Craft and creativity are not synonymous, although both are required for a career in the arts. Many creative individuals do not possess the discipline to 
successfully craft their ideas. On the other hand are those who are adept at craft, but who lack true originality.
The more I interact with authors, the more I learn about this balance between craft and creativity, between being an artist and an architect. Some writers are great at the artistic elements of a story — innovative concepts, unique characters, and imaginative settings. Other writers are good at the architecture of a story — the pacing, prose, and stylistic signature. Nevertheless, finding the balance between craft and creativity seems a bit precarious.
For one thing, craft and creativity operate on two different levels. Craft is left-brained, creativity is right-brained. Craft is linear, creativity is non-linear. Craft is grounded in technique, routine, and execution, while creativity is, well, not really grounded at all. As such, the notion that you can craft or harness creativity at all may be a contradiction in terms. Trying to “be creative” is like trying to capture a butterfly — you’re better off sitting still until it lands on you.
Roger von Oech, author of A Whack on the Side of the Head, introduced the concept of soft thinking as a necessary ingredient in creativity. Whereas most academic thinking is ‘hard’ (rigorous, concrete, factual), creativity is ‘soft.’ Soft thinking is more playful, spontaneous, and much less concerned with finding the answer. In this sense, craft is ‘hard’ thinking, and creativity is not.
So are craft and creativity antithetical? I mean, can a writer cultivate both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ thinking?
There’s a saying among preachers: The mind cannot retain what the seat cannot endure. A correlation exists between our “mind” and our “seat,” our “top” and our “bottom,” our “brain” and our “behind.” As writers, we spend a lot of time… sitting. Sitting is important to craft and necessary for mental concentration. However, when things sit for too long they rust, 
collect dust, calcify, and fossilize. In proportion that your “bottom” grows, your “mind” will likely suffer. Craft and creativity interact in a similar way.
In one of his famous student lectures, “The Minister’s Fainting Fits,” the great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon discussed ministerial depression. Spurgeon’s words indirectly address the subject of craft and creativity, and the balance between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ thinking:
He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the woods, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy.
A day’s breathing of fresh air upon the hills, or a few hours, ramble in the beech woods’ umbrageous calm, would sweep the cobwebs out of the brain of scores of our toiling ministers who are now but half alive.
A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind’s face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is next best…
Just as the soul needs “grace,” the mind needs “oxygen.” And writers need both. Sometimes the best thing for writer’s block is simply a “mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind’s face.” No amount of ‘hard thinking’ can “sweep the cobwebs out of the brain.” For that, we need “the sighing of the wind among the pines.” Good writing requires both a drawing board and a jacuzzi. And good writers camp at neither.
Yes, the mind cannot retain what the seat cannot endure. And the mind that endures can only do so when the seat doesn’t.
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Question: Do you fall more on the side of craft or creativity? When it comes to writing, are you more of an artist or an architect? What are some of the ways you have learned to stay creatively fresh?
I’m going to be honest here and say that for me – as a reader and a writer – craft trumps creativity any day, because I’m not sure how much creativity can be forced or created or cajoled. For me, I just try and read as many different types of books and stories and from wildly different authors, add whatever I can to strange brew that’s always cooking in my head, and then trust whatever comes out will be mine. After that, my primary, main concern is craft.
I’m pretty picky about this. Probably comes from years of reviewing, because when I’d see blurbs on a jacket that hailed a work as “startlingly original” or “highly creative”, I came to think this: “Oh, you mean that basically the writing sucks but he/she has ‘new’ ideas. I see.” Because most of the time, that’s what it amounted to; said writer couldn’t – in my opinion – write their way out of paper bag, but they’re “startlingly original” and “highly creative”.
A little snarky, yes. But as a reader, I’d rather read a story that’s already been told but has been retold well, and I guess I’ll be honest and say as I writer, my primary goal is the writing, that I’ve creating something that’s engaging, reads well, with prose the flows and moves. I think I’d rather be called “obsessively readable” than “highly original” any day, and these are usually the novels that do it for me, also. A lot of them do end up being original, also, but at the same time…I always here this from a lot of writers when I ask them what they read, and they say this: “Oh, I really don’t have time to read.” I think that’s the best way to stimulate creativity naturally.
And being a people-watcher, going out in the world like you mentioned. Okay. This is long and rambling. Breakfast, reading, then my own writing…
And the irony’s not lost on me that I picked craft and then proceeded to misspell several words. I need some caffeine…
Inspirational post! I’ve been at the “drawing board” too long. Guess it’s time for the “jacuzzi.” Woo-hoo!
I’m translating what your saying into “are you left brained or right brained dominant.” I’ve been told before, and I think there is truth to it, that I’m “whole-brained”. I can jump into either side when I need to. (Interestingly, I just took a couple online quizzes, one came up as left dominant, the other as right.) By the same token, if I spend too much time in left, I become irritable and drained…too much in right and I end up the same way.
My college experience was very much right brained dominant…creative…to the point where by my senior year I was so sick of “froo froo”. I wanted something concrete, by golly. After college I gravitated to information technology because I needed it to balance me out. I ended up as a computer programmer and I love my job most when I get to create a new application from scratch…my right brain and left brains are both so happy!
Translating it back to writing in terms of craft and creativity…I’m both. My IT focus, however, has me leaning more towards the craft side, to an unhealthy degree, I might add. I’ve noticed of late, my creative side is sad because it never gets any attention. It’s never allowed to just be free or silly.
All that to say, you are spot on with your analysis, I’d say. Writers definitely need both. It has to be a continual back and forth. I think we have to learn to tune in to when we’re spending too much time on one end of the spectrum and come up with ways to balance ourselves back out…otherwise our writing will become innaccessible either because it’s too far out there, or too safe and contrived.
I have to say for me, Craft trumps Creativity. The trick is to be creative within the boundaries of the craft.
I play guitar and a friend of mine I jam with is always writing what he calls interesting music. Problem is it sounds like crap. There is a reason most songs on the market are three chord songs. Because it works.
Now that being said, there are such things as geniuses. Those who can take the rules of a craft and turn them on there heads, who can shatter conceptual boundaries and actually define new rules. But as true geniuses are very rare, maybe one or two a generation, the rest of us poor saps are better off binding our creativity within the rules the geniuses established for us.