I used to read this blog, and his views on creativity are a little different than most. He mostly writes about video games, but what he says about creativity could be applied to any medium.
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/email-regarding-your-stance-on-creativity/
*I had a gigantic post all typed up and then my browser ate it. Dammit....*
The main problem that I had with this article is not the author's definition of creativity?which I admit is...curious, but oh well?but his thoughts on how research, knowledge, and understanding of how things work should interact with the creation of works.
The winners in the Theater of the Mind all tend to have one thing in common: they do everything they can to understand the world around them. They read history, literature, math, science, current news, law, all sorts of things. This allows believable stories to be told. Moby Dick could not have been written had Melville not sailed on a whaling ship three times. Shakespeare could not have written much without a solid grasp of history, law, botany, and his studies on Ovid.
What makes ?Science Fiction? possible? It would be ?science?. It was the science fiction writers studying science which allows all our Sci-Fi TV shows to be able to exist (like Star Trek). It did not emerge from any ?creativity?.
What makes ?Fantasy? possible? Tolkien could only write Lord of the Rings due to his steep academic study into ancient mythologies and societies (as well as his Catholicism).
That Moby Dick is considered to be a classic is helped by the fact that Melville did his research on (relative to him) contemporary whaling techniques. But if one were to take a class on the book itself, I am quite positive that most, if not all, of the lectures would be about things other than the factual correctness and consistency of whaling as it is portrayed by Melville, and instead would focus on things such as the depth of the characters, the symbolism of the various things found in the book, and Melville's usage of pose. I highly doubt that a literary professor would hold up Moby Dick and go, ?Behold this masterpiece by Melville! See how his description of spermacette is consistent with reality, and how the art of whale hunting is historically accurate!? A history professor might do that, but not a literature professor.
What this means is: it is not enough to simply know about the world to create a quality work. It can help you create a more detailed, consistent, and deep setting and plot without having to come up with everything and check for consistency yourself, but knowledge by itself is irrelevant and powerless, despite the old adage; it is the application of knowledge that truly brings about something great.
This, by the way, is the definition of creativity that I use, lifted from Mark Rosewater (lead designer of the Magic: The Gathering trading card game):
creativity is taking what you know, believe, and understand, and creating connections where none previously existed. Star Trek draws upon (and pitilessly violates) science, particularly astrophysics, and if Gene Rodenberry knew absolutely nothing about astronomy we really might not have had Star Trek. But a pile of facts about astrophysics, extraterrestrial biology, and socialism does not equate to Star Trek, anymore than a bowl of flour, eggs, milk, sugar, and butter equates to delicious cookie. It was Rodenberry's connecting the dots between what he knew, Tolkien taking and mixing his interpretations of old myths and Christianity, that led to Star Trek and the Lord of the Rings. It was not enough for them to simply know to create their masterpieces, but that they put it all together in unique and interesting ways that allowed them to make some of the most influential works in 20th century fiction. And doing this, this mixing and structuring and combining of ideas and facts, requires, I think, creativity and imagination.
The rest of the article, aside from the parts that seem to mostly be annoyed at people who avoid verisimilitude and implementing ideas without trying to think about whether or not it'll actually work, rests strongly on the blogger's opinion on art/creative works. This touches on a rather unclear issue; What is the Purpose of Art? And this, in turn, is connected to a long-standing question that mankind has yet to answer despite humanity's finest minds trying to tackle it for centuries: What is Art? It would be interesting if the blogger could provide a rational, concrete definition as to what indeed the purpose and nature of art is, but until that happens, I think this article safely rests in the ?Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man? category.
(Though I must admit that the author's rather...bold and steadfast belief in the uselessness of creative works if they do not sell to be rather disturbing. Judging the quality of a work based on popularity is a tricky thing at best, especially given the fact that the tastes of the general public changes with the wind. Is Classical music automatically inferior to modern music? After all, the only people who listen to Classical nowadays are hardcore fans, old people, and asian kids whose parents forced them into picking up the violin, the cello, or the flute. It certainly used to be popular, in a certain portion of the world, but not any more, outside of being used in movie soundtracks and commercials. And I sure as hell hope Mozart's not the best classical composer ever, cuz I hate Mozart--give me Rimsky-Korsakov or Bach anyday. :V Granted, I'm not especially fond of ?shouting into the emptiness?, as I call it, i.e. the act of spending a good portion of my time and energy making something that no one will ever know about or care about, but nonetheless, the idea of saying whether or not a creative work is any good based on how well it sells disturbs me. Does that mean even the best-written novel is bad if the guys marketing it fail at their jobs? Hmm.)
P.S:
Like a plague, it was spread throughout the entertainment mind and is a huge reason why so much entertainment content literally sucks.
I always thought it was because what most people like and what specialists in a given medium like are radically different. :colbert: