I Don’t Know My Character—and That’s the Point

A noetic look at writing—how intuition and inner knowing shape character, creativity, and the stories we tell.

My fabulous editor/writing coach Lorin Oberweger made a request. It turned out to be worth every minute I spent on it.

Photo by RODOLFO BARRETTO on Unsplash

Here it is: make a list of what we don’t know about our characters.

What we don’t know? How can we know what we don’t know? It’s like the opposite of noetics.

Noetics in summary:

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Dr. Edgar Mitchell, while in space for the Apollo 14 mission, had a profound experience. After he returned to Earth, he wrote a book on noetics which is the exploration of human consciousness and the nature of reality and founded an institute to study this.

The book is quite something.

In it, Mitchell discusses his spaceflight experiences, quantum physics, and the emerging science of noetics — the study of mind, consciousness, and how thoughts might influence the physical world.

Where is this going?

Stumped, but determined to work through, I typed the question at the top of an empty page. Sat with my fingers on the keyboard. Minutes ticked off. I nearly fell asleep.