The Paradox of Creativity: Mark's Resource Roundup

The very nature of creativity demands the freedom to explore, but the world yearns for order. The Dalai Lama tells us: “Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”. Do you sense a paradox?

As writers, we all too often raise our pencils and/or coffee mugs and declare, “They will take our souls, but they will never take our freedom!” or something like that. The point is we all like a great deal of leeway in finding our way through a story. I am no exception, but something I learned in college has stuck with me. During a music appreciation class (easy credit and the professor was cute) we learned that back in the 1800s there was a revolt of sorts. A group of rogue musicians had decided that they had had it with bar lines and f-stops, they just wanted to create music and they wanted it to flow from their veins unto the paper unrestricted in any way. Can anyone name a composer from this era? Can you play a representative piece on Pandora?

Most scholars agree that the mastery of Mark Twain’s, Huckleberry Finn, lies in the fact that he purposefully broke the rules of novel writing and set a standard for new rules. He could do so because he had mastered the established rules and found a way to play within them. What those musicians of yore failed to realize that within the constraints of bar lines and f-stops they had the license to be as creative as they please.

Now I have seen some very interesting takes on screenplay format and far be it from me to stifle creativity, but we have formatting rules for a reason. They serve as our bar lines and f-stops and allow our imaginations to run wild within those parameters and yes, even break those rules from time to time.

Keep on writing,

Mark

Resource Links:

9 Creative Rules to Screenwriting

8 Somewhat Unusual Screenwriting Tips that May Help Kickstart and Maintain Your Creativity

Writing and the Creative Life: Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling (Part 4)

Parting Thought:

“Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.” ― James Russell Lowell

Want another great opportunity to hone your craft? Why not consider the 6-week Writing Workshop presented by Slamdance in partnership with Roadmap Writers!