Oops, I'm Stuck

A Simple Trick to Boost Your Creativity

by Art Markman, Ph.D. at the Hoffington Post

I found this article from another post,Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work: Adopt a different writing persona by Scott Myers at his Go Into The Story blog. I wanted to mention both posts to ensure that both authors get proper credit.

In the original post, Markman reviews research illustrating the construal level theory; this theory states "we think about things that are near to us in space or time in specific terms, but we think about things that are far from us in space or time in more abstract terms." When we are thinking abstractly, we are more free to let our imagination soar.

For example, when thinking about a trip you might take to Paris next summer, you might focus on how much fun it would be or how great it would be to sit in a café and watch the world go by. When thinking about a trip to Paris you are going to take next week, though, you focus on what you are going to wear, how you are going to exchange money and what you will do when you encounter Parisians who speak no English.

....[Researchers] Polman and Emich reason that if you are trying to think creatively, then generating some distance between you and the problem you are solving might enhance your creativity.

Creating distance is not just about time.

...pretend that you are being creative on behalf of someone else. That will help you think about the problem more abstractly and avoid simply repeating the solutions you already know about.

The original post deals with any kind of creativity.  For example, research shows that when people were asked to draw aliens (the science fiction type), the study participants tended to give the alien creatures the same properties of creatures on this planet: two eyes, balanced limbs. Creating something that isn't real should release your creativity, but that is not what happened. Their creativity was blocked; they were "stuck using their knowledge of animals, even when they are trying to do something really novel."  In another test, people were divided into two groups. One group was told to draw aliens for a story they might write.  Another group was told to draw aliens for a story that might be written by someone else. The participants that were drawing for someone else were more creative giving their creatures more unique features. When we step outside of ourselves, we are more free to play, experiment, and see new options.

In the Go to the Story post, Myers relates this specifically to writer's block: Adopt a different writing persona.

Write from a character's point of view. Seems to me that you can always change it back to a more objective point of view later, if you want, but as Myers points out, becoming the character helps reduce the inner critic. I think it would be fun to write the scene twice from different character's points of view - just to get the creative juices following.

Myers doesn't elaborate on this, but writing from a different persona could also suggest using an objective point of view pretending you are a different author. How would Hemingway write it? How would Faulkner? How would John Grisham, Kathryn Stockett or some other contemporary writer do it?  How would the story be different if your mother were writing the story?

This post by Scott Myers is one of a series of posts on "Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work." Scott is a screenwriter; many of his comments are relevant to a novelist, as well. Check them out.  Here are a few titles:

1 Page A Day
Create an Argument
Don't Finish That Scene!