Creative writing - From think to ink - Lindstrom Simeon 2015
More nuts and bolts: creativity exercises
On that note, I want to share a few ideas and techniques you can use to stimulate your own creativity and get your juices flowing. It’s important, as you try each of these exercises, to stay open. Don’t go into things with your mind closed before you’ve even started, making assumptions about what results you’ll receive. Be playfully curious, and let things emerge rather than wrangle them out.
Exercise 1 — Shit Happens
If life were simple and easy, there would be no stories. Shit happens, if you’ll pardon the expression, and plot is what happens in response. Give your characters a bit of grief. If you don’t know where to take a story, ask yourself, what’s the worst thing that could happen right now? What would seriously get in the way of my character getting what they want? The rest of the story will be figuring a way around that. In non-fiction, you can do this in the form of counter-arguments. Logically create a structure where two sides are “arguing” — it’s more interesting if it’s a close match!
To exercise this skill of building in tensions, go around today and brainstorm all the ways your life could go wrong. If you’re sitting in a café, ask how the rest of the day would play out if you were suddenly beset by zombies. What would you do if you went home this afternoon and mysteriously found everything in your home missing, with nothing but a note written in Russian stuck to the bathroom mirror? What if an alien came out of your coffee mug and told you everything you believed about the world since you were a child is completely wrong?
Take your time with this. As you walk around, really relish the thought that a great story starts when, well, shit happens. Go over the top. What’s the thing you care most about in any particular moment? Think of something to get in the way of that. Then, think of ways you could resolve that. How could you save and redeem things?
Exercise 2 — People are Multitudes
The following exercise will help you create real, compelling characters that will crawl out of your pages - if you’re writing fiction, that is.
Start by thinking of someone you know well and have a strong reaction to in general. This could be a person you’re close to, but it doesn’t matter if you love them to death or want to strangle them …to death. Take a moment to think of all the things that characterize this person’s essence. You could do this by creating a mind-map or just sketching out a few words, phrases, images or symbols that capture their personality.
Now, imagine another person you know who is as different from this person as possible. This might even be you! If your first person is stubborn, head strong and deeply practical, think of a friend you have who is a loosey-goosey, fickle and a head-in-the-clouds type.
Ok? Now, put those two people together. It might be these people actually do interact in real life, in which case you have a lot to work with, but if not, try to imagine them together. What kind of conversations do they have? What kind of arguments? Literally picture the things they would say to each other and the attitudes and emotions that would emerge when such different people collide.
Picture our example people having a fight over how boring and predictable the one is, and the boring and predictable one taking the moral high ground because at least they have some goals in life, as boring as they are. Picture the conversations in detail.
Finally, take this dynamic, this dialogue and this tension and build it into a single character. All the best characters are a little conflicted. Nobody is all one thing or all the other. No, the best characters are complex, they change, and sometimes they don’t make the most sense. Think of yourself. You may consider yourself as X, Y and Z …but if you look a little closer, you also have a tiny little bit of the unexpected Q in you, too. There’s also a little part of you that is exactly the opposite of the rest of you.
A lot of the time, compelling characters are believable because they are flawed in this way. A strong man is compromised by his weakness, the ignorant person in the story shows that they are the wisest of everyone, the pretty girl is revealed to have an ugly, mean streak, and the evil villain of the tale is revealed to have a hidden core of compassion.
When you sketch out your characters, always embed within them this tension. Make them 90% one thing and 10% the opposite. It’s the tension that will originate plot and interest and excitement. And it’s up to you to decide how you will let them solve this problem!
Exercise 3 — Translations
The only way we can ever communicate with each other is through symbols. Whether you do that through mathematics, through the written or spoken word, through images or facial expressions, or whatever, every form of expression is a translation. A lot of creativity is merely being skilled at as many different expressive languages as possible. For example, a good piece of fiction uses many and varied symbols and so gets its message across really effectively.
To develop the skill of expression in yourself, you need to be comfortable with making synonyms and metaphors, in other words the ability to say something in many different ways. This is particularly helpful in fiction writing.
To do this exercise, go about your regular day as normal. Only, whenever you encounter something, “translate” it. Examples will show what I mean. Let’s say a colleague at work literally says to you the words, “this situation has to either change or end; I’ve had enough.”
