Although seemingly unproductive adding constraints to your writing WILL increase your creativity by tenfold.
Writing constraints are when you add restrictions such as word limits or time limits to your creative writing.
They are intentional limitations you place on the writing process that will specifically target a slump or low point in your creative ability.
There is a paradoxical relationship between creativity and constraints.
It only makes sense that adding limits to your writing will limit what ideas you can come up with because they have to specifically fit into the box you set.
In practice, however, the effect is the opposite.
When a creative person is given a restraint they have to come up with a way to fulfill their writing given they are limited in some way.
This FORCES the writer to use creative thinking and push to find innovative solutions and think outside of the box.
The BEST Writing Constraints
There are three main writing constraints I use to stimulate my creative senses;
- Time Constraints
- Word count limits
- Theme-Based Writing
Time Constraints
There’s a ‘law’ of reality that EVERY writer should know, it is called Parkinson’s Law;
Parkinsons’ Law is the idea that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.
This idea explains procrastination PERFECTLY.
If you find yourself putting off a task until the last moment before the deadline, that’s Parkinson’s Law in action.
That’s why if you have a writing project without a deadline you will find yourself procrastinating about it more often than when a deadline is set for its completion.
Adding a specific time frame to your writing WILL force you to complete your project within the time frame, it’s just how it works.
There are a lot of different time frames you could pick depending on your writing speed.
However, you want to be setting time frames that CHALLENGE you but are still practically achievable.
For example, you COULD say you must complete an 80,000-word manuscript for your book within 24 hours and could complete it but it’s just not a sustainable practice.
Setting time frames and achieving them is practicing the art of finishing projects that WILL build your content library and your writing skills.
Word-Count Limits
Parkinson’s law comes in handy with this limit as well.
Remember, Work expands/ shrinks to fill the space allotted for its completion.
So when you set yourself a word limit you are forced to come up with creative ways to say more with fewer words, which is just a valuable writing skill in itself.
Similarly, word-count limits will force you to distill your message down to the bare bones and create a body of a story that fills itself right to the restriction.
This limit helps you practice the art of avoiding verbosity (using more words than needed).
Creating succinct and meaningful writing is a skill I am investing in daily.
Set word limits.
Theme-Based Writing
Restricting your writing to a theme such as a specific story structure, genre, or message forces you to look at that theme with creative eyes.
The way you are forced to look at a theme builds respect and passion for that theme.
Eventually, if you repeatedly explore unique themes you will have built a creative repertoire of ideas to build from.
I have recently started drawing and sketching, specifically creature design for my creature horror fiction and a pitfall new artists fall into all too often is they try to draw from their imagination but because they haven’t studied any models of anything their drawings are terrible.
Creating terrible things is painful but is a good indicator of what you don’t know.
The artist who tried to create their idea struggled. They had nothing to compare it to because they were new to drawing.
It works the same way for beginner writers.
They jump into writing their 400-page novel creating links between lots of different ideas when they’ve never actually explored one of them.
Restricting yourself to specific themes deletes this lack of knowledge.
The more topics you explore with your writing the larger your mental bank of ideas grows and becomes accessible for your writing.
In Conclusion. . .
There are so many benefits to these three writing constraints you are GUARANTEED to benefit creatively from any one of these limits;
- Time Constraints
- Word count limits
- Theme-Based Writing
Try out one limit and if it works for you try the others, I’m sure you won’t regret it.
Get out there, get creative, and get writing!
I talk about loads of stuff to help you as a writer here’s my most recent post about why you should use a writer’s sketchbook;
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