Thinking is the Writer’s Curse

When we come up with stories, we generally create a tonal landscape first. Basically we define how the story will feel. The environment, characters and interactions use it as a jumping off point. Most of us don’t consciously decide how a story will feel. But whether we choose it consciously or not, the creative landscape is defined before the rules for the story are created.One of the biggest problems at this early stage is the tendency to think too much. We get lost in details that shouldn’t be focused on before there is a solid tonal foundation for each setting. It’s the curse of the creative - the ability to see and consider the possibilities almost as immediately as the idea appears.

Getting bogged down in the details of the creative direction can make us cross it off before it is fleshed out. This is generally a problem because a good direction may not be good until it is given time to develop. In my next post, I’ll try to talk about what the goal should be for storyscaping and one method to find the way there. I did not invent the word ’storyscape’, by the way.