"cairo night lights" by devi laskar

So, I was a little stuck as to what I was going to write today. I asked my four-year old what I should write about. “Nana and Grandpa,” he answered. That helped. I could feel the edge of an idea percolating, but I needed more — something to whittle down all of the possibilities and make the decision easy, clear. I asked for more.

“What about Nana and Grandpa?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

Well, that didn’t help. In life, you need options; in story, you kind of need the opposite. What’s the opposite of options? Restrictions? Limits? Okay, limits.  And I guess it occurs to me that these limits are actually what make story possible at all. What do I mean?

Here’s what I mean: we all know that part of what makes certain kinds of poetry beautiful are the limits a form imposes on the writer; what makes some architecture astounding are the limits physics and the natural environment place on the designer. But I’m not talking about form. I’m talking pre-form.

I can’t write something about Nana and Grandpa without at least one other thing to shave off some other options — Nana and Grandpa take the kids to a dairy. Okay, so now  I know the idea will not have skyscrapers, unless for some reason I’m doing something absurdist. But I decide I’m not. That’s a limit. Now whole bunches of things are no longer open to me — and THAT EXCITES ME.  I’m not overwhelmed and directionless. I’m writing a story about two kids, two grandparents and the quest for some cow manure.  Now, it’s funny. Or it could be. But maybe I limit myself to a serious family drama. That limits me again, but gets me closer to my story.

What’s so great about this? Well, the logical conclusion is that it is the act of taking away that creates the space for a full and dynamic story. Not the addition of things. What’s so great about that? Once you’ve clearly outlined what your story can’t do, you can really have some spectacular brainstorming sessions based on your limits. What is an original and logical solution to the problem of your limits? The limits tell you right away which ideas work and which don’t.

In my story about Nana and Grandpa and my kids at the dairy, I decide to have the children to fight with the grandparents. But obviously, in an original way. They could fight about food, or going home or being bored. Those aren’t so original, so I start pushing further. (The desire to be original is, then, another limit.) They could fight about the eyebrow piercing Grandpa got at the fair last year or a tattoo the cow has. But this is a realistic drama and all of those things seem, well, not realistic. Or dramatic.  So, my limits have helped me steer true.

What’s the rub? The story idea has to fit within the limits, and at the same time, fill a whole imagination. And that’s where your creativity comes in.

What limits will you place on yourself and your writing today?

Angie Powers has an M.F.A. in English and Creative Writing from Mills College, where she won the Amanda Davis Thesis Award for her novel, The Blessed. She also has a Certificate in Screenwriting from the Professional Programs at UCLA. She is the co-director and co-writer of the short Little Mutinies (distributed by Frameline and an official selection of the Palm Springs International Short Fest) and was a quarter-finalist for the Nicholl Fellowship and at Blue Cat Screenplay Competition for the full-length screenplay of Little Mutinies. She’s twice made it into the second round of consideration for Sundance Labs and is a Cinestory semi-finalist this year. She also wrote and directed the short Hot Date, which premiered at Frameline. She is currently finishing a new novel and a short film.