Listing for Creativity
This article is for: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced—i.e. ALL of us!
Making lists may not strike you as a creative thing to do.
Shopping lists, To Do lists, guest lists—none of the ways we use lists in everyday life may seem very exciting, or likely to help you with a poem!
But actually, listing can be a powerful way to get ideas for your poems that you otherwise would not have reached.
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How listing can be a fun, fast creative tool
Imagine you've decided to write a poem about a couple having an argument.
Suppose that before you get started, you wonder briefly whose point of view you should write from.
You're likely to think of three options: the point of view of each partner, or an impersonal third-person point of view. You have a quick think about which of these you prefer, and draft the poem.
OK, fine—you may well be able to write a good piece of work that way.
But what if you had required yourself to make a list of 10, or 15, or 20 possible points of view, instead of just the first ones you could think of? What would have happened then?
The answer is, that you would have been compelled to consider all kinds of fresh, original ways of constructing the poem. Maybe your list of possible points of view for this poem idea might go like this:
Couple person 1
Couple person 2
Their child
A neighbor
Their divorce lawyer (looking back)
Court documents (looking back)
A police officer called to the scene
The couple's unborn child
The dead grandparent of one of the couple
The couple's dog or cat
An object that gets thrown or broken during the fight—maybe a picture?
The house where the argument takes place
A passing cloud
The moon
A bird…
And I'll stop there, but not because I've run out.
Rather the opposite—my mind is now overrunning with ideas, and I don't want to swamp you!
So what just happened? When I asked myself to list at least 10 possibilities, the obvious ones came out first—partner 1, partner 2, impersonal narrator. But then, because I had to keep going, I was forced to consider other options. First, I thought of other people: the child, the neighbor. Then as I thought about people, I also found myself considering movements in time as well: the unborn child writing about the fight as a thing in the deep past, for example. Then I realized there was no need to confine myself to human points of view: maybe the dog would have unique things to say about this fight, or the broken picture; or maybe the house has witnessed other fights with other couples, and has something to say about that. And why stop there? What would the moon or a cloud or a bird have to say, looking in the window at them? And so on...
As well as being tremendous fun to do, this process has very quickly given me a whole ton of options for how to create this poem. And some of them suggest really new ways to consider the subject.
If I were going to write this, I think I would choose the point of view either of the house, so that I could contextualize the argument within the house's longer perspective; or of the unborn child, who would be able to tell readers how significant the fight was, but who would also have to speculate about what really happened in ways that might be interesting.
In other words, I've got many ways to write a creative and original poem—none of which would have happened without the list!
That's the power of listing as a tool for creativity.
How to make creative listing work
Quantity
Whenever you use listing for creativity, aim to write down a LOT of options—far more than you're going to need.
This deliberate excess should give you three types or stages of ideas:
First, you'll clear out the conventional ideas and clichés—no one wants those, so it's good to get them out of the way early.
Next, you'll probably get ideas that were rattling around your conscious mind somewhere already, but you hadn't really paid attention to. They'll be more interesting than the clichés.
But the best part is when your conscious mind blanks on new ideas, and has to run desperately to your unconscious and beg it for more! Then the really exciting stuff starts to happen: the ideas that are fresh, new, original, and that you couldn't have got to if you'd stayed in the comfortable world of ordinary ideas.
Write down every idea
When you’re listing, write down everything you think of—EVERYTHING.
Don't judge or filter your ideas—that sends a message to your unconscious that you're being skeptical, and your unconscious hates being judged. It won't give you its best material if it doesn't trust you.
Just record every idea, no matter how silly or weird it seems, because you've got to send the signal that you're accepting everything. Though of course, you don't have to use everything—you can reject the ideas you don't like at the end, at decision time. But not before!
Work quickly…
When you’re using listing to discover creative ideas, you should go pretty fast, ideally a bit faster than you find comfortable.
This is another way to overload your conscious mind and require it to go to your unconscious for help. You may feel a bit weird when you first do this, as if you're out of control, but it does lead to more creative material. And the more you do it, the more comfortable you'll get with being uncomfortable!
…but give it time as well
Having said that about speed, another very productive way to use listing is actually to give yourself an extended time to add to the list. You should still come up with the first ideas as fast as you can, but then you can put the list to one side and let other ideas come to you over the course of hours or days.
The initial list primes you to think about the topic, and then your unconscious will chew away at it for a while, and keep sending extra ideas your way—probably while you're doing something completely different, like the washing up.
When and how should you use creative listing?
You can use this technique at any point in your drafting, but I think it's most useful near the beginning, when you're first playing with ideas and letting them take shape.
And there really isn't any limit on ways to use it! Try it for any choice you might need to make near the start of a poem.
For example:
What point of view to use to narrate the poem (as in the example of the couple fighting)
Comparisons (metaphors/similes) you might use for key elements of your idea
Formal choices you might make (try listing 25 different forms to create a poem in, including ones you've made up yourself, and see what weird and wonderful things you invent!)
15, 25, or even 50 small unique things you could include about the people in your poem
Physical details of places, actions, and things in scenes you want to write
If you've got a vague idea ("Write about love!"), 25 ways to make that abstract idea detailed and concrete ("Write about knitting someone a hat!")
And many more.
You could even practice the method by making yourself a list of ways in which you could use listing in a poem!!
Next Steps
Here's an exercise that gives you triple practice in using lists.
List a bunch of emotions. Write as many as you can think of, including more obscure ones, like remorse, awe, or boredom.
Pick one emotion from your list, and list 25 specific situations that relate to that emotion. Use your own life as a resource, the lives of others you know, and also make some up.
Choose one of these situations that speaks to you in some way, and list as many details about it as you can: thoughts, events, wishes, fears, people involved—anything and everything.
Use that final list to draft a poem.
And if you're not completely fed up with lists by now, you can also make a list of possible formal choices before you start to write... but I won't make you!
