I wrote last week about the “Knowledge is Power” theory of writing, but here’s the corollary:
If you tie yourself too tightly to “fact” or “experience,” you are effectively limiting your potential. Instead, use that knowledge as a springboard.
This is most obvious when writing fiction. Fiction thrives on conflict, errors, tragedy–things you certainly hope don’t occur too often in your daily life. You can ground your fiction in a place very like the one you live, but most of us (luckily) don’t have corpses making regular appearances in our lives, or catastrophes happening every other week. Writing fiction means putting your imagination to work to come up with an interesting story. That’s understood.
But don’t think this rule only applies to fiction, either. Even the most mundane how-to list can be improved with some creativity–make up fun examples. Joke a little with your reader. The Idiot’s Guide series of how-to books are experts at these. They sandwich real, solid information with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink kind of jollity that makes their books accessible and entertaining. That’s creativity for you. There’s even an entire magazine devoted to Creative Nonfiction.
The point is that writing–no matter what type of writing you do–is a creative endeavor. It helps to start with what you know. A technique, a lifestyle, the inner workings of a small town. But a good writer extrapolates from that to create something that is interesting, entertaining, informative. They take that dry knowledge and create something wonderful out of it. It’s the soil from which your seed of creativity sprouts. If the soil is barren or sparse–if you don’t have a solid base for your writing–it’s going to wither and die because there’s nowhere for the roots to go.
That‘s why you start writing about what you know. So your writing can flourish.
I like this piece and the former article about how the ‘write about what you know’-rule doesn’t make as much sense as it sounds.
Non-fiction writing has a suprising number of creative elements to it.
1) A lot of nonfiction writers build there material upon what they have come up with solutions to problems. And to come up with solutions, it takes creativity. To come up with new solutions, you need to steer away ‘from what you know’ and experiment with what you don’t know.
2) Once you have your material you have to get it on paper and be able to communicate it. You have to master the right words and style and even punctuality to suit your audience. An author of a fiction book can get away with writing in a particular style that will resonate with some but deter others. If your purpose is to communicate an idea to the most amount of people, you need to speak the language of your audience.
3) The best way to convey and teach knowledge is through storytelling. So even if you are writing nonfiction, it takes skill to tell stories, give examples and use metaphors. Again, this is a multifaceted creative process.
This article was fun for me because I’m finding out how hard it can be to do just this: convey nonfictional information whilst making it fun and inviting to read. And because I walk beyond the realms of my personal experience to create and write about new ideas.
Thanks, Peter. These are great points. On number 1, you’ve said what my mother and I are continually telling my father. He claims that he is not at all creative, and yet he is one of the best problem-solvers I know. It doesn’t matter how often we say this, though, because he has some idea in his head about what “creative” is, and doesn’t believe he has it, despite evidence to the contrary. So what if he doesn’t paint or sculpt or draw or write?
And, your second point is a great one–that a non-fiction writer needs to communicate with a large audience and must have a style that suits everyone, a luxury a fiction author cannot afford. I’ve had an idea for a post tickling the back of my head for a while, and I think that just helped clarify it….
Hi Deb,
Solutions aren’t necessarily creative. And it isn’t their creativity that makes them valuable. Proved solutions can be applied to existing problems. If they work this makes them valuable. Experimenting doesn’t necesssarily add anything.
I don’t think creativity moves away from what we know necessarily. The rendering and communication of an experience in its complexity and depth is also creativity – and can be resolutely tied to the specifics. So I don’t think the knowledge can be a springboard. A painting of one specific rose is not necessarily less creative than a painting of an imagined rose.
What is interesting, entertaining and informative can be the details of experience. As long as the writing is good.
Proved solutions and existing problems don’t always go together, or we’d still be using stone wheels and horse-drawn carriages–there are always new solutions to be found, new skills to be mastered, and innovation IS a form of creativity. To me, thinking about something in a new way is what creativity is all about–it’s the way you’re seeing and interpreting that rose you’re painting, in a way that nobody else could exactly duplicate.
And, where writing is concerned, it’s the way you formulate your sentences that make your writing unique. Everyone is working with the same vocabulary, more or less, but once you’re past “See Jack run,” the sentences are going to be different according to each person who assembles them. Nobody else filters the world, or thinks about the world in the same way as you do, or as I do, or as anybody else reading this post does. That’s the point.
Hi Deb,
This is of course true. Innovation and creativity is assuredly creative.
However, it is not the creativity that makes the solution valuable. Creativity is not always successful – dragging mats and slides don’t lead to pneumatic tyres. A person may well prefer a stone wheel to a mat over rocky and uneven ground.
As you say creativity refers to the way we use our media. This is different to though related to our vision of what is and its possible elaboration.
My point was that it is not necessarily the springboarding from what is that is creative. A documentary resolutely committed to re-producing the factual can be creative. Accepting Andy Warhol’s point that “if you want reality, get the bus” it is also true that creativity involves our use of the medium we are using. Seeing creativity as only the springboard from reality loses this sense of the medium.
I’m not sure that uniqueness and creativity are quite the same. An artist may develop a distinctive style and then stick to this style. This is quite common with the commercially successful. However there may be little creativity involved once the style has been developed, although it may still be quite recognisably that artist’s work. Thus Hollywood formula movies can still be recognisably from one director and involve precious little creativity.
I trust my comments make sense. I don’t wish to devalue creativity.
My point was that reliable application of past solutions to similar situations may be valued by people. That creativity involves the use made of the medium. That creativity can be involved in rendering the factual not just it’s elaboration (springboarding off from this).
I trust this makes clear that I am not questioning creativity or its value. I in fact think that it is probably essential to life and certaily to anything approaching a satisfying life.
Evan’s last blog post..Two Ways to be Rid of Stress
I’m a great believer in humour as a teaching tool. If you can express your lesson with a touch of humour it stands a greater chance of taking hold in the mind of your reader.
Karen (Karooch from Scraps of Mind)’s last blog post..Stitching for the Sewing Challenged
Amen! Humor and stories are both always good “hooks” to make things stick in people’s minds.