I stared at my course timetable in disbelief.
Tuesday. 1 – 4pm. Creativity.
I must have won the lottery! A semester-long class on creativity? It made sense, seeing as I was attending college for Creative Advertising, but to actually have a course titled Creativity…
I knew I was in the right program.
I arrived at room 216 on the first day with no idea what to expect.
The instructor waited as we filed in and took our seats, then introduced himself as Dan. Tattoos covered his arms. He had the biggest grin on his face, like he knew he’d hit the jackpot landing the job as Professor of Creativity.
The lesson I learned in that first class will stick with me forever.
Dan told us we were going to come up with a tagline. A slogan for a made up business.
He asked the 28 students to shout out ideas as they came to us.
We had a list of ten within seconds. Dan wrote them down on the far left side of the double-wide whiteboard at the front of the room.
He stopped us at ten and asked us to pick the best three.
We chose numbers two, six, and eight.
“Great,” said Dan. “Let’s keep going.”
We called out ideas. More than a few were sarcastic, but Dan wrote everything down.
We got to 30.
Then 40.
The pauses grew longer as students ran out of obvious ideas. More ridiculous suggestions appeared. Dan wrote them all down.
It took almost an hour, but we made it to 50.
Dan stopped us once more.
“Which are the best three now?”
Number eight made the cut again, joined by 22 and 46.
Dan underlined them.
“Great. Let’s keep going.”
Students groaned. We were here to learn creativity and he had yet to teach us anything. Wasn’t he going to talk about the slogans? Tell us what made them good or bad?
No. He wasn’t.
Dan waited with that same grin while we grumbled. He knew exactly what he was doing.
It took us the rest of the class to reach 100 slogans.
By the end, five minutes would go by without anyone offering an idea. I saw students switch off, pulling out phones, doing homework for other classes.
Only ten of us were still trying.
But then our ideas would trigger more, and the girl scrolling Instagram would suddenly be back in the game. We’d have a flurry of suggestions as we explored a new angle.
Until they tapered off again, ideas coming with the irregular plink of a leaky faucet.
It was excruciating.
With ten minutes to go, nearly a full three hours after we started, Dan wrote the 100th idea on the board. We’d used all the available space.
“Which are the best three now?”
The 28 of us argued for a few minutes and finally settled it by voting.
Number 22 made the cut, joined by 59 and 84.
Dan circled them.
He asked us to choose the winner. The one we would present to our imaginary client.
We chose 59.
“Good job,” said Dan. “There’s your lesson for today. The first idea is never the best. See you next week!”
The bell rang and Dan walked out of the room.
Whoa.
Years later I still think about this all the time.
The first idea is never the best.
I’d heard it before and I’ve heard it since, but experiencing it for myself gave the lesson impact.
There are two major takeaways here.
The first, more obvious one, is the power of pushing past your limits.
Coming up with 50 ideas was hard. We experienced resistance when asked to go beyond what already felt like overkill. Left on my own, I wouldn’t have kept working after 20.
It wouldn’t even have felt like giving up. We had a big list of good ideas. But if we had quit at 50 we would have missed out on the best one. That might have cost us business in the advertising world.
In fiction, you might be losing out on readers. It could mean the difference between a best-seller or a rejection.
Digging deep to find the most valuable ideas is worth the time and effort.
The second takeaway is the importance of community.
Could I have come up with 100 ideas on my own?
Hell no.
I was responsible for maybe ten. 15 max, and only because I was one of the few still trying at the end. My count also included some joke answers I didn’t expect Dan to write down.
I’m not the one who came up with number 59.
But guess what? The person who did was inspired by 57 and 58.
They couldn’t have done it on their own or they would have suggested it in the first round.
That means it took 28 people an hour to uncover the nugget of gold.
Collaboration is key.
It’s especially important in the early stages.
Imagine if I selected the slogan alone, from my first ten ideas, and created an advertising campaign based on it before asking for feedback. I’d have wasted days of effort only to discover a better way.
It’s this same reason I have my students in the New Novelist Accelerator collaborate right from the start.
The more they discuss each facet of their novel, the better chance they have of uncovering an excellent idea they wouldn’t have spotted alone.
Better ideas translate to better stories.
It’s damn discouraging to get forty-thousand words into a novel before having a stellar idea that requires starting over.
Gone are the days of writers toiling away in dark rooms, unwilling to share their ideas until they’re ready for the public.
Many hands make light work.
Many heads make more ideas.
And the more ideas you can generate, the better your odds of discovering something really exciting.
And that’s not even considering the compounding effect. Repeating this type of exercise for plot, for setting, and for characters, then combining the best of each…
Those are the books that get remembered.
That get talked about.
That readers can’t put down.
The great thing is, this gets easier the more you do it.
You can train your brain for creativity.
Try making a list of 10 ideas every day. (ex Day 1: character motivation, Day 2: possible magic systems, and so on…)
It might be hard at first, but soon you’ll find it easy. Go for 15, then 20. Keep increasing the size of the list so you’re struggling to come up with the last few ideas.
Not only will you get good at thinking widely, but you will be able to come up with multiple possibilities fast. This can go a long way to defeating writer’s block.
You will develop the ability to go deep, and uncover better ideas than ever before.
You’ll become a creative superpower.
Combine with others of a similar mindset for off-the-charts potential.
So remember, the first idea is never the best.
Put in the extra time up front.
Involve your community as early as possible.
Your ideas, and thus your finished product, will be stronger for it.
Enjoy your weekend,
Creag
P.S. If you want to build the ultimate creativity skill stack, try my 7 Days To Unlimited Ideas Challenge.
