The Art of Creativity: Breaking Rules, Finding Precedence, and Sharing Stories
SUMMARY
Let’s look at creativity and its role in the creative process, emphasizing the importance of breaking established rules and recognizing the advancements made in the discipline. To be creative, one must know precedence and cultural influences. Writing itself may or may not be creative, and creativity requires two elements: breaking rules and recognition by qualified individuals. Creativity must come out of its vacuum and be shared with others for creativity to reach its full circle.
EXPANDED DISCUSSION
Creativity was once settled in the muse of the gods. I know writers who still think that writing is mystical, and I would agree to some extent. It bubbles up from within. The whole process can be quite impressive. Awe inspiring, even.
Regardless of whether it comes from the gods or our deeply complex unconscious, our creativity is something that can engage and benefit us (as in writing a great story that is distinctly our own) or keep us from those writing goals (as in providing all sorts of creative mental and emotional distractions to keep us from expressing our inward productive selves). Translated: the same mind that produces creativity can also create a procrastinating task, such as looking through a recipe book instead of writing.
Creativity is made to be shared; that is where we, as storytellers, can fill that void: we are creative and express it. Writers alone, though, are not enough. For creativity to reach its full circle, it must come out of its vacuum (our head or our writings that we never circulate) and be shared with others. Creativity requires two elements: breaking rules that are established and the recognition by qualified individuals that rules have been broken that advance the discipline (sometimes rules are broken that are trendy, but in the long view of creativity, they fizzle out and prove to be more aberrations than elements of creativity; true creativity is something that results in long-term permanent change such as the development of an iPhone or the distinct voice of a writer that will be cherished for generations to come). The act of writing itself may or may not be creative. There are many things written, including stories, that anyone could have written. They are derivative, not creative.
Creativity is built upon precedence, a school of thought, which is different than being derivative, a variation of another work. To produce a dissonance with precedence, one must know the precedence. Therefore, in a writer’s case, a writer must be intimately familiar with as much material that has come before, as well as his cultural influences, for creativity to exist. Otherwise, you have only the equivalent of an elephant swinging a paintbrush with its trunk and getting rewarded for food. We may call this product “elephant artwork,” and the purchase may delightfully financially support the zoo (I’ve bought one of these paintings), but by my definition, it is not creative. It is an elephant trained to hit a canvas with the end of a paintbrush with colors chosen by an elephant keeper who is not involved in any creative process. It is a lovely novelty but does not qualify as creativity. Creativity must have precedence, and the creator must know this precedence. Writers must, without exception, read and theorize extensively and then, building upon this precedence, create distinctly new and meaningful innovations that are then carried forward into future generations, which, for a writer translates into the writer’s distinct and influential voice, voice being a multi-headed hydra encompassing numerous traits that would have to be a specific subject to discuss on its own.
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