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Finding Freedom in the Box

Finding freedom in your writing by giving yourself structure

By Jessica FreebornPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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Finding Freedom in the Box
Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash

I helped run a theater camp for kids this summer and got to teach kids about the wonders of improv.

My work with these kids led to reflections on other areas of my life, like my own writing.

When you tell people they have the freedom to act out whatever they want, the freedom to be whatever characters they want, and the freedom to act out a scene in whatever setting they can imagine, the result is often this:

(Insert cricket noises.)

By Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

That's right. All signs of creativity utterly disappear. Over the summer, some groups of kids had more experience with theater than others. Among the groups with more experience, I would see more ideas. But in the absence of a plan or guidance, there was little creativity.

Personally, my semi-creative brain starts to flounder when I'm given a blank space, and I have done a lot more improv than the kids I was teaching.

It's like when someone asks you what career you would have if you could do anything, and you can't find an answer that sounds even remotely clever. Or maybe that's just me because I'm socially awkward.

This is where the box comes in.

The phrase "think outside the box," has merit. It encourages people to think about a problem from more than one angle and think of less than typical solutions.

But when it comes to creativity, giving yourself structure or a box can actually help you thrive.

Going back to my scenario with the improv games, I wouldn't start the kids off by telling them to act out a scene. Instead, I helped them work up to this by letting them lay out specific boundaries for the scene.

We started out with their characters. Who are they? I started with a pair of children and asked one of them, "Who are you?". The kid needed to name a character, whether that be someone in a specific age bracket (e.g. a five-year-old), a relationship (e.g. a mother), or a profession (e.g. a doctor).

The second kid had to decide on a character based on the character named by the first kid. For example, if the first kid said, "I'm a doctor," the second kid might say, "I'm your patient."

Next, we established location. I would go back to the first kid and ask "Where are you?". This allowed the kid to set the scene. The second kid had to decide what their characters were doing.

Once all of the components were established, the kids got to act out the scene. Within this framework, there was freedom for kids to explore, create different scenes, and practice their acting skills.

As the leader, I could change up the rules of engagement to create a different framework as needed. Sometimes, the exercise would focus on using their bodies to show emotions, so I wouldn't let them talk while they acted out a scene. Other times, I would limit the dialogue to a specific phrase to help them focus on inflection and tone.

These boundaries allowed the kids to focus their energy and create, rather than focusing their attention on trying to come up with a completely new idea.

The same concept of creating boundaries applies to writing, but the first step is to acknowledge the boxes that are stopping your creativity.

The unspoken boxes

We give ourselves rules in our writing, whether we mean to or not. When we don't take the time to define our rules, we get trapped by rules we haven't officially laid out for ourselves.

Whenever you find yourself saying, "I can't write that," ask yourself just one question:

Why not?

Sometimes you have a legitimate reason for not pursuing a writing idea. For example, my conscience will not allow me to write about certain things. I might tell myself, "I can't write about this because it goes against what I believe to be right."

Other times, I simply find the topic or genre uninteresting. You're not going to find me writing romance novels or about cats any time soon.

Know your rules and know yourself. Know what you believe, what lines you won't cross, and why you won't cross them. Learn about yourself: what you like to write and what you are good at writing. These boxes can be quite healthy, and it is beneficial to define them.

But a lot of times, we close off areas of our writing for reasons we need to work to overcome. We trap ourselves in boxes of excuses and mental handicaps that keep us from creating.

I'm not good enough to write that. (How are you going to get better unless you work at it?)

That idea is dumb. (How do you know that? Did you try to see where it might take you?)

No one else will like this idea. (Really? No one? What about you?)

It's going to take too much time. (What if you did it in chunks when you do have time?)

Get away from those boxes. Bad boxes.

Making a box that helps your writing

The blank page in front of me is daunting. Or rather, the fresh word document with the blinking cursor. What do I write?

