“Write What You Don’t Know” audio writing course
Discover the secret to powerful, original writing
Based on our acclaimed book
“Write What You Don’t Know: 10 Steps to Writing with Confidence, Energy, and Flow”
Let curiosity banish self-criticism
Say goodbye to writer’s block for good
Find your authentic writing voice
Pack your writing with emotional power
Learn to write fearlessly. Surprise yourself!
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Already working with the course and looking for the Prompt Archive?
Are you . . .
A total beginner? A seasoned pro? Somewhere in between?
Whatever your level of experience, the Imaginative Storm method will take you to a level of creativity and self-expression you’ve never experienced before.
What are you writing?
Memoir? Fiction? Poetry? Screenplay? Transformational or creative nonfiction?
Are you aiming for publication, or writing just for yourself?
Are you already published in one genre, but would like to expand your range?
Whatever your goals, the Imaginative Storm method will unlock the hidden potential of your imagination, and train your rational mind to shape its gifts into writing that amazes you.
~ Teach your imagination to shower you with gifts ~
Why people love Imaginative Storm
Nine Imaginative Storm writers say what they love about our method
The 12 Sessions of Imaginative Storm Writer Training
Here’s what to expect: 10 sessions of approximately 90 minutes each, plus a Welcome session explaining the Imaginative Storm method, and a final session to send you into the rest of your writing life.
Each session includes a short intro, a warmup prompt, two 10-minute prompts with a shorter list-making prompt between them. (We do the timing for you.) Each session ends with a Surf the Storm prompt to do in your own time.
The course also includes access to the Prompt Archive, so you can hear what other course participants wrote to the prompts you’re working with. (We recommend you listen to these after you write to the prompt yourself.)
Session 1: Spin the Kaleidoscope of Your Mind
Ground yourself in the Imaginative Storm method, and amaze yourself with the new power and freedom in your writing. Begin to develop your authenticity meter—your instinctive sense of when you're on your voice and when you're not. Begin to retrain your inner critic into your inner coach. Discover the ease and enjoyment of writing what you don’t know.
What you’ll learn:
how to invite your imagination out to play
how to make your writing authentic to your experience, your perspective on the world, and your voice
how to bring life back to a story you’ve told often
how to maximize your chances of writing well—without trying to write well!
Session 2: Let Rip
Rant! Jettison your inhibitions. Release judgment. Allow yourself to write what you think you’re not supposed to write. Be passionate. Be playful. You’ll discover a new humor and verve in your writing—and you’ll have a head start on creating character and dialogue, which we explore further in Session 7.
Ranting is a powerful tool for finding your voice on the page, and for retraining your inner critic into your inner coach.
What you’ll learn:
what may have been holding you back
how to find comedy in intense feelings
how to imbue your writing with tenderness
how to show a character’s individual personality
how to play in the gap between what people say and what they mean
Session 3: Common Senses
Explore the sensations of your physical body: the five usual senses, and others that aren't so often mentioned: proprioception, sense of direction, the vibes of a place. Do you have other uncommon senses?
We believe that the realm of the imagination encompasses everything that isn’t the matter of the rational mind: bodily senses, intuition, submerged experiences and memories. Getting in touch with this realm adds immediacy and emotional power to your writing.
What you’ll learn:
how to make your reader’s mirror neurons fire
how to bring the texture of a moment to life
how to find details that matter
how to re-immerse yourself in the truth of the past moment
how to pack an emotional punch
Session 4: Go There
Everything happens somewhere, but location isn’t just a backdrop. In this session, you’ll discover ways to use setting to give a scene emotional resonance.
The marks of time are left on physical objects; so are the marks of choice and use. These marks are repositories of memory, story, and character. You’ll also take the “don’t-know” approach to location: there’s just as much meaning in what isn’t there, as in what is.
What you’ll learn:
how to describe an event with authenticity
how to avoid a “know-all tone” in your writing
how to locate emotional resonance in the details of place
how to invest into the present you’re writing about with a sense of past and future
how to use location to shape your story
Session 5: Elemental Alchemy
The natural world is our habitat and our eternal symbol of life and its cycles. It’s where we see the effects of time, the spiraling seasons (never the same). In communion with nature, we find peace: whether in a forest or appreciating the daisy growing through the crack in a city sidewalk.
