Thursday 31 March 2011

Writing – The Best Medium for the Creative Author

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The world is in the palm of your hand. Be careful with it. If you think you’re going to sneeze, pass it to Bernard.

Image © Danilo Rizzuti

I’m a creative person, and always have been. If you’re reading this, you probably are too. I make no claims as to the quality of anything I’ve ever produced, but I’ve always been driven by an instinct and a passion to create. Ever since I was able to write and draw, and particularly since I was able to use a computer, I’ve been producing stories, poems, pictures, comic strips, animations, 3D characters, dioramas, and music.

At least 90% of the these things have been awful.

My mother liked them, but that was probably a given. Part of the trouble with trying to do everything is that you end up being good at nothing. I desperately needed wider recognition, and for that I needed to excel at something. I took a degree in computer game design.

It seemed perfect. I already had a million ideas for great games knocking around in my head. The course took my creative instincts, moulded them, and sharpened them. I understood the key creative principles and rules of the medium. I knew how to make a great game.

At least, I thought I did. After completing the course, it turned out that no-one wants to employ someone who knows all the principles, but has few practical skills. I’d been taught how to create 3D models, texture, and animate to an acceptable level, but acceptable isn’t good enough for a professional game studio – you have to be the best.

What I hadn’t realised while I was at university was that the people who were bound for success were focusing like laser-beams on the one element of game design that interested them, and becoming very, very good at it.

In retrospect, I don’t think this was ever going to be an option for me. Not only am I a total control-freak, but the creative impulse is too strong – if I can’t be the sole creative force behind a project, I at least need to have the biggest, loudest voice. People on creative teams tend not to appreciate that.

So it turns out that writing is a more perfect fit than I previously imagined. Why? Because I get full creative control, whilst having to be very, very good at only one thing – the writing.

Yes, I know we can break writing down into various subsets of skills, but as a single discipline it’s entirely possible for an individual to master. The same can’t be said for computer games or film – argue the merits of the auteur theory if you like, but writing is the benchmark against which all notions of the ‘auteur’ or ‘author’ must be measured.

Generally, most media production only allows you to be a single element of a much wider process. For some, that’s fine – they’re content to become masters of their particular domain. For others, that’s just not enough – they want to master the whole process, to become creators of whole worlds and everything in them, to set themselves above the gods.

For those people, writing is surely the only medium.

How do you make your creative voice heard? Is writing the only suitable medium for the lone author, or are there others? Why is writing the best fit for you? Click on ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

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