Your topic dictates the creative skills required
By: Justarius on Jan 08 2009Category: Storytelling
Your topic dictates the creative skills required. If you have a great idea, you might be able to create a successful work with adequate creative skill. This is because the idea sells itself so long as you can adequately express it. On the other hand, if your topic is something very familiar to your audience, you will have to rely more heavily on your creative skills to keep the audience enthralled.
Consider the example of a piece on evolution versus a piece about a guy who just lost his wife. Evolution is a very heated topic, so writing a simple, coherent dialogue about the two major viewpoints will already draw some audience members. But to get people to read about the guy who lost his wife, you’ll have to flesh his character, the circumstances, his feelings, etc.
I’m not suggesting that concept-driven artists have it easier than other artists – anyone who has tried to come up with a great idea knows how hard it is to do so. I’m saying that the creative skills needed vary depending on the topic.
Knowing what it takes to make a work successful is half the battle.
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2 Responses to “Your topic dictates the creative skills required”
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Excellent point, which I completely agree with. One of the biggest examples I can think of is novel The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. It’s the ideas (which are not original to Dan Brown) that generated the great commercial success of the novel, not Dan Brown’s writing. In fact, I would venture to say that the novel’s success was in the ideas presented, DESPITE Dan Brown’s skills as a writer.
This (your article) is one of those things where when you first hear it you have that sort of “Well, duh” feeling because it seems so obvious once you hear it, but most people (including myself) haven’t taken the time to think about their or other’s art in such terms. It is an excellent guiding principal.
And it does not suggest to merely take the easy route. It helps someone to evaluate their own work. If they are honest with themselves and realize that the general premise of their work is not particularly original or “clever” then they know they must add something somewhere in order to make the piece more compelling and, if it’s their goal, more commercially successful or “popular”.
In my own area of primary interest, I cannot listen to yet another love song unless the music stands out (to me) in some way - I don’t care how “heartfelt” the lyrics might be.
I am the master of pointing out the obvious! Seriously though, it’s often difficult to remember such insights when you are in the thick of things. By clearly articulating them, I hope that some creators can better understand what needs to be done in order to be successful.