In this session, you’ll make literal and symbolic connections between your life and the elements that make up our universe.
What you’ll learn:
how to make connections with the natural world in your writing
how to make quantum leaps as you set a scene
how to locate your story within a living history
how to rack focus to micro and macro
how to enrich your observations so that nothing is ordinary
Session 6: Socialese
Socialese is our term for the unspoken language of human interaction. In connection with others, we experience joy and grief, comfort and competition. This is where we mold our identity.
In this session, you’ll consider some of the overt and not-so-overt ways in which we communicate and find our place in the world. You’ll learn techniques to spy into the subtext that underlies and animates all human communication.
What you’ll learn:
to notice “Socialese”: the unspoken language of human communication
to see the kaleidoscope of tribal affiliations that humans create
to track the undercurrents (or subtext) of a situation
to invest ordinary activities with social significance
to suggest aspects of your characters’ lives outside the story you’re telling
Session 7: Tender Spots
Before psychologists existed, writers were the ones to shed light on why people do what they do. Everybody does things for their own reasons—even though often we don’t know what those reasons are.
In this session, we’ll show you ways to discover what unseen forces shape personality and drive action, and give you techniques for bringing characters to life on the page.
What you’ll learn:
how to understand what drives a person’s actions
how to create strong, multi-dimensional characters: good and bad
how to give a sense of what it’s like to be in the presence of a particular person
how to honor the individuality of minor characters
how to convincingly portray a character with whom you seem to have nothing in common
Session 8: Take Yourself Back
Memoir work isn’t just for memoir writers. As Graham Greene said, “Childhood is the credit balance of the novelist.” You yourself and your own life are your best laboratory for examining human nature.
In this session, you’ll discover ways to explore what you don’t know about your own life. If you are writing memoir, your story may not be what you thought it was! And even if you’re writing about gardening, car maintenance, or some other useful topic, a memoir snippet to convey your learning experience and your passion brings your subject alive for the reader.
What you’ll learn:
how to identify and develop the deep story of your memoir
how to know which incidents are part of your story, and which aren’t
why all memoirs have a happy ending—and what a happy ending is
how to find the connection point between your story and your readers
how to write about yourself without seeming egocentric
Session 9: There’s No Story if
Nothing Changes
What makes a story, whether fiction or nonfiction? What makes a strong beginning? What makes a strong ending? What gives a narrative—fiction or nonfiction—coherence and momentum?
In this session, you’ll get a sense of the bigger picture of the story you’re developing—however long or short. You’ll understand what belongs in the story and what doesn’t, and why.
What you’ll learn:
the building blocks of a strong narrative
what gives a story momentum—and why momentum sags
how to know what comes next
how to ramp up the excitement in your story
how to know where your story begins and where it ends
Session 10: The Oxymoronic Inversion
Oppositions, contradictions, and paradoxes are at the heart of all compelling stories. In life, nothing is black or white, good or bad—or, it’s both at the same time. Nuggets that the rational mind cannot explain are catnip for the imagination.
In this session, you’ll experiment with framing scenes and characters with oppositions, contradictions, and paradoxes in mind. You’ll be amazes at the imaginative energy this generates.
What you’ll learn:
how to play in the paradox sandbox
how to balance a scene on the fulcrum of an opposition
the pleasure of generating a paradoxical image
how to flip your conception of a scene upside-down
how to use imagined realities to power up your story
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Need to know more?
Scroll down to learn more about Allegra Huston and James Navé, and read our FAQs.
Or:
The Creators of “Write What You Don’t Know”
Allegra Huston
“As a former Editorial Director of the London publisher Weidenfeld & Nicolson and holder of a First Class degree in English from Oxford University, I'm all about good writing. But when I started writing myself, I wasn't able to write anything I liked! Maybe I just can't write, I thought. I was trying as hard as I could to write well.
The Imaginative Storm method was a revelation to me. I learned that trying to write well didn't help me. That my writing would be better, and my own authentic voice would emerge, if I didn't try so hard. James Navé taught me to surprise myself and write what I don't know.”
As well as Write What You Don't Know, Allegra is the author of the bestselling Love Child: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found, the novel A Stolen Summer, How to Edit and Be Edited, and How to Read for an Audience (with James Navé). She wrote and produced the award-winning short film Good Luck, Mr. Gorski, and has also written numerous feature screenplays. Her articles have appeared in many major magazines in the US, UK, and France. An editor for over three decades, she worked with authors including three Booker Prize winners, two Nobel Prize winners, and Jane Goodall.
“Allegra Huston is incapable of writing a dull sentence.”
James Navé
“I came to the Imaginative Storm method from the spoken word tradition. As a founder of the company Poetry Alive!, I memorized over 600 poems and performed them for schoolchildren. (Poetry Alive! has to date reached over 5 million students.) I've competed in the National Poetry Slam and have emceed the LEAF Festival slam for 25 years.
My focus on creativity began when I co-founded The Artist's Way Creativity Camp in partnership with Julia Cameron, author of the perennial bestselling guide to creativity The Artist's Way. The principles and prompts that make up the Imaginative Storm method are the culmination of over 30 years of practice and exploration.”
Navé holds an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His latest book of poems, 100 Days: Poems After Cancer, was published by 3: A Taos Press in May 2023. His poetry has appeared in many publications, and he has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered and Weekend Edition.
He hosts a weekly long-form interview podcast, available on YouTube @imaginativestorm, and has served on the advisory team of LEAF Global Arts since 1995.
“James Navé and I worked together for over 20 years. He has a quick, curious, and searching mind, plus a humanist eye for poetic detail. His work as a poet, teacher, and facilitator is an important force for change.”
Allegra Huston and James Navé have been featured in
FAQs
Do I need a background in creative writing?
Absolutely not.
The desire to write is all you need, plus pen and paper. In fact, you’re at an advantage. Schooled writers often have to unlearn formulaic techniques and find it harder to give up comparing themselves to other writers.
Total newbies have taken our course, and so have published authors. If you're a newbie, you'll gain confidence because you're generating surprising, intriguing material straight out of the gate. If you're a published author, you'll be astonished by the new dimensions our method brings to your writing.
Is there any reading required for this course?
No. We don't hold up examples of how you should write or require that you write about anything in particular. Our goal is to help you find your voice, not to try and "teach" you what "good writing" is.
As we see it, good writing is writing that feels good to you: it feels original, powerful, insightful, and authentic. You'll be doing a lot of writing in this course—and in every single prompt you'll be writing about something that intrigues you.
Is this course suitable for all ages?
Imaginative Storm writing prompts are suitable for all ages. The audio samples of writers reading their work include some adult-themed material.
Is there an Imaginative Storm writing community?
Yes. We have a thriving community that meets on Zoom for the Writing Prompt of the Week every Saturday and Thursday. People drop in and out, and we frequently welcome new participants. You’ll find the Zoom links in the footer here, and you’ll receive a newsletter via Substack to remind you.
We have a site hosted on Circle, where members of our community can post what they write to the Weekly Prompt and to the prompts in Write What You Don’t Know. Click here to visit the Circle.
As you’ll see, our community is all about encouragement and support. We let one another know what strikes us or moves us or amuses us, and that appreciation gives you confidence and helps to retrain your inner critic. Getting negative feedback too soon, or badly given, is a major reason why people suffer writer's block and have trouble finding their voice.
How is Write What You Don’t Know different from other "free writing" courses?
The Imaginative Storm method is far more wide-ranging than the simple concept of "free writing." It's not just a technique; it's a method. In these 10 sessions, you will move from the imaginative storm to the creative form.
First, you'll learn how to pack your writing with vivid imagery, fresh language, and authentic emotion. As you continue, you'll learn how to develop compelling character and narrative. Finally, you'll explore what creates the core of energy at the heart of all great stories.