
In our current culture, coming up with content to entertain audiences is a big deal. Think how much you consume: movies, podcasts, columns, videos, YouTube, television shows, all that stuff streaming on those multiple services – Apple, Netflix, Hulu, Brit Box, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Peacock just to name a few that I can come up with off the top of my head. I presume there are many more.
They all must come up with angles, and put together shows that get people to watch and listen. It is hard. How do they differentiate?
As a writer, I face this challenge every week, the creative challenge. What is something worth writing about? Did something funny happen to me in the past few weeks that I can riff off? Is there a complex issue that has jumped into my consciousness that I can use as a platform to make a deeper point?
Creativity rises in different ways for different people. Capturing that impulse in a tangible format is a challenge, as is presenting it in such a way that people want to watch, hear, read what you have to say.
We are assaulted by entertainment choices, which means it is far too easy to turn someone off. Don’t like the opening sentence of my column? Click to the next story. Bored after the first ten minutes of a movie? Stream another one. Podcast making you snore? Wake up to someone else who charges your batteries.
My wife and I have left much of U.S.-based television series in the dust. The slam bang, quick cut, using violence and guns and car chases and crashes to overcome the lagging of plots. Watch U.S. television shows with the sound off one evening when you have a few spare moments and you might be stunned with how frequently scenes cut from one to the next, and how violence, guns and crashes are used to take up creative space. It does make you wonder about how violent our culture is.
But, away from that musing, and back to the creative challenge. Spicing up tired plots (if you watch a regular television series, think about the ones that keep you coming back because they have something fresh occur that keeps you engaged) is crucial to your attention span. Yes, we are drawn to certain characters, want the bad guys to get blown up, but we also need something to get us outside the box.
That is the creative challenge. Given all the songs and genres for songs, I sometimes find it hard to believe that anyone ever delivers something new. But they do. The artists that cut through to your heart and soul, getting you to repeat their lyrics (so catchy), and hum along while you air guitar it, are the ones you listen to.
Regenerating content takes time, thought, revisions, letting loose of preconceived notions and being willing to take yourself down a path previously unexplored. Entertainment products face this creative challenge, but it is also present in businesses and other parts of our lives, even freshening up our relationships with new things.
Take a walk somewhere to experience a dramatic view. Drive a different route to work (try it). Read an author recommended by a friend. Watch a movie outside your comfort zone. Put your belt on the opposite way you normally do. Now sit down and create.