introduction to my colour-coded writing system.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a basketball star, a heavy metal lead singer, a psychologist, and even an archaeologist (not that I knew what the hell that meant). But not a single person in the entire cosmos could have convinced me I would end up being a writer. It just wasn’t something I did that much of, or thought that much about.

And yet for some reason, in my late twenties, I became enamoured with the idea of being a writer, or more specifically, doing writing. I think I had figured out something about myself I hadn’t fully realised before: I am driven by an urge to communicate what I think. That is who I am. It’ my basic way of engaging with reality. And what better way to pursue that than with ink and paper?

Since then, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about everything to do with writing. I’m not that worried about doing it the way anyone else would do it. I just think about it the way that makes sense to me. For a long time, I just thought these thoughts to myself. But a few years back, when Covid had just hit, and my heart had just been broken, I decided to start telling the world my ideas, on Instagram (@patteron.story).

Instagram wall for Patterson Story

Cool colours right? The thing is though, most people don’t actually know what they’re looking at when they see them. They think it’s for mere prettiness. But the colours of Patterson Story actually represent my systemisation of writing education. It is my personal pedagogy in pretty autumn colours.

So what do the colours mean then? I hear you ask. Well, why don’t I go ahead and show you?

At the centre of all great writing, beyond the pretty words and fantastical imagination, is insight. The great writer is one who sees things in the human heart and in the world that others don’t quite see.

Likewise, much of the flawed writing I come across is not flawed because of bad grammar or style. It’s because amongst all the prose nicely crafted, there is nothing of note being said.

To understand writing as a craft, you must know that before it is anything at all on a page, it is something in the mind. The writer is someone with vision. They are a seer.

That’s what blue represents. It is the colour of insight. Sometimes I write about how insight occurs, through the use of perception and intellect. There are ways we can approach ideas that enable us to see more clearly. But I also focus on the objects of the intellect, the things it sees that the writer can scribe: beauty, truth, love, life, and all matters of the human heart.

before [writing] is anything at all on a page, it is something in the mind.

I don’t want to say that blue is my most important colour. That’s not fair to all the other colours - poor little dears try so hard. But it certainly seems foundational. For if a writer cannot see in the world what is formally unseen, then all the other aspects of their world will fail to punctuate the lives of any reader.

Writing is an act of creativity. Or perhaps more precisely, it is many acts of creativity all strung together. Where insight is the part of writing concerned with seeing, creativity is the part of writing concerned with making.

It might be the funnest part of a writer’s life. We get to use our brain to churn out all sorts of strangeness. I myself have entities of a varied multitude that have never seen the light of day, and will only do so once they have fled my skull and entered the skull of another.

But what is creativity exactly? Does it refer to our ability to be original? Is it an act of pure imagination? How much of it is practical (something you do) rather than something contrived in the imagination? These are some of the sorts of questions I explore in purple. Those and questions about process, about cultivating a mental environment fertile enough for trees of wonder to scrape the sky with.

So here’s to the fun colour. The colour of silliness, of the weird, of the wonderful. A colour that may seem frivolous at first glance, but is actually the ingredient of so much of the world’s great works, the ones that linger: distinct and otherworldly.

Unless you’re writing in a journal, or scribbling notes to yourself on the kitchen fridge to remember garbage bags at the supermarket, writing is designed for the eyes of other people.

But why? What’s the point of writing words that other people read. Well, I can’t speak for other writers, but for myself, it’s because I want power over them.

I know what you’re thinking. This maniac is trying to take over the world. And though that is entirely correct, that’s not the kind of power I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the power to persuade people, to educate them, inspire them, move them. I’m talking about rhetoric.

Whenever we want our writing to do something to a person (and we almost always do), we must think about how it hits them. What will convince them that the world is indeed flat? What will inspire them to build that magical elvish treehouse village? That’s the purpose of red. It is where I explore rhetoric, how to write and speak in such a way that it has a desired effect on readers.

Rhetoric is an age-old discipline. Much of what I do will be an homage to the grandfather of it all: Aristotle. But it is an eternal enterprise. For as long as humans are putting pen to paper, they will also be attempting to gain power over minds for an infinite number of noble (and not so noble) purposes.

