Creativity Inside the Box

Monday: Dialogue, Lines, or Quotes

M. Night Shyamalan, writer and director of The Sixth Sense (1999), said,

"I believe in the process of limitations forcing creativity. It's important to have walls to work against."

I enjoy blog challenges because creativity flows from limiting posts to topics based on specific writing prompts and guidelines. Limitations spawn creativity.

We like to believe anything is possible and want to dream big, so it's easy to assume having no boundaries is a good thing. We hear the slogan "think outside the box" and forget how the very factors that seemingly box us in--boundaries, limitations, guidelines, deadlines--actually generate creativity. Thinking inside the box sparks ideas.

For instance, the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge gives guidelines to post with a specific letter on certain days throughout the month of April. Since this is a film blog, I added another boundary... each post needed to include at least one movie reference. And another limitation came by following a theme, Food in Film.

The letter K proved difficult, but thinking of my boundaries...

• food 
• starting with the letter K
• appearing in a movie

...gave birth to one of my favorite posts during the challenge: Food in Film: Kibble.

This was my third year of participating in and completing the A to Z Challenge. Each year thinking inside the box stimulated additional ideas for future A to Z posts. Based on that growing list of ideas, I have film-related themes for 12 more of the yearly challenge!

Shyamalan's words ring true, "It's important to have walls to work against." Limitations generate creativity.


(Click here for links to all my A to Z posts, or click on the tab above.)