Creativity from Constraints: The Psychology of Breakthrough

Novelists, essayists, journalists, writers of prose or poetry are subject to a shared, general set of task constraints: audience, organization, grammatical conventions. The idiosyncratic ways in which these are met and modified generate what is called the individual's "voice."

Like all constraints for creativity, talents are two-sided. They simultaneously promote and preclude interest and skill acquisition in different domains.

expertise from outside domains can provide critical first choruses to influence and expand the one in which you work.

Sadly, development is sometimes stymied because a talented individual places too much value on novelty. I once heard a student say, "I never read anyone else's verse. I have to find my own voice first." That's certainly a constraint, but eliminating a huge first chorus on which to improvise is not a constraint for creativity.

The defining characteristics of what I call the creativity problem are three. First and obviously, it is initially ill-structured. Second, its solution depends on strategic specification of paired constraints. The specification is strategic because it is determined by the goal criterion. Third, the selected constraints structure the problem space t

In a well-structured problem, everything in the problem space is specified. In the domain of representational painting, painting-by-number is a well-structured problem. The initial state is a canvas with a numbered cartoon drawing printed on it. The canvas comes with a set of numbered paints. The goal criterion is matching the picture on the cover

There are no six or seven easy steps to jump-start creativity. There are only two and they're both difficult. The first step is mastering the constraints that define a domain (its first choruses); the second is devising novel constraints that expand it.

One constraint provides the first choruses that novices master and one which experts improvise. "First chorus" is a musical term for an initially played melody that provides the notes, chords, andkeys used in the variations or improvisations that follow. For example, Mozart used the traditional melody Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star as the

The creativity problem is strategic and structural. It involves selecting (the strategy part) paired constraints (the structure part) that preclude reliable, successful responses and promote novel, surprising ones. Constraints for creativity involve substitutions: new for old, exploratory for tried-and-true. However, "new" and "old&q