Creativity requires more
Knowing how to write, draw, animate etc. is not enough
Creators are constantly told they must hone their skills if they want to create. If someone expresses a desire to be a writer, he’ll be told to read many books, learn how plot structure works and analyse great literature.
After he has done these, he may be given a routine or goal so that he actually writes the story, something like “write a thousand words every day, until you have completed the first draft of your first novel”.
All the above advice is solid. It is cliché but storycraft (like any other creative discipline) is a skill which needs to be learnt and practised.
Yet there is a missing element here.
Let us return to our hypothetical young writer: he has read the books, knows all about narrative structure, has finished his first draft after writing for two months straight and is now editing his work. But at the end of the process, he takes a step back and realises his novel is… uninspired.
It’s not that his work is cliché, badly written, derivative or boring, it’s just…uninspired light entertainment.
Light Entertainment
A good example of uninspired light entertainment can be found in Lucasfilm’s Disney+ series The Mandalorian. I have only watched six episodes of the show, the first and last three but I didn’t feel a need to watch the rest.
The Mandalorian series is mostly well-written, has good characterisation and fun stories but it is nothing special. No critics will write extensive essays on The Mandalorian, no one will speak of it with any great feelings of nostalgia, and it is unlikely to resonate with future generations. This is because The Mandalorian is the epitome of uninspired light entertainment and so will fade from the public consciousness in a few years.
Of course, one can appreciate the series and Favreau’s competent writing skills, the same way one can appreciate a well-constructed car engine and the skill of the mechanic who put it together. But in both cases, the individual’s conception of the world hasn’t changed and he has spent no time mulling over the ideas behind the object he is appreciating. Mainly because there is no great food for thought in The Mandalorian or the car engine.
The same cannot be said for a book trilogy such as The Lord of the Rings or a film like Apocalypse Now. Both fictional works demand the attention of the reader/viewer and challenge him to explore ideas on power, hope, madness and war. Both works are entertaining, there is no doubt, but they are not uninspired light entertainment; you might say they are examples of inspired heavy entertainment. By any measure, they are food for thought.
This is where the young writer stumbles. Tolkien and Coppola wanted to make comment and wanted to explore certain ideas in their work, but the green writer only creates uninspired light entertainment and then wonders why the only remarks about his work are: “Good read. I enjoyed it”.
In order to create a work of art which endures, it has to say something and take on ideas in a meaningful manner.
How to do this?
It is easy to point out the young writer’s error, but how do you write something which is more than light entertainment?
There is no formula because storycraft is not a procedure like chemistry. However, for a creator to say anything, he actually needs to believe something; he needs to dwell upon the nature of existence (among other things) in order to develop his own opinion and philosophy.
Thus the overly general, near-useless answer has to be this:
Read different books
Engage with different ideas (engagement is not the same as agreement)
Observe how different people live their lives
Ask the big questions
Question your own values and principles (know thyself)
Wrestle with your fears and demons
If a creator does these, perhaps it will improve his chances of creating something beyond uninspired light entertainment.
