How Can You Be Creative These Days?
on November 30, 2010 at 5:19 pmIs playing with blocks the same thing as being creative?
Over the last several posts—with a few side-steps—we’ve looked at rules; what they are, if should break them, and if so, how you might go about it. To be frank, about all we’ve learned is that there are a lot of damn rules out there, and they cover everything you can think of, and much you haven’t yet aimed your brain at..
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A topic we might want to tackle down the line is “why”. Why are there so many rules? For now, I’ll suggest that most of them are merely shortcuts, tricks and gimmicks, designed at best to prevent us from going outside the lines in our favorite coloring book. Perhaps rules would be easier for us if we only thought of them as guidelines.
But that isn’t why I called you all together here, today. Nope. Today I want to push around a few ideas about creativity, what it is, and whether or not there is any hope for us, we dwellers in the world of the mind and imagination.
It has been said that there is “nothing new under the sun“, and frankly, one would be hard put to find something totally and refreshingly original.
This doesn’t mean we don’t try, however. There are those of us who are always looking to create something new, but our problems are many.
For one, we look in old places for something new. At best, by doing this, we may take old components and put them together in a clever way. But is that really a new idea? So, what we use for source material is a major issue.
Then comes the really hard one: If we came up with something that nobody has ever thought of before, how would we describe it?
If you are a fan of Science Fiction, you’ll have noticed by now that better than 98.6672%*of all alien species could just be men and women in rubber suits. They have two arms, two legs, a face, a voice, and human wants and desires. Oh, and they speak flawless English or no language at all. Why do you suppose this is? (Nah, it’s OK, I’ll tell you.) It’s because if we created an alien character that truly was alien, we could only describe it from afar. We would not be able to attribute wants, desires, needs, or anything that we recognize as a part of our world.
This is where we need to draw the line in creativity. Yes, we could force something on our readers, something inexplicable, but the problem is, without normal, human, terrestrial hooks, our readers will just shake their heads and move on to an easier to read book.
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So, wait a minute… whose side am I on?
Despite this bleak picture of what it is like to create something out of whole cloth, I still believe it can be done. True, most of what we see as creation is just moving old ideas around and assembling them in unique ways, but I’m holding out for a truly original, truly riveting idea.
Frankly, I don’t know how to do that, but I think that the people who say it can’t be done are those poor souls who have given up on their minds.
Now, go ahead. Have at me. Your thoughts?
* Note: 78.63% of all statistics are made up.
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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio... and isn't it time you experienced some of them?
I beliee I have just learned that a secret of creativity is ‘putting those pieces’ together in a way that gives you a perspective, (and hopefully through you your reader) that you have never done before. If you are fortunate to put the jig-saw together in a way that has never been done before, and yes I agree, are able to make it believable to your reader, than you truly have created something new. I believe this holds true for new discoveries in science as well as the arts, and possibly even in regard to those religious mystics (like Eckhardt, for instance) that gave Christianity Buddhist insights centuries before the East-West conjuncture. We might discover something new about what it is to be true, to be good, of what constitutes beauty, like Kant, and have a new philosophical approach. The universe is ‘opened up’, just a little bit more. The important thing is that when we do come to those ‘discoveries’, it is likely the result of putting in the effort needed to understand something about human nature or the world.
error. that you have never ‘had’ before.
Just to repeat cause I think I spread it out a bit. Certainly creativity springs from the imagination, especially in the writing of fiction, etc. But the real break through comes with and through a development of various modes of ‘understanding’, which contribute something new, whether of character, structure of story, technique, etc. etc. Understanding, not imagination is therefore what I hold makes the ‘difference’; to contribute a new understanding of the particular parameters is the only element which can be ‘truly’ called ‘new’. Imagination is thus a tool, and not the only creative factor, analysis and experiment, persistence, etc. etc. may also play a role.
‘Genius is 99 percent – what?’ grin grin.
There was a story I read once that had the alien – lived on Jupiter or somewhere and was made of gaseous qualities and could only be sensed, not really seen.
Something like that. I will try to remember the name of the story.
J.K. Rowling created moveable staircases, Quidditch, talking/moving portraits, house elfs, invisible entrances to the Hogwart’s Train, ButterBeer, any flavor beans, etc.
She took the “known” and manipulated it to share her imagination with the world ~ and carved her place in history.
I am still of the opinion that creativity is not creating something from nothing but instead finding new fresh uses for what most take for granted. Rowling found great success because she found ordinary things and made them magical. A reader doesn’t have to strain to visualize earwax flavored jellybeans or a staircase that moves.
Very nice post! I really like the points you make.
Personally, I seem to constantly refuse to fit into any one genre with what I write. My wish is to … transcend genres. I suppose that some of the originality which I strive to bring to life comes from that.