Creativity

An experiment gives some insight on how our brain is wired to handle creativity.

Experiment: Repetitive Task

Two diverse groups are tasked with fastening bolts. Group A is given a fixed reward (10$).Group B is given a fixed reward (5$) plus a bonus (10$) if they ends up in the top 25% in terms of number of bolts fastened.

Result: Group B will fasten on average lot more bolts.

Conclusion: Pressure will make you work faster on a repetitive task.

Experiment: Creative Task

Two diverse groups are tasked with a creative task that can only solved with lateral thinking. It's about not making a candle spill wax on a table.

Group A is given a fixed reward (10$). Group B is given a fixed reward (5$) plus a bonus (10$) if they ends up in the top 25% in terms of finding the solution faster.

Result: Group A will on average solve the problem a LOT faster. Pressure actually make the average for group B worse.

Conclusion

There is a part of the brain that is dedicated to creativity. Under no pressure, this part will generate solutions and help you in finding a creative solution. Under pressure this part will constantly reminds you "Go faster! Go faster!" instead of finding solutions.

If the task is repetitive, pressure will make you work faster. If the task is creative, pressure will make you work slower, or even make you unable to find a solution at all.

Writing is a creative task. The more you think about how much you need to find a creative solution to your plot or how late you are, the worse the solution you reach will actually be.

When you write your only thought should be on the writing itself. Not on deadlines nor on rewards nor on money or popularity. Only then, you can truly give it your all and write at your best.

How Authors Compose

How do authors compose?

The full and true answer is outside our reach (for now), but there are many models that approximate the answer well enough.

One I find plausible is the following. It's about music, but it's true for art, writing, electronic design, etc... really any creative task where you have to piece together a unique solution in a defined genre. The hypothesis goes like this:

A young future author starts listening to music.

There will be music they likes, and musics they dislikes.

They learn to play instruments. They go on to play music.

Shortly after they start composing their own music, imitating pieces of music they know and like and slowly adding their own small unique variations.

As the author grows, they incorporate elements from more and more authors into their original compositions.

Then they starts incorporating elements from different genres, mashing them together, and combining them. Removing element they dislike. Adding their unique spin on existing elements.

This goes on and on until the author matures, and defines their own unique style.

From there onward, the author creates unique variations of his own style until the end of their career.

Finally, other future authors will listen to that style, starting the cycle all over. Each author building up upon what other authors made.

Over time genres will rise or fall in popularity, old genres will disappear, and new previously unseen genres will emerge all in a shifting landscape.

All by imitating, combining, modifying. Pretty much like what evolution does with our DNA.

Example:

EMI, was a music program that was made to compose music using genetic algorithms. It tried to decompose a song in small parts, tried to give each part an emotion, and combined parts with similar emotions close together, looping recursively until a new original piece of music came out on the other end

As program it had severe limitations, but under certain conditions it worked surprisingly well. If you fed EMI with fifty Mazurka from Chopin, EMI would generate it's own unique variation that would sound to an expert like a Mazurka from Chopin.

EMI worked so well at times that given samples of music from an author, and sample generated by EMI, experts were unable to consistently tell which one were made by the program and which one were made by the human.

By contrast, if you fed EMI with unrelated pieces of music from many different authors, EMI would be unable to generate what an expert would call good music. EMI needed high quality pieces of music made by the same authors in the same genre and style for EMI to be able to do it's magic and generate an unique high quality piece of music in that genre and style.

Influences

I read many resurrection stories. I liked many elements in many of them, but I couldn't find one with ALL the elements I liked. So I said to myself: "I just have to make a resurrection story with ALL elements I like!".

I will talk about my process for world building in another note, here I will talk about which elements I adapted from where, which were my inspirations for some of the elements.

Like a famous author said: "Copying from one author is plagiarism. Copying from a thousand of them is research."

Rather than trying, and most likely failing to invent dozens of brand new unseen before elements, I picked elements I liked from dozen of stories, adapted and modified them to suit the need of my story, integrated them into (hopefully) a consistent narrative.

Multiple Personalities (Kumo Desu)

Probably the part I liked the most about the story was the interaction between MC and her split personalities. It added so much to the character and allowed a windows inside her thought process. I adapted it to be a core element of MC.

Skills, Game-Like Elements (Kumo Desu, Death March and thousands more)

I dislike how in those worlds a God created RPG mechanics for the MC to abuse. It was fun at first, but I find it lacking as element. I wanted my world to work like a fantasy world.

Overpowered MC (thousands of examples)

I like the idea of an overpowered MC. But it has several consequences. If the challenge doesn't come from power, it must come from something else. I plan for my MC to become really strong, but she will never reach full Godhood status becoming an unchallenged force of nature. I could have, but it's not the story I want to tell.

Reborn as Baby (Magi Grandson, Kumo Desu)

In resurrection stories, there are two ways of going to another world. Either is summoning or rebirth. I didn't find any story that I liked that involved rebirth, and the ones that did, usually compressed it in a couple of chapters. I wanted my MC to be born as baby. The story in this case comes from the change the rebirth induce and the actions of those around MC, rather than the actions of MC herself. I'm happy with how this element is turning out to work.

Loads and Loads of Characters (Death March)

I dislike when there are only a few named characters. It makes the world seems small involving always the same guys. Also, when the cast is small, even a single death can cripple the story.

