The Create in Creative Writing: An asside.

In the recent issue of Scientific American Mind (July 2014), an article summarizes the four main steps creative writers can utilize to improve their narrative depth and creative faculty.

Think of the steps like the steps in baking a cake.

The executive summary is as follows:

Step 1: Process/ Mixing the ingredients.

 

This involves exposing your mind to a diverse array of topics. If you're a writer, it means reading a wide range of narrative (literature, biography, who done its, pulp fiction, experimental narrative, poetry, dramas, plays, dialogues, non-fiction, cereal boxes, whatever).

After that you then analyze the techniques each uses to tell a story. Deconstructing and focusing on what makes these narratives tick and appeal to the mind. Exactly what we are doing in this blog!

Finally, you practice the techniques that appeal to you which help reflect your personal style as a writer. 

Step 2: Incubate/ Bake.

 

This involves letting go and forgetting the study and research. Do other things to take your mind off all that processing and mixing. This is where your subconscious takes over and does the baking and it will let you know when it comes up with something novel.

Step 3: Enlighten/ Turn the light on.

 

These great ideas usually happen while walking in a park, in the shower, on the golf course, in the car,  at 4 am when woken from sleep, so take a voice recorder wherever you go. Remember Hunter.S.Thompson in the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

 

 Step 4: Validate/Taste Test:

Present your ideas and creative work to another who is actually qualified to give an opinion. Don't waste your time showing your ideas to Run of the Mill Sally since the uninitiated are unlikely a source of critical thought, constructive help or creative advice.