Bandersnatch

1. Creativity Thrives in Community

What I owe to them all is incalculable.

Alone is difficult. The writing life is often an emotional roller-coaster of excitement and self-doubt. Even accomplished writers like Charles Williams and C. S. Lewis struggled with discouragement and the fear that their work was worthless or wouldn't be understood. A mentor once advised the author to give up researching the Inklings' influence, saying there wouldn't be enough evidence, highlighting the perceived difficulty of proving collaborative impact.

Resonators are vital. Innovators need "resonators"—people who act as a friendly, interested, supportive audience. Resonators show interest in the work and, more importantly, in the writer, expressing confidence in their talent and ability to succeed. They help writers move from private hobbies to public work and provide the necessary encouragement to bring long-term projects to completion.

Necessary support system. Tolkien himself stated that Lewis was his "only audience" for a long time and that without Lewis's "interest and unceasing eagerness," he would never have finished The Lord of the Rings. This underscores how the presence of others can be not just helpful, but essential, to the creative process, pushing writers past discouragement and inertia.

2. Start Small, Grow Organically

It was a small beginning—no big plans, no particular agenda.

Simple origins. The Inklings didn't start as a grand literary society but as a simple, informal gathering. Lewis and Tolkien, despite initial suspicions and disagreements, discovered shared interests like Norse mythology and ancient languages through a faculty club called the Kolbítar. This led to them scheduling regular Monday morning meetings to read and critique each other's work.

Adding members naturally. The group grew organically as friends joined the core duo. Warren Lewis, Lewis's brother, joined after retiring and moving to Oxford. Dr. Robert Havard, Lewis's physician, was invited after a conversation about ethics and philosophy. Charles Williams became a vital member after a serendipitous exchange of books and a warm invitation from Lewis.

Invitation-only growth. Membership was by invitation, based on a "tendency to write, and Christianity," and required general agreement from existing members. This controlled growth ensured a degree of shared values and purpose, preventing the group from becoming too diluted or unfocused, unlike more open or formal societies.

3. Focus on the Core Activity

This was a meeting of working writers.

Defined purpose. Unlike general discussion clubs, the Inklings had a specific focus: sharing and critiquing works in progress. Their name itself, suggesting those who "dabble in ink" and work with "vague or half-formed intimations," reflected this identity as working writers bringing rough drafts.

Structured meetings. Thursday evening meetings in Lewis's rooms at Magdalen College followed a simple, predictable structure. After tea and pipes, Lewis would ask, "Well, has nobody got anything to read us?" This ritual centered the gathering on the reading and critique of manuscripts, providing accountability and motivation for members to make regular progress.

Rich variety of work. Members read aloud from a wide range of genres, including novels, poetry, plays, essays, and scholarly works. Tolkien read The Lord of the Rings, Williams read chapters from his novels, and Lewis shared works like Out of the Silent Planet and The Screwtape Letters. This consistent focus on sharing new writing defined the group's purpose and energy.

4. Praise Fuels Perseverance

Praise for good work was unstinted.

Affirming value. The Inklings cultivated a habit of seeking and expressing what was good in each other's work. Lewis believed praise was a natural part of life and a sign of "inner health made audible." This practice was central to their meetings, where "praise for good work was unstinted."

Generous encouragement. Members offered lavish praise for stories, poems, and essays, often in detail. Lewis told Williams his book He Came Down from Heaven was "thickly inlaid with patins of bright gold" and called one sentence potentially "one of the sentences that straddle across ages." Warren Lewis found Tolkien's "new Hobbit" magnificent and indescribable in its charm.

Public promotion. Encouragement extended beyond private meetings to public forums. The Inklings actively promoted each other's work by writing reviews, blurbs, and recommending books to others. Lewis wrote enthusiastic reviews of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, predicting the former would "prove a classic" and calling the latter a book that "will break your heart."

5. Critique Sharpens the Work

censure for bad work—or even not-so-good work—was often brutally frank.

Hunger for opposition. The Inklings were not a "mutual admiration society" but were "hungry for rational opposition." Criticism was "free" and could be "ferocious," described with language of fighting and warfare like "dialectical swordplay" and "wielding a peashooter against a howitzer." Reading to the group was considered a "formidable ordeal."

