The Flex Ain’t Worth It

Something non-creative folks don’t understand is the private rush that accompanies creation. For me, as a writer, nothing feels better than writing THE END on a story I’ve been working on, whether it’s been days or years since I started.

And that rush is especially powerful if I’ve tried something new. I write a lot, and much of my work is fairly standard — I have my ways of doing things, the tics and subjects that grab my attention, the tics and techniques I like to use in my storytelling. I start with an idea, imagine characters, and go to work.

But sometimes there’s an innovation, what in chess is sometimes referred to as a ‘brilliancy.’ These don’t have to necessarily be brilliant, it’s more like they’re ideas or techniques that are new to me. An innovation can be exhilarating, it can remind you why you started this lonely, low-income life of words in the first place. And when you pull off a brilliancy like that, you want to show off. You want to rush that story out and flex on everyone, say ‘see what I did? DO YOU SEE WHAT I HAVE WROUGHT?!?!’

The flex ain’t worth it. Brilliancies are exciting stuff. But remember, an incredible technique doesn’t make a good story, necessarily.

Look at me, Damien! It’s all for you!

It’s easy to be so struck by some new idea you have, some new trick, that you let it cloud your assessment of the overall work. You write an entire novel in a breathless stream-of-consciousness style that really sings! But you forgot to tell a compelling story doing it. Or you managed to pull of the sort of epic, mind-bending plot twist that comes around once in a lifetime, carefully dropping seeds throughout your plot in an assured way that often evades you! But you forgot to make your characters interesting, three-dimensional people.

Brilliancies are great. They’re often the oxygen that keeps us going creatively because they get us excited about writing all over again. But it’s important to remember your fundamentals. It’s crucial that your brilliancy serve the story and not the other way around.

Of course, sometimes you have to wallow in the great idea for a bit, just enjoy yourself, and then go back later and make it into an actual story. The sad fact is, you often have to use an exciting new idea until it stops being so exciting, and then you can use it like a tool instead of showing it off like a new toy.

Of course, as a writer, my most recent brilliancy involved rigging up one of those beercan baseball hats to feed me sips of whiskey while I work, so … I may be the smartest human alive.