The creative process in pictures

Understanding creativity - getting inside the black box to getting messy - models to navigate our way through the maze.

The uncertainty of creativity

A creative task is by definition uncertain. We have no idea how long it will take. We can’t know for sure whether we’re close to finishing or not. We can’t be certain what the outcome will be and whether we will succeed or fail.

From the outside, it looks like a black box. An idea goes in at one end and at the other an output pops out. If we’re lucky. Or talented. Or persistent - or whatever the elusive combination is.

Perhaps it is more like a maze in that there’s a correct way to do it, you just have to find it out. After all, a creative task involves experimentation and trial and error, dead ends, wrong turns and retracing your steps and starting all over again from the beginning.

When we look at other people’s processes, we see the messiness of what’s involved. Their mazes all took different routes. The process seems impossible to navigate. It is undefinable and unknowable. A little like this.

Yet, the human brain craves clarity. We want to define and explain what happens, make it knowable, to have a process with steps that take us from idea to output. Steps we can follow. Steps we can repeat.

This linear process is sometimes referred to as algorithmic.*

While the creative process isn’t logical and predictable - it’s not entirely random either. We can define some of it and there are many different models of creativity. One I find helpful takes us from idea to output through four distinct stages: exploration to incubation through to creation then revision.

While I think the creative process does have these stages, we don’t progress through them in a linear way when we create anything. We often have more ideas than we have outputs, so the process resembles a funnel as we explore and filter the ideas we want to pursue.

Combining the funnel with the stages of creativity, we create what some researchers call the ‘double diamond’. This takes into account divergence as we explore lots of ideas, then convergence as we choose an idea. Working on that idea takes us wider again as we create, then revision will hone that to an output. As writers we have many ideas for projects, yet limited time and energy to pursue them; when we pick one, we might write more than we need, then edit down as we structure and shape our stories, books or articles.

Over a life we can see our creative practice as a series of funnels. We will have more ideas than we can execute. There are also ebbs and flows, periods of fertile ideation and productivity followed by fallow seasons.

We might expect our skills and confidence to increase with each project. Every time we complete something, there will be a sense of mastery. We are getting better!

Yet, more often it feels like we are zig-zagging.

We oscillate wildly. Our confidence rises and falls. And as we create more, we push at the limits of what we are capable of, so we rarely coast on a stable level of ability. Perhaps the peaks are flashes of insight, achievement and success - the dips are when we falter and fail.

This uncertainty makes the creative process so frustrating, but also so damn fulfilling. I believe that is why we continue to write, create and make.

Whatever you’re creating the process you engage in is non-linear. You’ll get blocked, hit some dead ends, you might get lost along the way. But also remember there’ll be breakthroughs and ah-ha moments too - it’s these that will keep you going.

This article first appeared in Breakthroughs and Blocks, you can read the original post here and sign up to receive weekly insights on the messy process of writing and creativity.

Image credits Bec Evans and Chris Smith for Written Academy

Footnotes:

* We wrote about this in ‘Why writing isn't like following a recipe’

**The Design Council describes the double diamond as a universally accepted depiction of the design process. You can check out resources on its website: The Double Diamond.