Intense intellectual battles. Arguments were frequent and intense, sometimes leading to members being called "combustible" or wishing to "burn" one another, even during discussions about scripture. The "Great War" between Lewis and Barfield, conducted through years of letters, was an "almost incessant disputation" that sharpened their thinking and skills, leading to Barfield dedicating Poetic Diction to Lewis, stating, "Opposition is true friendship."

Transformative feedback. Harsh criticism, while sometimes difficult, led to significant revisions and improvements. Charles Williams found the Inklings' feedback, though harsh, "good for my mind," leading him to abandon The Noises That Weren't There and rewrite it as the much-improved All Hallows' Eve. Lewis accepted Barfield's critique of redundancy in Perelandra, acknowledging, "Why can I never say anything once?"

6. Specific Suggestions Refine Details

Lewis eagerly sought advice at every stage of the writing process...

Detailed input. Beyond general praise or criticism, the Inklings offered very specific, line-by-line suggestions. Lewis meticulously critiqued Tolkien's The Lay of Leithian, offering fourteen pages of detailed commentary, even rewriting sections himself. Tolkien incorporated many of these suggestions, improving the poem's rhythm and imagery over years of revision.

Marginal notes and queries. Evidence of specific feedback is found in manuscript margins. Tolkien noted Williams's query about Treebeard's phrase "crack my timbers," leading to the change to "root and twig." He also recorded Christopher's query about the invisibility of Bingo's hat in The Lord of the Rings, a detail that led to the scene being dropped.

Responding to feedback. Lewis, despite his rapid composition style, was open to changing his work based on input. He added warnings about the danger of shutting oneself in a wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe based on Maud Barfield's concern. He even addressed reader complaints about geographical inconsistencies in The Screwtape Letters by making a small but significant edit.

7. Collaboration Extends Beyond Formal Meetings

Collaboration has a place in formal meetings... But it also has a less structured side...

Beyond the Thursday ritual. While the Thursday writers group was the core, the Inklings' interaction wasn't limited to it. They met informally for lunch on Tuesdays at The Eagle and Child pub, where conversation was "casual and general," often quite "boisterous." These were separate from the focused reading sessions.

Casual and spontaneous interactions. Members met in smaller clusters of two or three to exchange manuscripts, give advice, or simply talk. Lewis and Barfield composed spontaneous poetry during walking tours, turning frustrations into creative exercises. Lewis used his driver, Clifford Morris, as a "sounding board" to try out new ideas and phrases, sometimes scrapping them if they didn't land.

Practical support and joint projects. Collaboration included practical help like editing proofs, sharing research space, and even financial support. They also undertook joint projects, such as the collection Essays Presented to Charles Williams (though it became a memorial) and Arthurian Torso, which combined Williams's unfinished essay with Lewis's commentary.

8. Writing About Each Other Strengthens Bonds

as poets, scholars, and storytellers, they wrote about each other all the time.

Characters based on friends. The Inklings frequently incorporated each other into their creative works. Lewis based characters like the old Professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and possibly Mr. Bultitude the bear on himself. He also included Owen Barfield and Dr. Havard by name or reference in his Ransom trilogy.

Literary portraits. Tolkien captured aspects of Lewis in characters like Treebeard, noting his "booming voice." He also saw himself reflected in Bilbo Baggins and Niggle, the painter struggling with his "Tree." His unfinished novel, The Notion Club Papers, was a direct fictionalization of the Inklings group, with characters based on Lewis, Dyson, Havard, and himself, though he warned they were composites.

Poems and tributes. Members wrote poems about each other, from Tolkien's lighthearted clerihews about Williams, Mathew, and Barfield, to his serious philosophical poem "Mythopoeia" dedicated to Lewis, and a reflective piece praising Charles Williams. These literary portraits, whether humorous or profound, celebrated their friendships and acknowledged each other's unique qualities and contributions.

9. Differences Are a Foundation, Not a Barrier

Our differences laid the foundation of a friendship that lasted.

