Mar 2019
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Mar 2019
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TimCaloweh
Mar '19

Well the guy who made Neon Genesis Evangelion, Hideaki Anno, created the series while he was going through some strong depression. I guess he got over it in the end cause the endings still weren't that good. Great series though. And personally i'd put state of mind ahead of creative mojo since i don't like the feeling of going insane. I understand that the pain may help in creating something beautiful, passionate, or even brutal, but there are examples of geniuses throughout time, taking their lives cause of the weight of their vision. It ain't worth going back down there.

Jenny-Toons
Mar '19

Yeah, I kinda second @TimCaloweh on that one.

Sometimes, yes -- I do have a creative struck when I've been at my lowest point. Sometimes, it happens. But generally, I don't do anything with it until I get stronger. I might write the idea down, but I don't start working on it until I'm in a better place mentally. It might inspire ideas, but it won't inspire motivation.

If I'm at my worst, I'm not thinking of doing my best creative work at all. I'm thinking of trying to get better.

There's a bad implication behind this idea -- that you have to be in some state of misery in order to create. That happiness or even a content state can't provide the motivation or ideas you need the way misery can.

And it's bullshit.

It's a mindset I want to see completely gone. No one should ever throw away their state of mind or purposefully endure misery just to be inspired. There's a limit to these things, and self-care is becoming extremely important nowadays.

Creators aren't excluded from that.

xabelmind
Mar '19

Oh, just posted something related :hushed:

I've been really prolific writting, but in the process of going out of depression, not inside it. In fact, writting helped me to come out of that state, but my novels from that periods are crappy. I explain it in my post :thinking:

I think every creator has problems with stability in a psychological way, but it's not being in a horrible state what helps you, but the moment you start to do something, cause it helps you to stabilize yourself. But that doesn't mean the work you do while you're in that hole is better. It become better as you get out and start to breath again :thinking:

Deadpan_Tran
Mar '19

I think you can feel when a work is emotionally charged, and I always appreciate when a writer is willing to spill their feelings out on a page. Writing is a great way to release bottled up stress and weird emotions. I think a story is most compelling when it comments on how some abstract idea affects the human condition. Having problems of your own can give you invaluable insight into something like that.

dojo
Mar '19

I'm not sure if I agree that it sparks the most interesting stories or not. I agree with @Jenny-Toons that there's a bad implication behind the idea, and have definitely seen some folks not take care of themselves in order to get ideas because they were convinced they couldn't be creative any other way. I went to an art college, and it honestly came up a lot, and we were even encouraged to do "whatever we felt was best" to get our creative juices flowing even if that meant drugs, sleep deprivation, alcohol, etc. I can easily see that extending to "Well, I'm only creative when I'm sad so time to never do anything about how sad I am".

THAT being said, I do feel negative events tend to be more inspiring than positive ones, for me. I won't go out of my way to cause them, but whenever I reflect back to get ideas based on things in my own life they do tend to veer towards negative things and seeing what I can do to bring out how ridiculous the situation was at the time. It's pretty cathartic and helps me to take life less seriously, because anything bad happening now I'm probably going to be writing stories to make fun of myself five-ten years down the line.

Kurokoi
Mar '19

Generally people who are smarter and more socially aware tend to delve deeper into depression because they tend to be more observant of the world around them on a critical level. As such, it makes sense they tend to be the best storytellers a lot of the time because while they may be writing from a stance of depression and anxiety, their keen eye for the inner workings of the world really hook and fascinate people who generally wouldnt think about these things.

DokiDokiTsuna
Mar '19

I don't write when I'm miserable; I don't enjoy doing creative work when I'm upset.
And when I'm emotionally charged in other ways, that is when I write my absolute best garbage. ^^ I can't tell you how many chapters I've written that I was so pumped about and then the next morning I had to go through my scripts and delete everything. Honestly, I do my best work when I'm calm. No highs, no lows.

I don't know how my mood affects my drawing...it probably doesn't.

