Monday, June 14, 2010

Be Creative!

They say Creativity is a one time use gift, after you use it again it's no longer creative... but building off the same stump will create an even bigger tree with more and more branches!

I guess that's what Nintendo does with their games, they still have Mario rescuing Peach, Link saving the world, but no matter what their games will always feel like completely new games... and you know why? Because they are... their more than just having Master chief dress up in a modern outfit and changing the name of the game to Modern Warefare, it's more like having hamburgers one night and steak the next... same cow different part!

So where am I going with this? Well it's sad to say but most of the writings I've read whether it be from the school writing club or even an actual novel, I have to be honest and say I've seen so many pieces of crap books and story lines out there, scratch that, I've seen so many crappy concepts out there, scratch that I've seen so many crappy ways of telling the story....

Every Mario Adventure game revolves around the same basic concept yet they are able to change up the methods add new game mechanics and settings and boom you get a new game! well I guess it's not as easy as that...

Say you want to write about vampires, are you going to write ABOUT vampires or are you going to actually create a STORY? You could take any old story and replace all the main characters with vampires, and thus you have a story ABOUT vampires.... No! where am I getting with this?

Is that the common root, the thing your story should truly revolve around, the main motif the whatever... is the STORY! Just because your story has a Death Note in it doesn't make it a Death Note story! Just because your story has love in it doesn't make it romantic. Why am I saying this? Maybe because I feel like it... Maybe because I don't want to grow up in a world dominated by horrible stories to tell to my grand children....

STORY STORY STORY.... if your going to write, make a story.. now you say what about the vampires? Well of course if your going to write about vampires don't just throw them in there... No, you story should revolve not only around the events but the setting, the characters, the items and symbols, the motifs and the time period. Your story (if you want a good story) should rely so much on these things that if these things were any different you would have a totally different story!

You can't have super Mario Galaxy without the Galaxy, you know what's funny? If Nintendo took the worst game in the world and slapped Mario on it I bet it would sell like hot cakes! You know why because Mario isn't just a costume, Mario is a character!

mmmm.... time to relax....

they say your most creative when you are relaxed... when your heart and your lungs and your brain are on the same beat.... Take some deep breaths while imagining something, some sort of thing that goes along with the tempo of your breaths... if you can successfully do this then you get Cardiac Coherence... Your brain and your lungs and your blood pressure will be at the perfect level for creativity!


....mmm relaxed? I am....

I guess I've been writing about how to write your story what about what your story should be? Well believe it or not no story is the same, there's no formula if you know what I mean... X + Y = Z but when story writing you can't just plug in anything and have a story if you know what I mean? Some people's storied will be X + X + Y = Q.... if all stories followed the same pattern they would be oh I don't know... UNCREATIVE.... but if all stories had the same roots like how Mario games all have saving the princess, then we can go from there...

Well I can't be specific but if you create your own formula for the story you want to write then I say good! en example of a really general formula that anyone could use....

Happy beginning - Interesting Middle - Happy almost ending - Sad and Tragic Ending and final resolution

That is an example of a general story formula.. it has to be general because if I put specifics like Character finds Death Note - Character Kills People - Character Dies, well then guess what, it wouldn't be your story it would be someone elses, your just plugging in different characters...

What would Death Note be with "L" replaced with Mario? or Light replaced with Kirby? it would probably be a comedy not the epic serious show the original Death Note was...

So let's get creative!


One more thing I'd like to add.... When writing a story don't write about things that could happen in any story, or at least you shouldn't... feel free to do whatever you want though.... Write about things that the reader or viewer would want to do, but knows that kind of thing could only happen in a story...

What's a YouTube popular video if it's just a video of some guy waling? Anyone can do that! But what if it was some guy walking down the rail road tracks while two trains are about to collide in the middle of a thunder story holding a giant pikachu over his head?

2 comments:

  1. The way I see it, the storyline is pretty much dying. We get many books with horrid stories. Right now, we also get movies that don't even have a storyline. Even just about every American television shows are not coming up with stories anymore to the point where anime and old movies are the only place a story can be found.

    The last part about somebody holding a giant pikachu over their head was funny to imagine.

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  2. I agree 100%, even lots of video games have lost their story, now with online play they think they can throw in some guns and characters and have people play online for hours... I play most of my video games for the story and for the gaming experience... Most movies today are all about action, action and more action, Transformers 1 had an okay story and great action... Transformers 2 had a TERRIBLE story but good action, but you know because the story sucked so much it ruined the action to the point that I didn't even care who died...

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