The other day I read a really effective murder mystery short story by a bestselling author. I’m not going to say which story it was because I’m about to spoil the ending.
Early in the (very short) investigation, the woman detective finds out that her sister had a grudge against the deceased. It was mentioned in passing, along with a whole raft of suspects.
The victim was an awful person who got up a lot of people’s noses and regularly received hate mail. The perpetrator could have been anyone.
The perpetrator was, of course, the detective’s sister. It had to be. That’s the solution that would pack the biggest emotional punch with the detective and the reader.
But the ending went deeper than that. Not only was the younger sister the murderer, but the way she had covered her tracks and staged the body was a direct challenge to the detective sister who the murderer knew would probably end up on the case. It was the ultimate thumbing-of-the-nose from little sister to big sister.
The solution was satisfying both because it felt completely right but also because it had a surprise in its tail in the shape of the murderer’s grudge against her sister in addition to her grudge against the victim. The tale went from a good story (interesting crime scene), to a really good story (because the identity of the murderer had such emotional significance), to a great story (the intriguing and [for me] unique showdown between sisters).
I thought the way the story was written is a wonderful reminder to take opportunities to expand stories as wide as they can go to get the biggest emotional payoff. If there’s the opportunity to grow your creative project to reach it’s full potential, it’s worth trying.
I don’t feel I’m being completely clear. Maybe Creativity will put it more effectively.
Have you heard of Chekhov’s gun? I’m speaking of Chekhov the author (whom Jessica has never read [am I doing this ‘whom’ thing correctly?]), not Star Trek’s Chekhov (whom we’ve seen since childhood), or Wilbur Chekhov (who collects wombat-themed knick knacks and garden statues, works as a pyrotechnician in the smallest town in Australia, and is someone I just made up).
Where were we?
Yes! Chekhov’s gun.
The idea behind the principle of Chekhov’s gun is that every element of a story must be necessary and everything irrelevant needs to be removed. It’s illustrated by the idea that if there is a gun on the table at the beginning of the story, it must be fired by the end of the story.
Got it? Great. Now remember the gun thing and forget the “must be necessary” and ‘remove the irrelevant’ bits.
Why? Because Creativities love throwing random things into what we create. If we demand fluro orange to be squeezed onto your palette, it’s because it’s worth giving that orange a bit of a dab on the canvas before the day is up. If we think minor character would look good with magenta hair, it’s probably because we’re bored, but it also means that character is memorable and therefore likely to reappear later driving a lime green Aston Martin and providing a sudden and convenient getaway.
So let your Creativity be bold and random and surprising, because those things are what make your story or painting or art installation memorable, exciting, unique, and some fourth thing that will come to me in a moment…
Your creative projects have so much potential. But most of that potential is connected to the relationship you have with your Creativity. If you allow your Creativity breadth and opportunity and freedom, you’ll get a result that pushes your project’s potential wider than you could have originally imagined.
So why not try? Why not give yourself free rein? (Is that the right rein? Reign would work too, wouldn’t it? I do, after all, rule supreme in Jessica’s Imaginationland.)
Transformative! That’s the fourth thing. Or should it be transformational? I don’t know. Let me know what you think.
So you get the idea. Let your Creativity dream big and wide so your project can reach its full potential.
I do, though, have one thing to say about Chekhov’s gun (see, we mentioned it early so it had to come back). You don’t have to create completely linearly. By that I mean, if you are, for example, writing a novel and you realise as you’re creating your denouement that to reach your ideal crescendo you do indeed need a gun on the table in Chapter 3, then just return to Chapter 3 and add it in. You’re not committed until you hit publish/submit. Let your creative process do what it needs to do to grow the project to its natural size.
The most important thing is to not self-edit, or at least limit that as much as possible. I’ve often been writing when Creativity comes up with some crazy idea to throw into the mix. So often I’ve let her go and then later on it’s paid off in style. My favourite example of this is in my newly released sci-fi romance Be All My Futures Remembered, but that’s a story I’ll tell another time.
When you find ways to work with your Creativity rather than censor ideas as they come through you find that your work will naturally take on a bolder, stronger, larger aspect. Your Creativity is a part of you, and is integral to your voice, your uniqueness, what makes you YOU. So relax into the process, let your Creativity have their way, and see what happens.
And when you do hit that point where your project reaches a height you hadn’t realised was possible, come back here and tell us all about it!
In the meantime, what’s holding you back from exploring your project’s potential? Let us know below.