3 Creativity Hacks That Really Work

The human brain is both a marvel of biological evolution and a simple machine which forms, processes and executes creative ideas. Especially for screenwriters! Creativity is often viewed as an elusive muse who visits only when she is good and ready. She runs on her clock, not yours. Screenwriters don’t always need to be at odds with their desire to put words on the page and their depleted creative wells. Writers can entice their creativity into making regular appointments with them with a few simple actions. We have discussed previously methods to enhance the creative process. This article is focused on routine and association which better represents how our minds work.

The more often we repeat a task, the more likely we are to drift into autopilot and write mediocre pages at best. This is not the headspace where we’re most likely to come up with our best creative ideas.

The second point is association. We associate certain tangible or intangible objects with positive or negative experiences. It’s been well-documented that a plant in your writing space or appropriate background music can elevate your mood and enhance your productivity. That’s not to say you must have a plant a palm tree in your office to spark your creativity. You might settle for a small pot plant that requires minimal watering that sits on your desk. Plastic plants also work although they’re not effective in increasing the concentration of oxygen in the air which also boosts creativity. Small changes in your environment can boost your creativity without even realizing it.

Photo by Andrea Davis

There are a number of behavioral primers ranging from gentle nudges to gently guide you in the right creative direction without restricting your choices to more structured actions targeting a specific problem.

Freeform unstructured activities are useful for ‘blue sky’ brainstorming situations such as breaking an entire season of a television series in a TV writers’ room. Every idea is written on a whiteboard no matter how outrageous and eventually whittled down into usable stories through the process of elimination.

More specific problems such as navigating a particular plot point or character relationships might be tackled with more structured activities. For instance, activities such as discovering clues to a crime mystery or discovering the cause of death are more likely to be solved by consulting an expert in law enforcement or reading similar crime scripts. Writers can certainly innovate on clues based on technological improvements, but the underlying procedural template will remain fairly static.

Let’s take a look at some of the more unconventional and subconscious hacks to kick start your creative muse and get those pages flowing:

1) Hot Or Cold Beverages

Heat is something we associated with safe, soothing, and nurturing feelings. We all know what a warm bath or lying in the sun feels like. A newborn baby associates warmth with the nurturing comfort of bonding to its mother.

Writers might want to start their next writing marathon with a hot beverage. We often associate drinking tea or coffee as a social event where we engage in conversation. Experts have found that these pleasant feelings are transferred into your story.

Photo by Edward Eyer

You don’t always need company. If you grab your morning joe and sit at your desk alone like most writers, the same feelings of warmth prepare you to write. They reduce stress and anxiety and free up your mind to write higher quality pages.

You don’t even need to drink your hot beverage. Simply holding it will have a similar effect. Yale researchers found that a warm object makes us ‘warmer’, more compassionate, connected, generous, and trusting, while cold objects have the opposite effect and make us distant, unengaged and less sympathetic. Consider these observations when you’re writing your kind-hearted characters or your heartless, dastardly villains.

2) Say No To Lined Paper

This relates to reducing structure and routine in your creative process. We typically scribble notes on lined legal pads without thinking about it.

A McKinsey Executive Leadership Program in Australia tested two theories during a team building exercise to come up with new ways to boost team productivity. The first team was given blank paper (white and colored), post its of various colors, colored pencils and crayons, and a hot beverage during its brainstorming session. The second team was given lined paper, a pen and iced water. The team first team came up with more than twice as many fresh and innovative ideas than the first group. The second team were more focused on process and structure.

Photo by Tim Gouw

Think about making these subtle but significant changes in your writing process when you’re staring at the blinking cursor on your screen. It’s no accident that many writers occasionally switch to outlining on notepads or trading their index cards for colored post its.

3) Audio-Visual Associations

Associations can be expressed in a variety of ways depending on whether you’re looking to solve a particular script issue or whether you are simply coming up with new story ideas which could potentially become screenplays.

These can take a variety of forms. Some screenwriters adorn their walls with prints of their favorite films, while others create a collage or mood board with images from a variety of sources. You can add abstract art or interesting sculptures or knick-knacks in your workspace to get you thinking. Your creative mind will form an association to an experience and allow a story to unfold.

Screenwriters might also want to assemble a playlist of film or TV trailers in the genre you’re writing in. You could get even more specific and play some videos of your favorite care chase scenes while you’re writing your action movie.

Writers don’t need to use all of these techniques. You may find one works better than the other, or that one works fine until it doesn’t. If you follow the underlying theme of changing the structure and routine of your writing process, you will surely find a hack that suits your needs.

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.