I mentioned in the last post that the idea for this series came from a film adapted from Agatha Christie.

This is mostly true, as the film got me thinking about how one can be creative and restricted at the same time. As a writer, I would feel partial responsibility if my plot for a murder intended to be pure entertainment were the inspiration for a real murder. That’s why I have to guard what I write. To the same degree, but less drastic extremes, I also have to make sure that the characters who display evil traits don’t influence my readers toward evil. As a Christian, I have that responsibility.

How on earth does an artist create things when his or her creativity is in such chains?

So that’s a tree hugger?

The answer lies in two facts.

First, you’re already in chains, and second you’re already in chains.

Let’s take a look-see at the first one. You’re already inside the restrictions of your art. If you want your reader to see a scene, you can’t just show them a recording of the spot you’re thinking of (this is especially true of sci-fi) so you have to use words to convey a sense of the surroundings. If you have the talent to paint or draw a picture or record a movie of what you want your audience to see, that’s all well and good, but you are then working inside the restrictions of the arts you can perform.

Along the same lines, you’re imagination is limited to slight modifications of things you are already familiar with. And if it wasn’t, there would still be no good done in writing about it, because your readers are limited to slight modifications of what they already know. If you want to describe something to me that doesn’t exist right now or I’m not familiar with, you have to use terms I am familiar with to describe it to me. This is a tedious process that can be made enjoyable only though a lot of skill on the part of the writer.

In short, I’d say “Get used to it and write what you know, unless you don’t know anything, and then you should consider politics.”

And yes, you can quote me on that one.

Now that you’ve got that concept firmly in your memory buffer, lets move on to the part where you are already in chains.

I was reading the preface to Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes and in it there was mentioned the plot to one of his plays. There was a man who realized that his life was being narrated and so he decided to go to the author to change the outcome of his life’s story. I didn’t make the connection until today, that this is essentially the same plot used in Stranger than fiction.

Now it’s possible that the author of this movie had never read this story…as a matter of fact, it’s more than likely that he reinvented the same wheel that worked so well a few hundred years ago.

Which brings me to a quote by Albert Einstein.  “Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”
— Albert Einstein

So, from the available data, I would surmise that the secret to creative writing is two fold.

1. Realize that you aren’t all that creative.
2. Copy obscure material and modify it so that it is truely your own.

~Dan Delyon, Author in waiting.

The movie was very well done, and as far as intrigue goes, it was, I believe, among the top of it’s class. For one thing, the plot didn’t leave the gaping holes in it that are so common among mystery and murder entertainment. For instance, I have been watching a show called Castle recently and I have found an average of a plot problem an episode from such things as introducing a charater or action and aparent failure to figure this action into the end result. This happens when in the course of trying to make the plot twist, you direct the plot away from a charactor, but neglect to explain his incriminating actions. I do enjoy the cerebral exercise, though I have no appreciation for the language and sexual references that pervade it’s plots. I would not recommend it to anyone younger than 18.

And that’s when the idea came to me that movies like castle, and many of the murder movies I grew up on are at least partialy responsible for the increase in murders. For instance, how do I know that fingerprints are used as incriminating evidence in a murder, that forensics can place a person at the scene of a crime by observation of such small details as gun powder on my hands or clothes? I saw it in the movies.

There have been copy cat murders for many years, but there are many other murders not labeled as copy cats that were conceived on the ideas of telvision script writers. It doesn’t matter to the person who died that their murderer was caught, only that they are dead because the person who killed them watched a lot of movies and used that knowledge to embolden them to do the deed.*

The blame falls mostly to entertainment. The thoughts that entertain us are also entertained by us. As long as we are never in a situation to use those thoughts, we’ll be fine, but if the situation were to be dire enough…

It’s a four way fault between entertainment, the news media (which for hundreds of years has been a source of entertainment similar to reality television.), a lack of real punishment for crimes, and the sinfulness of mankind.

Now to the reason I brought up Agatha Christie.

I realized after I watched it that there was absolutely nothing in the story that could be used in a modern murder. I’m sure when it was written it had potential for disaster, but if writers were to see the problems they may be causing by popularizing usable murder methods, and set their stories in a way that everyone who reads it know’s that reproduction of these methods would result in falure, then the world would be a little safer place. There’s no way to cap the news media though. They’re like a fountain of ideas. None of them original to be sure, but dangerous none the less.

~Dan Delyon, Author in waiting.