Best of Week: Imagination in Writing

"Facts can evoke emotion.... It's a wonderful, sometimes immensely useful tool that helps give me something to write about. But without the transforming force of the imagination, the result is only the information" (Andrea Barrett.) While we only touched upon this topic briefly in class, I think that this statement is very important to me and my writing style. I can remember writing my research paper in junior year after having tons and tons of research and information and when I was re-reading it I realized that something was missing. Here I am stating every fact possible but something did not seem right. After re-reading my paper again I realized that I had not even inserted my thoughts and feelings regarding the topic at hand. Without my opinion, I realized my paper had become dull and boring to read. There was no imagination, no thinking on my part. I realized I had to include my own opinion into the paper to make it interesting and fun to read, otherwise the research paper would just end up being a bunch of facts that by themselves serve no good. This is why the statement above by Andrea Barrett had such a profound effect on me. It made me realize that no matter how good your paper is, if it doesn’t have your own insight and your own imagination then that paper will end up really dull and it will not be a pleasure to read.