The Johari window

I had absolutely no idea what the Johari window was until my missus told me.

It’s this (image via Global Coaching Lab):

The idea is that there are things known to me and known to others, which belong in the top left panel: I have blue eyes. I write books. I like working outside. I’m bad at crosswords.

Then – more interesting now – we have things that are not known to us, but are clear to others. Maybe I’m a terrible public speaker, but think I’m good. Or perhaps I dance like a giant insect, but don’t know it. Or maybe someone fancies me, but I’m the last to know.

And the double unknown? Well, how I manifest when on my own is experienced only through my own, unreliable, inner world, so maybe there’s some significant truth about me that no one knows. For example:

If I go to bed alone, perhaps my movements seem forgetful and a little jittery, a little uncertain. But in my mind, my going to bed is the same as it’s always been, and perfectly swift and purposeful.

Or maybe I write books thinking consciously only about what would please my readers … but all the time, an early childhood tragedy threads through all my work, unseen by me and not glimpsed by others.

Now, if you use this window in the context of personal therapy, your job (as I understand it) is to shrink the right-hand side of the window, pulling the unknown into known. And perhaps you may also want to reveal more of yourself to others (shrinking the bottom left pane) in order to achieve greater intimacy with friends and loved ones.

But – ?

We’re novelists. We don’t want our characters to be too perfectly therapised – rather the opposite. We don’t want them to have great, open relationships with others. We want them to be twisted, complicated, interesting – and probably even a bit nuts. That means finding juicy ways to populate all those quadrants that the therapists want us to shrink or destroy.

And, oh boy, those quadrants are rich places to explore.

Plot-led blind spots

Obviously, there are plenty of blind-spots generated by your plot. We see our hero relaxing in a jumbo hot tub, with a bottle of champagne and a whole fleet of rubber ducks. But little does he know that the baddies are speeding towards him …

That kind of thing is commonplace, but it’s not quite what I’m talking about here. What I’m interested in today is the notion of psychic blindspots or hidden nooks. For example:

Known to others, not known to self

When Lee Child’s Jack Reacher encounters ordinary people, those ordinary people keep expecting him to react in ways that he doesn’t. His brother’s died? He’s just come through  shootout, unharmed? Ordinary People expect some grief, some shakiness – some something. But Reacher gives them… just Reacher, the same as he always is.

Those encountering him see his absences and deficiencies. Reacher himself seems barely aware of them. (Actually ignorant? Or are they just so unimportant that they don’t need head space? Not sure. It isn’t clear.) Either way, the gap between Reacher and the rest of the world is a huge part of what elevates this character from the million other action heroes.

Or take my own personal nut-job, Fiona Griffiths.

Here’s a chunk, where Fiona is having an after-hours meeting with her boss (Watkins) and her boyfriend (Buzz, who is also a police officer.)

Watkins grabs all the paperwork now and bends over it, leaving nothing for the others. I’m fed up with the overlit room and turn all the lights off, except the spot directly over where Watkins is sitting. When she glares at me, I say ‘Sorry,’ but don’t put the lights back on. It feels better now. The prickling feeling is still there, but not in a bad way. I like it. I’m beginning to feel comfortable now.

‘Isn’t this nice?’ I say to no one in particular. Everyone stares at me, but no one says anything.

Then Watkins is done. […] The meeting breaks up. Watkins says to Brydon and me, ‘Good work, well done.’

Brydon says something. I nod and look like a Keen Young Detective.

In the street outside afterwards, Brydon says, ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll be OK driving?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not too fast, all right?’

‘All right.’

‘Back to mine?’

‘Yes.’

I don’t know why I’m talking like everyone’s favourite village idiot, but it doesn’t bother me and Buzz is used to it.

Buzz (who is stable and sane) clearly thinks that Fiona is behaving strangely, hence all the are-you-OK-isms. Watkins also clearly thinks that Fiona’s behaviour with the lights is off, even if she says nothing.

And Fiona’s self-insight here? It’s close to nil. She notes a prickling  feeling, but can’t name it. She thinks she looks like a Keen Young Detective, though it’s clear that’s not how she’s coming across. And when she talks like ‘everyone’s favourite village idiot’, she doesn’t evince much surprise or have any insight into why this is.

The delicious thing for the reader here is that we don’t actually know for certain what Buzz and Watkins see, think and understand. But we get teasing glimpses and enjoy the gap between those glimpses and Fiona’s own (hopeless) reflections.

Known to self, not known to others

Here are two more chunks:

Dad and Buzz are both tall, big men. I am five foot two and hardly big built. There’s something about the scale of the car, the size of the two men in the front, and me all alone in the back which makes me feel about eight years old. Like I’m swinging my heels on the way to the beach while the grown-ups talk about grown-up things.

The men in the front aren’t Neolithic. They’re intelligent guys who know that Fiona’s own brainpower goes far beyond theirs. So they aren’t in fact patronising her in their minds, but in Fiona’s world, she’s turned to an eight-year-old, kicking her heels and thinking about ice cream.

Another example:

I stare at my face in the mirror for a minute or two, wondering if it feels like mine. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the dark count is invisible in mirrors and I often feel something similar is true of me too. I can’t feel any deep relationship between the face that is mine and the person I am. Like they’re two different things. I don’t know if this is something that everyone feels.

No, Fiona. No one else thinks like this. It’s definitely just you. But this is a lovely private little place shared only by Fiona and the observing reader. We take this little nugget of insight back into the story proper, where Fiona engages with people in the world who don’t know what she thinks about when she looks into mirrors.

Not known to self or others

And in the darkest quadrant of this window, we novelists can still find something to interest us. For example:

Watkins looks up from the desk, staring at me. I don’t look away.

She says, ‘So, your hypothesis is that Langton was working for tips only on some of the nights that Khalifi was there?’

There’s a prickling feeling in the room. A sense of movement or hidden life. I don’t know why.

I say, ‘Yes.’

Three heads go back to the lists. Not mine. I’m trying to work out what this prickling sensation is. I can’t. I try to understand the feeling. What bit of me is feeling what? I try to dissect my own sensations the way my psychiatrists once taught me to, but I don’t get anywhere.

I say, ‘Langton called her mam most nights.’

Fiona, typically, confides in no one regarding her inner strangeness. What she says to her colleagues is perfectly professional, perfectly straightforward, but what’s going on is simply indeterminate at this point. It’s a feeling, yes, but she can’t name it and the others don’t even know that it’s there.

What does the reader do with this? Well, they’re also not sure of what this prickling  feeling is – but what a joyous mystery to have, and to stuff with hypotheses, and to read on to learn the answer.

The results of this use of the window is to enrich the book, enrich the text, make it multi-layered and yumptious, like the very best Parisian croissant.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / The Johari window

No prizes for guessing this week’s task.

Go to your manuscript and pluck out some short passages that exemplify:

1. Known to others, not known to self
2. Known to self, not known to others
3. Not known to self or others.

Throw in any reflections you may have about the process of looking for those things. If you can’t come up with something, does that mean anything significant about your book?

I love tasks like this, because they’re so far away from normal creative writing challenges, but they do really feel like they might reveal something about the way we do (or ought to) write. Have fun, and go at it. When you’re ready, post your work here.

Til soon.

Harry