Creative constraints—a writer's best friend

And the genius of "Looney Tunes"

Welcome back to Up a Creek, a publication about writing and storytelling, relating the lessons I’ve learned in a 20-plus-year career as a comic book writer and author.

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When I was a kid, probably my favorite thing in the world—even beyond comic books—was Looney Tunes. We had a VHS tape of a bunch of compiled shorts (the original Looney Tunes were created as animated short films to run in front of Warner Brothers movies in theaters). And I still would hold up “What’s Opera, Doc?” as possibly the greatest American work of art.

(Even just typing that sentence I now have “Kill the wabbit!” booming in my head.)

When you watch enough Looney Tunes, you start to recognize that even among the overall greatness there are certain ones that are exquisite, and that by and large these are the ones directed by Chuck Jones.

Jones created my personal favorites, the ones with Sam and Fred, the sheepdog and wolf who clock in and out each day as they attempt to protect/devour a flock of sheep.

But most iconically, Jones created the Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner shorts, which became comedic shorthand for generations and are perhaps the all-time greatest source of pratfalls.

There are a ton of reasons why the Roadrunner shorts are great, but there’s one that most people—myself included, until recently—never realize. And that is the use of creative constraints.

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The concept of the creative constraint was something I first encountered post-college, when I was just earnestly starting to work at growing as a creative writer.

I came across an article on Shakespeare (cannot track down where it was), and it went into the historical context of his era. There were some of the most stringent censorship rules ever in place, and yet Shakespeare wrote about violence and sex and death and insanity.

How did he manage that? Well, he did a lot of implying. Through unmatched creativity with language, Shakespeare invented new ways to say the things he wasn’t allowed to say.

The argument of the article was that this censorship actually fostered Shakespeare’s creativity. That the limitations sparked his innovation.

This would seem counterintuitive. That limitations lead to broader creative innovation. And yet, consistently, that’s exactly what happens.

Because the true enemy of creativity isn’t constraint. It’s endless possibility. To whit: a blank page.

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Staring at a blank page is a trope for a reason. Whether you’re a writer, a musician or a visual artist, the blank page represents nothing (what you’ve accomplished thus far) and everything (what you could accomplish) all at once.

You’ve done nothing. You could do anything. Where to start?

But you aren’t setting out to create anything. You’re setting out to create something. Something specific.

Just as you think on what this specific thing is, you can also make that process a hell of a lot easier by thinking about what this specific thing is not.

And the way that you do that is by applying creative constraints.

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Most of us don’t live under censorship, and so if we are to operate under creative constraints, we’re going to have to establish them for ourselves.

At the core, this means delineating a set of rules that will govern the work you’re creating.

There are simple versions of this that we all know. In writing, choosing a voice (second person, etc.) is a constraint. Same with choosing a genre (and then operating within, or playing with, existing tropes).

One of my favorite type of creative constraint is structure. I’ll often very early on devise some organizing principle for a story. It could relate to chapter breaks or page count. It could be the way I sequence moving between perspectives.

Or it could be something really experimental. There was one comic book I wrote where the entire issue was effectively one massive spread—if you cut out all the pages and laid them end to end, they would make a continuous panel. I actually started with that framework, and then figured out a way to make it work.

I still get people coming up to me, remarking on how creative that issue was. And the truth is that it was really easy to make it, once I put those constraints on myself.

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OK, back to Looney Tunes. A friend gifted me Chuck Jones’ autobiography, and within it I came across a document that Jones created to guide the Roadrunner shorts. A set of nine rules:

I mean, that is a lot of stuff that the Roadrunner and coyote can’t do (or must do). And yet, they spawned some of the most creative and memorable art that has ever been seen.

Some of these rules are just arbitrary, like limiting the Roadrunner to the road or that all materials come from the Acme Corporation.

But then some of them deeply establish the character of Wile E. Coyote, i.e. that he only fails through his own ineptitude, and because he chooses not to stop when all logic dictates he should. And it’s that fanaticism that makes Wile so compelling—and makes those cartoons far greater than just the pratfalls.

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The important thing here is that there is no one right way to use creative constraints. Whatever you’re working on, you have to establish your own rules.

Start by thinking about what you are not creating, and go from there. Get creative. Get weird! Give yourself some crazy-ass arbitrary limitations. Tie an arm behind your back (figuratively or, heck, literally).

Because however hard those creative constraints make life, it sure beats a blank page.

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As always, thank you for reading. If you’d like to learn more about me and my writing, please visit vanjensen.com. You can like and comment on the post below! Till next time…