I can write about anything. "The sky is the limit," as the phrase goes. But as it is with many areas of life, giving ourselves a little structure helps our creative juices flow.

The boxes we can use to generate ideas and define boundaries for our writing center around the 5 W questions and the 1 H question.

Who? What? When? Where? Why? & How?

This concept is nothing new, but you can use each of these questions to help you generate ideas for your writing. You can use each question to create a fixed point that you have to work everything else around.

Who

Give yourself a character. The story you write then has to be about that character. You can narrow the field as much as you want beyond the initial character decision, but the character starting point is quite helpful.

You can even let someone pick the character for you. Within this kind of prompt comes the freedom to pick the qualities of the character, the setting, and what will happen within the story. The one constant is that your story has to be about that specific and predefined character.

Maybe you have a whole collection of characters that you have already established. This makes it easier to write a story, because you already have the character's personality, what the character likes and doesn't like, and how the character will act based the character's qualities and history.

Pick a character and build your story around that character.

What

What can refer to a specific object that has to be present in the story. This is a common writing prompt and gives a lot of freedom around it to spark ideas.

I have seen some amazing stories based on the writing prompts for the fiction challenges on Vocal this summer. These prompts have focused on including a specific object or "what" in the story.

I've seen everything from humor to horror. The only threads that held them together were a brown paper package, a green light, a frozen pond, or a pear tree. (among other things).

One that particularly gripped my attention was "Two of a Kind Equals a Pear" by Jason Basaraba.

Since it was before I started subscribing to people, someone also wrote an amazing story from a dog's perspective for the brown paper box challenge. Whoever you are, I thought it was hilarious. Great job!

The point is the diversity of the possibilities. Give yourself an object or a word that has to be in your story. Then create something wonderful around that word or object. You are in control of what happens. All you have to include is that one object.

When and where

Give yourself a specific time period as a starting point. This can be something like writing a story in a specific era like the Civil War or the Enlightenment. Or you could give yourself the rule that your story has to take place over a specific length of time: an hour, a week, or a year.

Creating where restraints are similar to when restraints. The setting can be as broad or as narrow as you'd like. Write a story that takes place in a kitchen, a house, a small town, or a city. Or create a story in the realm of Middle Earth or Narnia.

Who said your story had to take place in this world?

I love world building! You get to create your own rules for the world. Build a world and then tell a story that takes place in that world.

Why and how

Why is the motivation question, and it's harder to start with this one as your prompt, but that doesn't make it impossible. Your story or essay could attempt to answer a specific question. It could be silly, such as "Why are dogs so loving?", or it could be serious such as "Why do bad things happen?".

You can also start with the ending of your story and answer why this ending happened to fill in the rest of the story. Why were you late for work? Why are you wearing mismatching socks? Why are there river otters in the bathroom?

The how question can answer your plot synopsis. Then you can fill in the characters and the setting around it.

Think of a specific action or event that has to be included in your story. A character cheats at a board game. A character fights in a duel. A character sings a song. You can then determine how this action impacted others or the character. You can also use it to start exploring the why. Why did the character cheat, fight in a duel, or sing a song?

I'm not pretending to be profound

I know a lot of what I have just written isn't new or profound. But my point is this:

Give yourself a starting point.

Choose a specific area to focus on, and let it be your first limitation or box that you give yourself. A character. An item. A time period. A setting. A motivation. An action. Don't be afraid to ask for help too. No one said you have to come up with your first box on your own.

The prompt or starting box gives you one thing you don't get to change or negotiate. When we do this, whether the starting point is from us or someone else, the results can be spectacular.

It allows us to stop draining our energy finding the perfect thing to write about. And it helps set us free from the boxes of doubt that smother our creativity.

Give yourself the structure you need to thrive. Know yourself. Find a box. And write the story.

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About the Creator

Jessica Freeborn

Passionate writer that is enthusiastic about writing engaging, compelling content. Excels in breaking down complex concepts into simple terms and connecting with readers through sharing stories and personal experience.

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