I was listening to a discussion about creativity and the word ‘novel’ came up. Someone mentioned how many creative people start out with the idea of writing a “great” novel.
Now, it could be a “great” film or whatever. It depends on where the interest is as well as where a person is in time – meaning, depending on when you are young and starting out (the 70s, the 80s, the 90s etc.), the culture helps define what you want to create. There is an idea in your head about how you will be creative, a model, but as time goes on and you learn and you work it changes. It gets redefined. The writer who starts out imagining a great novel may end up as a great screenwriter. And so on.
I agree with this idea that we start out with some notion in our heads of how our creativity will become manifest, and it changes over time. As a writer, I had an idea of a novel.
Today, however, the idea of writing a novel seems a pretty old school one to me. I don’t mean this as a shot at novels, just that the world – technology and art – has changed and my idea of what to create has been redefined.
More importantly, however, I think creative people need to lose the ballast of whatever their model of creativity is as soon as possible. It’s a form of deadweight. In some ways, it’s helpful initially to the extent it can help steer us in directions for learning. We think “novel” so we study what we think will help us know more and perform better as a novelist.
Whatever we learn, however, is applicable to creativity generally.
The model becomes deadweight though when it starts to box our thinking in. It can restrict our ability to consider other possibilities.
While I can’t identify when my thinking changed, at some point it did for me and the idea of a novel was tossed over the side. I didn’t toss it completely, however. What I did was put it aside in favour of a better model: story.
When I think in terms of story, I can write anything. And I do. It’s only once the story is out, on paper in my case, that I can see it and say, “Oh, this is a novel,” or, “This is a screenplay,” or whatever it appears to be. It’s whatever best suits the story. It could be a comic. Anything.
The concept of story goes well beyond fiction, however. Once you understand what story is, you see that everything is a story. Newspapers. Movies. Television. Gossip. Business meetings. Web sites. All of them are stories.
Story is a narrative that gives us information. The best stories do this in a way that absorbs our interest. Consider what people say to one another when they get together:
“Tell me about your trip …”
“Let me tell you about the movie …”
“He was telling me about this guy who …”
Tell me. Let me tell you.
Telling is the relating of stories. Sometimes, often with a big grin someone will say, “Tell you? Better yet, I’ll show you …” They may then bring out pictures of their trip, a way to tell their story.
For creative people, which encompasses most people, thinking in terms of story is freeing. What you write doesn’t have to be a 60,000 word novel. It can be any length. It doesn’t have to be written out. It can be pictures. It can be video. It can be anything.
Everything is a story. All of us are stories.
And stories can be about anything and everything and done in any way that comes to mind. There is no end to their possibilities.
There is a question that needs answering, however …