The Creative Mind (Part Five)

The fourth polarity of the creative individual: Balancing imagination/fantasy with a rooted sense of reality.


There are several implications to this one. We'll look at one today, and one next time.

1) All fictional worlds depend, to greater or lesser degrees, on our real world. That is, reality is the station from which we depart, when we move into the realm of fiction.

It's impossible (I think...) to create a fictional world that draws on nothing from the world we know. If such a story could be constructed, could we understand it, having no frame of reference?

We connect with the rabbits of Watership Down, or with Ray Bradbury's Martians, because they display elements we can relate to.

Most creative ideas begin with what already is, and then move from there to what could be.


For all its dazzling imagination/fantasy, Harry Potter works because it is rooted in solid British reality--boarding schools in the country. London, and trains and double-decker buses. And the universally painful process of growing up.

The flip side is, while good stories are rooted in known reality--reality rarely makes a good story.

That's where imagination/fantasy come in.

You start with reality...then you play "what if" games with it.

Reality is: there are other galaxies in the universe.
What if: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Reality is: Property and inheritance  were vitally importance in the England of the 1800's
What if: Two young women...Elinor and Marianne, for instance...were suddenly left with no father and no inheritance?

Reality is: Racial discrimination.
What if: A young girl named Scout is forced to learn this hard truth?

Fiction is a dance between what is and what if.


More on this creative dance, next time...