| Last month's article (Where Do You Get Your Ideas - Sept. 15) was about how ideas are a dime a dozen, and all you have to do is learn how to focus them.
But what if in the midst of a novel, your ideas freeze up, and suddenly the story you planned to write is gone from your mind? What if you have an article started, but it isn't going anywhere? What if you suddenly realize you must change the focus of what you are doing? Where do you get your ideas then? What's needed here is creative thinking. You solve your problem by looking at things in a new way, and not relying on past experience. This article will cover three ways to get your creative juices flowing: abstraction, defining the situation, and changing your point of view. Some of the ideas in this article come from Cracking Creativity by Michael Michalko, Ten Speed Press, 1998. This is a great book, guaranteed to help you think more creatively. Every writer should read it. |
Applying creativity thinking principles to writing |
| Abstraction | Abstraction
Abstraction has to do with specificity. For instance, if you are baking a cake, you can describe the ingredients one by one (even going down to the atomic level if you want), or you can describe them as dry ingredients and liquids, or you can describe the whole thing as baking, or you can step back farther, and call it cooking, or recreation. For each step back, your focus shifts, and you change what you are looking at. Each step would make a different article. One of the best ways to abstract a problem is to ask "Why?" five times. For instance, suppose you want to write an article on creative writing. 1. Why? Because people can be more productive writing if they can think creatively. As you continue to ask "Why?" you go from a specific question to a broader base. In this case, the specific "creative writing" has moved to the much broader psychological question of how the mind works. By looking at this, you can see the direction your mind is moving. If the final answer doesn't seem quite right, try giving another answer to the first "Why?" Suppose the first answer was "Because creative writing is more interesting writing," or "Because you are more likely to sell what you write if it is creative." You can imagine how the article will take a different viewpoint. |
| Defining the situation
A great way to define your thoughts is by using the old journalism formula, who, what, where, when, why, how. You want to write about the fuel shortage, but aren't quite sure exactly what you want to say. Who? This could include those who drill for oil, the business people who get it to us, drivers, gas station owners, politicians, etc. By choosing your "whos" you help choose the direction of your article. What? Are you going to concentrate on the shortage? The price of fuel? The enormous amounts of money made by the oil companies? The way the cost of fuel affects the average motorist? The difference between the situation in the United States and Europe or Asia, or Africa? Where? In the United States? On the oilfields? Inside corporate offices? In the car of an average driver? In the town where you live? When? Will this be a historical article? Will you concentrate on today? Or look at the future? Will you look at the various people involved and see what they are doing at a specific time? Why? What is the purpose for your article? To make people see they should be using alternative fuels? To expose the vast amounts of money made somewhere along the line? To let drivers know about ways to economize? To suggest a better way of drilling? How? Will you try to get this printed in a magazine? Do you have enough to do a book? Would it be better in an Internet newsletter? Or to send to your congressman? There are lots of viewpoints, and lots of ideas. Going through an exercise like the above can help you define just what you want to do. |
Defining the situation |
| Changing your point of view | Changing your point of view
Are you stuck in a novel, and cannot figure out where you want to go? You need to look at things differently. One suggestion is to take certain pivotal scenes, and write them from the points of view of each character involved in the scene. This will work even better if you visualize the scene in your mind. What do the surroundings look like to each character? What associations do they have of the place based on past experience either there, in a similar place, or with the people they are with? Describe the colors, sounds, and smells as each character experiences them. What is each thinking? What do they hope to get out of the encounter (character's viewpoint)? How does this scene advance each character's part in the story (author's viewpoint)? Are you stuck in an article? Imagine different readers of the information. What will they want to know at this point? Why should they keep reading? Where are they likely to be as they are reading this? At the checkout? In a doctor's office? In the library? At home? You may want to think of different ways to say things based on the perspective attention each is giving the article. |
| Writer's block is not fatal. There are lots of ways to get around the problem, and get your creative juices flowing again. Try abstraction, defining the problem, and changing your point of view. When you are stuck, pull one or more of these tools out of your writer's toolbox. | "Writer's block is not fatal." |
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