Quantum Storytelling

To clarify on my last post, creative freedom is good and healthy too. My point was that it’s no guarantee of quality work.

If you ask any creative person, they will tell you how important creative freedom is, to them and others. Few talk about creative challenge and constraint.

Creative challenge would say, “Let’s write a story set only in a phone booth.” Hence the movie Phone Booth.

This is what I mean by the difference between freedom and challenge. Le Artiste would say, “Nah, the whole thing a phone booth? That’s too constricting! I need 500 locations. Or the 18th Century English Countryside! The American West! Ancient China! Outer space!”

Of course sinking into relativism–all choices are equal. But a phone booth lends immediate creative challenges that compel the writer to be innovative. The differences between ‘anywhere’ and a phone booth are vast. With the phone booth you’ve got to think of every conceivable option to keep the setting fresh and alive. How will it be compelling? That’s not stifling. That’s creativity itself grabbing you by the shoulders, shaking you and screaming, “You think you’re creative!? Yeah? Well, creatively solve THIS!”

We all want creative freedom. But we all need creative pressure.

Otherwise we’d never get anything done.

When starting a new project, do you run towards creative freedom? Or do you stop and ask yourself, “What would really challenge me?”