When Constraints Spark Imagination

On my way

Emptiness is the hardest place to start. The participants in my workshop know it well and sometimes prefer that I impose a theme. Not to restrain creativity, but to inspire it. A constraint wards off vertigo and offers a foothold, however small, for the mind to begin wandering. One word calls up another, an image stirs a memory, then a hypothesis, and already the story starts to take shape.

Thibault Malfoy writes: “The idea of perfection too often eclipses the processes of improvisation and serendipity at work in the imagination,” and “one must surrender to the uncertainty of tinkering, to improvisation. Only then can we become receptive to incidental ideas, to the fortuitous discoveries of our imagination.”

To choose chance as a guide, to step into the unknown and accept its discomfort. Twice already, I have carried a novel three-quarters of the way without knowing its end. Each morning brings its share of doubts. And then, the miracle occurs. From digression to detour, a story is born — unexpected yet coherent, as if it had been planned all along. In truth, everything is conceived along the way and rethought afterwards.

I chose this subtitle for my newsletter: “Writing a book, an immobile adventure.” We set out on exploration without leaving our chair. Each scene opens unsuspected paths, and the characters — at first silent and blurred — begin to speak and show us the way. Sometimes they refuse to act as we had planned, and that is just as well: their insubordination and spontaneity season the narrative with originality.

So yes, constraints are allies. They transform the anxiety of the void into a springboard, they spark movement and open the door to adventure. Once launched, all that remains is to accept being a little lost — in order to better discover oneself.

Until next time,

Laurence M. Rapp