As an artist, your goal is to create something unique. With that aim, it might seem logical to discard the past, to remove all external sources and create something without influence. But as the saying goes, if you do not study the past you are doomed to repeat it. Applied to art, if you don’t know what’s come before odds are you’ll end up making something we’ve already seen. So instead of trying to make something brand new, invert the problem and avoid recreating what you know has come before. If you can do that, odds are you’ll end up making something we’ve never seen.
The reason we’ve seen a lot of material we’ve seen before – cliche stuff, is [writers] are not aware of what’s been done before. So part of your education as a writer is really to know what’s been done before… when you create something you try to avoid that and come up with something unique. — Karl Iglesias, 2017
Great art follows rules defined by great art of the past. No matter your medium whether it be storytelling (the hero’s journey), music (the rule of three), or design (the golden ratio) – there are certain principles and structures you should adhere to. When you tell an artist they have to follow rules they have a tendency to writhe and scream like a vampire caught in the sunlight. But constraints do not hamper creativity, they foster it, because great art also breaks the rules. You showcase your creativity not by creating without structure, but by doing something new within the confines of a familiar one. But the catch is you can’t just break the rules at random, you have to do it with intent and purpose. In order to do that, you have to learn the rules so that you know when and why you’re breaking them.
Every person that you've ever met has a consistent structure of a face, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. That consistency in the structure is what allows for expression. You've met 10,000 people in your life, you don't walk up to the 10,000th person you've met and go, ‘You know what? I'm getting really bored of this facial construction that you’re using here’. You just don't do that. [The facial structure is] a prerequisite for communication, and for value expression. So those people that understand that will be able to harness that structure to express something meaningful. Ultimately, you can look at the Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Shawshank Redemption, Die Hard, or Jerry Maguire – it doesn't matter. They all follow [the same] pattern and when they follow it, it just clicks and we resonate with it. – Mike Hill, 2023
The truth is, all “the rules” are is audience expectations. We’ve been telling stories for thousands of years and over time we’ve come to a societally accepted way for how those stories are told. As a matter of fact, proper story structure is more human nature than it is theory.
Story structure wasn't invented by a professor in a classroom, or by a screenwriter at a keyboard – it was discovered by a cultural anthropologist named Joseph Campbell. Joseph worked in comparative mythology, his job was to study and compare great myths and creation stories throughout history. Over time he started to notice that regardless of time, place, or culture all of these myths followed a similar narrative structure which he named “the monomyth”, which is better known today as “The Hero’s Journey” or “The Story Circle”. What this pattern shows us, is that as human beings, encoded into our subconscious is how a great story is told. Your audience might not be able to articulate the monomyth, but they’ll feel on a subconscious level when something deviates from the structure they’re used to. Keep in mind next time you want to break that structure, you’re moving away from a storytelling method that has been accepted for millenia.
Following this structure will not box you in creatively, there are infinite permutations for how it can manifest. Your job as an artist is not to find a way to create a new Hero's Journey, it’s to take the existing Hero's Journey and use it in a way nobody has ever seen before. The key is to give the audience something new in a context that they’re familiar with.
The thing with people is that deep down, they hate change. They want something new, but not so new that it makes them uncomfortable. Therefore, when you present people with something that completely breaks structure they’re used to – something they have no reference for, they’ll reject it. This is why you want to study the rules before you break them, because you want to do so in a way that doesn’t completely break the structure. By doing this you can subvert audience expectations without straying too far from their comfort zone.
The issue today is not enough people are studying the past, they’re just imitating the present. Instead of taking inspiration from what has come before and creating something new, people are just copying what’s working right now. Studying the past gives you a historical lens to look through, and see what has always worked instead of what’s just working in the current moment. It’s better to learn timeless principles that will allow you to adapt as things change as opposed to getting really good at a fleeting trend. You have to live with your art forever, stop trying to only make it for right now.
Kids think that they’re supposed to copy things on television or on the internet and that’s how they’re gonna get successful… we’ll the best way to get successful is to have it influence you but make up your own thing. — Jimmy Iovine, 2012
There’s a misconception that studying the past is no longer applicable because the internet has “changed things”. While it’s true that the internet has changed things, each digital medium, whether it be YouTube videos, podcasts, or blogs has a predecessor in the analogue world. And within that analogue world, are relevant and valuable lessons you can bring into the digital world. When you study the past you’re not trying to recreate it, you’re trying to build upon it. You don’t want to start from square one, you want to figure out where those who came before you left off and start from there. You want to take the tools you have at your disposal that previous generations didn’t have, and use them to take the next step and evolve the medium. You’re not picking up the torch and walking back down the path that was already charted. You’re picking up the torch and blazing a new trail.
Let’s be real though, there’s going to be some wandering around in the darkness before you find the torch. In order to make great art yourself, you have to understand what it takes to make great art. You’ll learn that by mimicking the work of people who inspire you. This isn’t the same thing as copying what’s popular, it’s imitating out of admiration and not envy. As you continue to grow as an artist you’ll start to combine your influences to create something unique. It will become harder for people to pinpoint who you’re referencing because it won’t just be one person. Eventually you’ll get to a place where you start having your own ideas and through studying your favourite artists will have built up a skillset and understanding of how to bring those ideas to life.
You start out sounding like all your favorite artists' music. Then you build so many influences it starts to be hard to tell which one you sound like. Then you learn the tools and start to use your own personality in the music. But great music has been made in every phase. — Kenny Beats, 2023
But how new and original can something be if it’s inspired by previous work? The truth of the matter is, there’s no such thing as original. You don’t live in a vacuum, you have come into contact with art throughout your entire life and it will influence you both consciously and subconsciously. And that’s okay, it doesn’t make you any less talented or creative. Quentin Tarantino is one of the greatest living directors and each of his films is a love letter to cinema – they’re filled with references and homages to different movies, scenes, and genres. But he takes all of these influences and blends them together to create something brand new. That’s the trick with influences, it’s not to avoid them, it’s to hide them so well that nobody even knows they’re there.
Break the things that inspire you, and mix them up until they are no longer recognizable and then you’ve made something new. — Mike Hill, 2019
Like great art, the past shows but doesn’t tell. It will show you what’s worked before but it won’t tell you what to make now. It will show you what people expect, but it won’t tell you how to surprise them. And it will show you where others left off, but it won’t tell you what comes next. That’s for you to decide.
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