Initial friction. Lewis and Tolkien began with significant differences: religious traditions (Protestant vs. Catholic), academic specialties (literature/philosophy vs. philology), and personalities (Lewis's exuberance vs. Tolkien's reserve). Lewis initially described Tolkien as needing "a smack or so." They even found themselves on opposite sides of a bitter faculty debate about the English curriculum.

Complementary strengths. Despite or because of these differences, they gravitated towards each other, finding common ground in shared interests like "northernness." Their contrasting perspectives led to robust intellectual debate. Havard noted that his friendship with Lewis, an idealist, was enhanced by his own perspective as a scientist and realist, stating, "Our differences laid the foundation of a friendship that lasted."

Diverse group dynamics. The Inklings group included men from various disciplines and with distinct personalities—Lewis's vigor, Dyson's boldness, Williams's intensity, Tolkien's meticulousness. This diversity fueled their "dialectical swordplay" and ensured a wide range of feedback, preventing intellectual stagnation and challenging each member to refine their ideas against different viewpoints.

10. The "Great Conversation" Spans Time

Do not all the achievements of a poet’s predecessors and contemporaries rightfully belong to him?

Building on the past. The Inklings understood that creativity doesn't happen in a vacuum but builds on the work of those who came before. As scholars, they were deeply immersed in ancient and medieval literature, languages, and mythologies. Lewis's Allegory of Love traced a literary tradition from Rome to Spenser, and Tolkien's work was steeped in Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon sagas.

Inheriting riches. Goethe's idea that poets should "pick flowers where he finds them" and make the "riches of the others our own" resonates with the Inklings' practice. They drew inspiration from a vast "leaf-mould of the mind," a rich accumulation of everything they had seen, thought, read, and forgotten. This deep engagement with the past provided the fertile ground for their own imaginative worlds.

Ongoing dialogue. Literary theorist Kenneth Burke describes creative work as entering a "parlor" where a heated, ongoing discussion is already in progress. We listen, contribute, and eventually depart, but the conversation continues. The Inklings participated in this "conversation of mankind," drawing from Homer, Virgil, Dante, and others, and in turn, leaving their own work to influence future generations.

11. Contribute Early and Late

It’s never too early—or too late—to contribute to the success of a project.

Ideas and beginnings. Collaboration can start at the very inception of a project. The famous wager between Lewis and Tolkien to write thrillers "discovering Myth" directly led to Lewis's Ransom trilogy and influenced the direction of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Charles Williams sought suggestions for new novels from his wife, and Owen Barfield asked Lewis for play ideas.

Support throughout the process. Support is crucial during the long, difficult middle stages. Lewis's "nagging" encouraged Tolkien to finish The Lord of the Rings when he was "dead stuck." Christopher Tolkien's eager anticipation of new chapters motivated his father, especially during the war years when he sent installments to South Africa.

Post-publication impact. Influence continues even after a work is published. The Inklings wrote numerous reviews to promote each other's books. Christopher Tolkien's monumental work editing and publishing his father's unfinished manuscripts, like The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth, ensured that a vast body of work saw the light of day, demonstrating that collaboration can extend far beyond an author's lifetime.

12. Embrace the Leaf-Mould of Influence

it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps.

Rich inner soil. Tolkien's metaphor of the "leaf-mould of the mind" describes the unconscious accumulation of experiences, readings, and thoughts that nourish creativity. This rich, decomposed material, no longer recognizable in its original form, becomes the fertile soil from which new ideas grow. It highlights the deep, often hidden, ways past influences shape present creation.

Interconnectedness of stories. Tolkien also used images like the "Tree of Tales," a tapestry, and a boiling "Cauldron of Story" to illustrate how individual creative acts are part of a much larger, interconnected whole. These metaphors emphasize that stories and ideas are not isolated creations but are woven together, drawing from common sources and contributing to a shared, evolving tradition.

Beyond the individual. The Inklings' story shows that while individual talent is essential, it is profoundly enhanced by connection. Their encouragement, critique, suggestions, and shared experiences became part of each other's "leaf-mould," shaping their work in ways they themselves sometimes didn't fully recognize. Creativity is not just a solitary act but a dynamic interplay within a community, drawing from the past and contributing to the future.

Last updated: May 15, 2025