Four Tips for Spurring Creativity (and avoiding cliché writing)
Humorist David Sedaris tells the story of going to a science museum and in the gift shop was a jar of fake glass eyes. On top of this jar, Sedaris noticed a sign reading “do not hold up to your eyes.” He goes on to talk about how sad this sign made him feel because his first intuition was to hold them up to his own eyes thinking it would be a “laugh riot.” He thought the idea was his and his alone, yet so many other people have had this same idea, they created a sign to keep them from doing it.
We all like to think we’re naturally creative. But, we are all wrong. I guarantee you—whatever amazing, one-of-a-kind idea you’re developing right now—someone’s already thought of it.
The problem is, most of us in modern society have remarkably similar life experiences. We watch the same movies, we read the same books, we go to school, we fall in love, we fall out of love, we work a job, etc, etc. We’re all pulling from the same creative sources.
I remember writing a comedy screenplay about a group of softball players and I wrote one of the characters saying “Does this shirt make me look fat?” and his buddy responds “No, your face does.” I thought it was a great, original crack. So imagine my disappointment when I re-watched Tommy Boy and realized it’s a line straight out of that movie! We are so ingrained with movies, that we often regurgitate what’s in our brains without even noticing it!
So how do you avoid this?
Here are four tips for spurring creativity (and avoiding clichéd writing):
- Have clearly defined goals for your creative time.
- Have a pressing problem. It needs to be something that has to be solved right now and not put off.
- Have specifically worded questions. Know ahead of time exactly what questions you’re looking to answer.
- Assign a clear and trackable time frame.
The above tips come from Tommy Newberry, a life coach, who applies this strategy to multiple areas of life, but I love how much it applies to writing specifically. Dedicated brainstorming time towards your script is so important.
I use this process to help avoid obvious or clichéd choices with my writing. I’ll set a 10 minute timer, with a specific goal, a pressing problem, and a specific question. For instance “come up with 10 alternate maguffins for our hero to be chasing” or “list out 10 potential mentor characters and how each changes the story” or “what are 10 alternate jokes that feel more on-character.” And I set my creativity loose — as many ideas as I can fit in 10 minutes. Most are worse than the original idea, but I’ll almost always have one that’s better as well.
Quantity produces quality! If 1 out of 10 ideas are good ones, what are the chances your first idea is gonna be good? (Uh, I guess in that scenario your chances are 1 in 10?). You have to push to 10 before find the good one!
Creativity doesn’t come naturally, it takes work to develop it. It takes work to get from the first idea that pops into your head to the first good idea that pops into your head. Don’t skip the brainstorming period! Don’t ever let your first idea be your final idea! Creative brainstorming and “pushing to 10” is what takes your script from “cliché” to “original.”
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