Some people have lots of interesting things to say (Blue). They have a great many fantastical ideas that have never quite been done that way (Purple). They know how to affect people in desired ways (Red). But all of these are muted by the poor quality of their style.

Style is that part of the writing we all see directly with our eyes and hear with our ears. It’s the voice that speaks to us. And without it, nothing else matters. We read people (arguably primarily) who speak in such a way that is clear and pleasing in our mind’s ear.

Think about the wine aunt at your family gatherings who knows how to tell a good story. It’s not only what’s in the story that matters. It’s also the way that she says it. Likewise, I’m sure many of you have writers and speakers you like simply because they sound a certain when when they do it.

Some of this is about grammar and syntax. Some of it is not so easy to codify. It’s about the swing and cadence of the thing. It’s about the curious interplay of words and phonemes. It’s about the utilisation of different modes and moods. It’s green.

I could easily say not to judge a book by its cover. But that’s bad advice. The package is what attracts you enough to buy what’s inside. Only then can the product within be opened and allowed to take effect.

There are many types of writing. There are essays, reports, articles, instructions, brand labels, and on and on. But there’s something especially captivating about literary texts. They have a hold on us, so much so that we are still reading texts produced thousands of years ago and crying, laughing, thinking.

Here I speak of literature in the narrow sense: that is, writing that is also art. This genre of writing was my first love as a writer. I learned the craft, first writing songs (poems), and second writing fiction. There’s a magic in this sort of writing I’m sure many of you already know.

But it’s not only writing literature that interests me. I like to think about literature as a form as well, and of course, to write about it. I want to know not only what it says about human life and the world we’re in. I also want to know how it works, its pacing, its descriptions and expositions, its form, its characters. That’s what black is all about. It’s where I unpack all the most interesting elements of literature, as well as investigate some of the great works to see what they’re all about.

It is in poems and fictional works that the purest of human analysis shines through. And so, the great works are the gallery of the human. I intend to discover them here with words of my very own.

All of the categories above fit into a broader category of “theory”. They are about big ideas primarily. They are for musing. But writing is not simply an act of contemplation. It is, well, an act. It is something you do.

This is something I really want to emphasise whenever I teach. The theory means very little if you aren’t acting on it. Too many of us spend our time learning how to write and not enough time writing. And strangely, that means we don’t really learn to write.

Keep in mind, when I speak about writing activity, I’m not only concerned with doing writing. I’m concerned with doing writing in ways you wouldn’t normally do it. That’s what white is about. It’s where readers can engage in all sorts of activities: writing instructions, blurbs for novels, letters to the devil, and many other seemingly frivolous games with words.

My belief is that play is integral to writing growth. Few things, if any, more reliably produce good instincts. And that’s what writing requires more than acts of intellect. Certainly in my experience, my best work is produced by feel. I often only know what I’m doing after the fact.

Writing can be fun. We sometimes forget this because we take it all so damn seriously. And yet, that’s often the missing ingredient from writing development. If only we acted more, instead of reading another post about writing more, maybe we’d finally write that hidden thing moping around in our dusty mind.

Many human activities are done alone. We may sleep alone. We sing in the shower alone. We go to the toilet alone (some of us). But few things are more lonesome as an act, than the act of writing. And it is more than just our physical solitude.

A writer is a maker of worlds. These worlds come from the depths of our minds, often unbidden, and consume us. As such, we not only write alone, but exist in an utterly distant and unique universe that no one else can occupy. Sure we can tell them about it. We can write a book from it and they can visit for a while. But they can never live with us in it. It is for us alone.

And so, many writers are very lonely. That’s what orange is about. It’s about developing a more communal aspect of writing life. It’s where all Patterson Story announcements and events will be posted. So, all you freaky writey people can finally have a place to hang out with all the other freaks.

Full colour palette for all Patterson Story material

I like design. In particular, I like systems and conventions in design. And, of course, colour. That’s what you see when you see Patterson Story Colours. You’re seeing a system of thought, however eccentric, however idiosyncratic. What’s your writing philosophy?