I wanted for my story to feel more natural, with eventually hundreds of named characters, each with an origin, a motivation, a personality, a look and a goal. However simple that characterization can be for a minor characters.

Named characters can become deeper as the story requires them to appear again, and I have more words to explore them. By contrast, having many characters, mean that on average each character will be shallower. It's harder to do, but I'm happy how this is working out for now.

Death march in particular suffers a scalability problem. It's hard to remember a character when they reappears one hundred chapters later. I have solutions in mind that I'm trying to help the readers remember and keep track of what's going on.

Magic is Science (Original, Magi Grandson)

I have some understanding of the laws of physics, and when things happens that blatantly breaks them on an absurd scale, I find it hard to maintain the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Actions that are common in magic like changing size, would in reality involve unthinkable amount of energy (Supernovae levels) Magic is supernatural as a motivation holds only so far. If the character can harness supernovae level of energies with magic, how can they have trouble with a little fire? It just doesn't hold if you think too deeply about it. Which I can't help but do ^^'

I wanted my magic to be another set of law of physics, with clear rules. My magic obeys to the conservation of mass and energy, for the rest, it behaves like fictional magic. Also, due to lack of system and skills, my magic is like more like old school fantasy magic, with wizards having to actually learn to use it, rather than performing an action and getting a skill or a title.

Dragons (Common Trope, Meso-American Dragons)

I find Dragons cool, therefore I included them! It's that easy.

I gave my dragons a physiology, integrating them with the way magic works in Arcania. I gave them an history, both evolutionary and as civilization. I loosely adapted dragons from Aztec and Mayan myths, that looked like feathered snakes.

Church of Gloria (History)

I loosely adapted the Church of Gloria from the medieval Catholic Church. I tried to answer the question: "How would civilization develop if priests had actual supernatural-like powers?"

Inquisition (History)

The Inquisition of Gloria is loosely based on the Spanish Inquisition. Just as fanatics, only the inquisitors have real power! Fanatics with supernatural-like powers. Terrifying if you think about it.

Crap World (History, Berserk)

"How would civilization develop if priests had actual supernatural-like powers?"

My answer is Arcania. It's not a nice place to live in. Still, our own actual history is dotted with events that would make you shudders in disbelief. I can never write anything as dark as the dark patches of our real history without it seeming comical.

Named Characters Can Die (Game of Thrones, Berserk, many more)

This is in contrast with most resurrection novels I read, when characters are mostly immune to death. Basically there are characters, that are as tough as regular humans, but have the power to level mountains walking in a Crap World. Death should be common. Life should be cheap. Therefore I structured the novel to accommodate this element.

No Romance. No harem.

I wanted the focus of the story to be Liara's life and her impact on Arcania. While I might touch on them, they are never going to become prominent elements in the story. Often resurrection story have romance and harem as well.

Mistakes have Consequences

Each character has motivation and goals. When in an environment, they should be expected to behave a certain way. And this can easily backfire. I want the plot lines and the character arcs to flow naturally into each others. This means that characters may find themselves in a place where they will die. And they will die. Also, action have lasting consequences, both on the characters, and on their surroundings. Meridia's early character arc is a good example of this.

Princesses System (Tower of God)

Aptitude for magic is more prominent in Fair Skin females. It's rare enough that the Royal Blood-line cannot consistently give birth to an exceptionally talented magician every single generation. Prowess in magic is required for a ruler. The Queen has all the power.

Combine those elements and you have the Princess System. Royal soldiers search the land for young Fair Skin girls, take them, and pit them against each other in a brutal competition. The best of them eventually becomes the Queen.

A similar system is in place in Tower of God, but with a different premise in a different way for different reasons. It's original, still, it's close enough that it's worth mentioning it as an influence for my story.

Arcania, Maps, Calendar, Plots

I spent months building Arcania before starting the story. Configuration of the solar system, laws of physics, geological history, configuration of continents and climate, history, evolutionary history of life, races, civilizations, continents, political borders, etc...

As I built the world, the best place in space and time to start became clear, and I started the story from there.

To help me keep consistency, have clear timelines, character history, bullet point plots, and maps.

Cult of Fertility (History)

It's loosely based on the 60' and 70' hippie youth movement with some terrorism adapted from fringes extremist animal right groups and Islamic movement like ISIS. They are bound together by an overall doctrine, but are composed by many groups, with varying grades of violence and peace.

The Silence (History, Overlord)

A crime syndicate. I drew from many sources, like real world Mafia, and fictional crime guilds and crime syndicate, like The Fingers from overlord.

Duels should be bloody (Toriko)

You have character that are as tough as regular humans, but have the power to level mountains. It's unrealistic for fight between them to drag out, and for techniques that should be lethal to leave only bruises.

Fights between glass cannons should be short, bloody, be often decided by the first blow, and damage the environment around them.

Names

I have a few rules, like Dark Skin male names often end in 'n', people of the Church of Gloria don't have surnames, names often use a Latin/Roman radix.

I draw heavily from names I like from other works. Liara probably comes from Mass Effect, Serenia comes from Id, the greatest fusion fantasy, etc... What names I like and fit the character and the place, I use.

More

There are more influences that would gave future plot points away. I'll make a new note when I'm deeper inside the story.