Inspiration through constraint
Lifehacker just ran a good article about the importance of pet projects, the most interesting part of which, to me, was the section titled “The Joys of Creative Constraints.”
In his book, Chuck Amok, Chuck Jones talks about how the set of rules he and the other Warner Brothers writers set down for their cartoons resulted in some of the best and most inspired short films ever made. He mentions the most important rule for Bugs Bunny cartoons was that Bugs had to be innocent, and be victimized first before he could go about harassing some poor schmuck. This made him sympathetic (hence the obligatory “Of course, you know, this means war” scene in many of his cartoons) rather than just a “screwy rabbit” who gave hell to well meaning passersby.
After these rules became well known and the character of Bugs became incredibly popular and liked, he could play fast and loose with these rules. In The Rabbit of Seville, for example, the initial conflict that allows Bugs to get away with murder for the rest of the cartoon happens completely out of frame and is over within the first five seconds. A few distant gunshots are heard before Bugs runs breathlessly into the backstage area of a theater, establishing through implication that Bugs is being hunted, therefore giving him carte blanche to have his way with the hunter for the rest of the cartoon. However, that implication is important. Without it, Bugs is just a smug jerk picking on a clearly less intelligent rival for no reason (as was essentially the case before Mr. Jones got his hands on the characters).
When he realized that establishing a set of constraints for the writing of the cartoons actually inspired more and better story ideas, Chuck Jones took that idea and ran with it, creating the Road Runner series by defining what it wasn’t. He laid down a set of rules including the following:
- The characters can’t speak
- The coyote can never catch the road runner
- The road runner can never actively harm the coyote
- All the coyote’s injuries have to be self-inflicted
By doing this, Chuck was able to allow other writers and directors to create their own entries to the series, while maintaining a consistent feel and consistent character behavior. Nowadays this practice is fairly common in group-written mediums such as television and comics, where the series creators will write a “character bible” or “series bible” that lays down the laws of the universe in which the characters operate.
Jack White (of The White Stripes, in case you’ve been living in a cave on Mars with your fingers in your ears and your eyes shut) used a similiar methodology for much of his career (as did The Ramones before him). Laying down self-imposed rules for each of his albums at the outset of recording actively inspired him to create more focused sets of songs and maintain a more identifiable “feel” for his music. Stipulations like not using any digital production equipment, not using bass guitar and not including any guitar solos helped set his music apart from the herd and kept him focused and driven, rather then feeling adrift and unsure in a sea of possibilities.
So next time you sit down to write that novel, or paint that painting, or do whatever it is you do, you might want to start out by figuring out what you don’t want to do and work from there.
