At heart, I am a puzzle solver. Everything that I enjoy doing can be seen as solving a puzzle. As such, one of the ways that I create is by finding order in chaos.
Consider the way I teach creativity: take a sentence, modify it to be unusual, make up a situation that would explain the scene, then figure out what would logically happen afterward. This is a perfect example of finding order within chaos.
But there is more than one way to find chaos. You can use the tried and true method of painting yourself into a corner. Take an ordinary scene, then twist it such that the protagonists are screwed over. Some examples are lunatic trying to murder them, trapped in a room, car breaks down while rushing somewhere. Force yourself into a situation that is beyond your normal thought process, then find a way to pull through. From that self-inflicted chaos, you will create something you otherwise wouldn't.
In a more subtle way, you can play the what-if game. Take a normal scene, keep asking yourself, What if... and be crazy about it. Then try to figure out how your proposed situation could possibly work. For example, three friends are eating ice cream. What if one of them starts choking? What if the person behind the counter starts laughing maniacally? What on earth is going on and why? Maybe the server was an ex-lover, maybe an ex-con. Maybe the chokker is poisoned, maybe choking on something solid. Maybe the choker is just a spaz who ate too fast.
One could argue that all writing is a degree of finding order within chaos. When I say it, I mean figuring out why a situation is the way it is. It's about using logic to understand the world around you.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment