Write Stuff: Constraints
Boundaries are catalysts for creativity
One of my classes in the Spring was sketch writing. The class was divided into several groups responsible for creating a series of sketches that were recorded or performed live at a showcase in June.
All of our sketches were written during class, based on some prompt the instructor gave us. For example, the first week we wrote sketches based on elements of Chicago life. We brainstormed things about Chicago (e.g., CTA, Italian beef sandwiches, windy weather, and Lake Michigan) then created sketches based on any of those things.
At the end of that three hour class, our seven-person group had three sketches, which was exactly [does the math] three sketches more than we had when we walked into class that day.
The reason the prompt approach works is constraints. I remember this from writing classes I’ve taken before. Put me in front of a blank piece of paper and say, “Write something funny!” and chances are very good that the paper will still be blank when you come back later to see my lack of progress. But if you give me any constraints, then words get written, because you’ve given me a direction to go. They may not be the best words, but they will be a start. I was surprised when I first realized this; it seems like constraints would be far more limiting than having a boundless space in which to create. And they are, but they are limiting in that they send you off in a particular direction, instead of just spinning in circles in the empty infinity.
Writing is like carbonation in a drink. The bubbles don’t appear randomly in the middle of the liquid; they form around rough bits on the container. Similarly, writing doesn’t just appear out of thin air; it starts from somewhere. It needs an agent to agitate against and come to life.
Ask me for something funny and, unless I already have something in mind, you’ll get bupkis. But ask me for something funny about, well, anything, and my mind starts cranking. I can think and write around that topic and eventually come up with something. Maybe it won’t be awesome yet, and maybe I will need to polish it severely or even jettison it for another idea instead, but it will be far better than the limitless nothing that I would have had without that initial constraint.
This is the idea around “prompts,” or random writing ideas, which can be used in writing to just get things moving. I went to a writing seminar where the instructor had us write for several prompts during the session. Each of the prompts was randomly generated — someone would pick two numbers and he would use that to pick a page and a word on that page, and that would be our prompt. Which seems… stupid, at least if we were trying to write with a specific goal in mind. But often, the idea with writing is to just get your brain and your fingers moving, to start getting ideas out onto the page, which can then lead to other ideas. So why not start with any random prompt to do that? At the very least, you’re now warmed up and into the flow of writing, and nobody is making you use that initial result. But sometimes, those very random thoughts and writings will lead somewhere interesting, which could be useful to you in current or future writing projects.
Prompts are also part of improv performances. The improvisors will typically ask the audience for suggestions, for locations, or relationships, or even random objects. One reason to get and use these suggestions is to demonstrate clearly to the audience that the thing they are watching (for better or worse) is being created live, in front of them, at that moment, because the content of that improv scene builds around that suggestion. But another reason is the same as writing prompts; it gives the performers a germ around which their minds can start generating other ideas. It is their constraint to take them away from the bleakness of the blank page.
Once you realize how important constraints are, you then realize that you can always generate them when needed. When you find yourself staring at a blank page and wanting to write something (just as I did, when I started this article as a response to writing something that morning), you can take a step back and think about anything that’s happened in your life recently and just grab something to start from. Did you brush your teeth? Did you wake up? Did something happen yesterday you want to noodle on? Grab any one of those things, and use it as a prompt. You will probably not generate a perfect piece of writing based on that prompt. But maybe as the ideas are spilling out, you will generate other ideas that can become other writing catalysts that may lead somewhere more interesting.
Oysters form pearls around sand. What dirt can you use for your pearls of wisdom?