First, try thinking of different words to express the same thing. It’s now or never. Adapt or die. I’m at the “end of my tether”. Think of symbols to express this same sentiment. A rope being pulled between two people, one fiber away from ripping in half. What music goes with this idea? Shrill violins that show something is about to go bad very soon? Do you find yourself holding your breath?
What colours, shapes and symbols go with all of this? What texture is the concept of “now or never”? If this idea were a person, what would they look like or do? Put all of it together into a scene if you can. Can you see a rock climber, holding onto a cliff with his fingernails, dangling above a gaping abyss below, the scene swelling with dark clouds and foreboding drum music as it dawns on him — things have to change or end — he has to fix things now or it’s over forever for him?
Obviously, you shouldn’t space out and daydream when your colleague is talking to you if you can avoid it, but you get the picture. When you do these mental conversions, what you’re actually doing is flexing your creativity muscles. I’m sure you’ve heard the old writing adage, “show don’t tell,” and this exercise is just the thing to teach you how to do that. The more channels you have at your disposal to express your big idea, the more effective your message will be — and the more colourful!
Do this occasionally as you go about your life (remember that bit about being a writer even when you’re not writing?) and allow your brain to go loose and let in new ideas you’ve never considered before. Different themes, images and ideas will emerge, and you’ll develop a richer sense of imagination that will give your writing depth and believability.
Exercise 4 — Dali’s trick
This final exercise is a bit of wild card but personally one of my favourites. I have no idea whether it’s true or not, but there is a rumour that Salvador Dali used this technique to generate some of the bizarre imagery so distinctive to his paintings. It goes like this: sit in comfortable chair with your arm dangling off the armrest, lightly holding onto a spoon. Just below, on the floor, place a glass saucer or plate that would catch the spoon should you drop it. You should also prepare a notebook and pen within easy reach.
Now, you lean back in the chair and try as hard as you can to fall right asleep. If you’re lucky, images will bubble up in your unconscious mind as you gear up to start dreaming. Right about this time your grip on the spoon will loosen and you’ll drop it, where it’ll fall clattering onto the plate and wake you up. Before you even know what’s happening, you reach for the notebook and scribble down whatever was in your mind at just that moment you were slipping off into dream world.
It sounds cheesy, I know, but I have frequently found insight and arresting imagery by plumbing my dreams for content. Do this carefully. You may even deliberately ask your unconscious mind while awake to work on a problem and then wait and see what your dreams throw up. You could choose to keep a dream journal beside your bed and write in it every morning before the ideas of the night past evaporate. You may well not come up with anything — but then again you might.
Exercise 5 — As Good as a Holiday
This is not so much an exercise as a way of life, and something you might consider doing indefinitely. The heart of a creative response to life, the root of creating things in this world rests in novelty. Creativity doesn’t lie in your stale old routine or in the things you already know about. It’s out there, new, fresh, and a little scary. It’s something, by definition, that you haven’t done before.
To get well acquainted with it, you need to get comfortable with newness, with taking risks and doing things you never have before. The more new things you try, the more channels you open for potential creativity to flow.
Do new things. Shun routine and stop making assumptions:
· Eat food you haven’t eaten before. Try new recipes or strange food combinations. All the best sci fi writers, I’m sure, have put something bizarre on toast just to see what would happen.
· Listen to music you’re not familiar with, watch TV and movies you find strange and branch out with your reading material. Act out of character and try something you thought you hated.
· Go travelling without any plan of where you’re going. See places with fresh eyes and act spontaneously.
· Take up a new hobby that uses a completely unfamiliar skillset. Flamenco dancing, pottery or beat poetry may all be that special ingredient your writing could use.
· Try other art forms. Take up watercolour painting or do crafts to loosen any interesting ideas you may have hidden in your brain. When I say “art forms,” I’m not excluding Play Doh sculptures or drawing smiley faces on lemons.
· Exercise — the blood flow is good for your brain and the endorphins will keep you resilient and productive.
· Dress uncharacteristically and practice expressing yourself out of what’s normal for you. Why can’t you take a risk and wear something you’re a bit too shy to? Try a new scent, wear a colour you never do or buy something whimsical to wear.