Reign
Mar '19

For me, I’ve learned that my own struggles help me create dynamic characters, and I do this by putting a little bit of me in them. But not to the point where these characters are all me. I’ve noticed that a lot of my stories and their themes deal with self acceptance, finding forgiveness from ones self, and overcoming misunderstandings of other people. I find the best inspiration for character and conflict in experience. Not sought out experiences, but just ones that have come up naturally from life. This whole topic reminds me of how JK Rowling created the Dementors based off of her depression and being a struggling, single Mother.

yansusu
Mar '19

I think it totally depends on what you like to write anyway. I've switched to writing comedy last year so being depressed wouldn't help that as all :smiley: I still feel really attached to a lot of the chapters probably because they are really fluffy and funny (at least to me :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:). Then again I also feel attached to the depressing, tragic parts ... I guess I just feel overall attached to my chapters regardless of how I was feeling when writing them

spadesart
Mar '19

my writing tends to get more aggressive when im in a depressive slump. my art suffers, actually. i go off model more often, push harder with my lineart and my coloring gets really heavy and blotchy. i wouldnt necessarily say its a good thing, but i guess it does create a different mood in my work than usual.

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non-slump vs a page i drew the previous week during a slump

i really cant draw vent art though. i just go blank.

mrtoontastic
Mar '19

I mean yeah, I'm not gonna lie. There's been some interesting stories created out of sheer misery. I did it.... twice! :laughing:

The first story created when my entire world was in a wreck:

And then here's the second story when the wreckage turned to a river of endless turmoil, but with a glimmer of hope:

Funny enough, I love making fun, comedic stories. Some with adventures, and some with action. Though, through that time, I wrote some crazy material when I got upset. Even after re-reading it, even when I felt better, I still enjoy how it turned out. Personally, I don't fully think being miserable entails to creating interesting stories, but it (along with the correct timing) does end up creating something unexpected.

RiidDisBuk
Mar '19

I agree for the most part. It's not just misery though. It's experience. The more you experience in life, the more personality, motivation, perspective, sympathy, so on and so fourth. Misery is a good way to start thinking, but you are mainly talking about experience in general.

FenneFox
Mar '19

While some emotional turbulence certainly can lead to some good stories, I don't quite think it is an indicator that never fails. For instance, Stephen King has mentioned that nothing messed up has particularly happened to him. As for myself, I can't say whether my ideas are any good, I don't think any have been particularly inspired by emotional turbulence (although I have come up with a few ideas wherein a character goes too far in a way that I could see myself doing if pushed).

Zushi
Mar '19

While i do believe there is an correlation of sorts between creativity and misery/madness, there is a bell curve where once you get too miserable/ill you can't do anything. I know personally for myself when I am most ill/mentally unstable, I cannot do anything as I have lost all motivation for everything and think there is no point to anything in my life and it causes either a huge drop in quality or just me going MIA. Usually the more interesting monologues/ broken down viewpoints in my stories comes from when I am not 100% having the best day and I'm struggling somewhat but am still reasonably functional. This is when I actually have the energy to even think of jotting down my thoughts and breaking them down to eventually incorporate into my story. Otherwise, most of my creative and best thoughts come pretty randomly when my mind wanders like when I'm in the middle of lecture or taking a shower haha.

I don't think suffering is necessary for good stories as the two aren't synonymous (plus it'll be quite morbid if that is a real requirement, no one should be subjected to unnecessary suffering for the sake of art) I just think a free thinking mind is all that is necessary for a good story, some people get their ideas from the darker parts of their life while other's get if other ways like shower thoughts or right before I go to sleep thoughts and maybe even crazy dreams or a really good memory/experience to create those happy feel good stories since a good story does not necessarily need to be "sad".

Zushi
Mar '19
RiidDisBuk

I definitely agree on the experience part. I think the more you experience in life, both good and bad, you have more ideas and content to draw from in general and I think this is true for those who hear the experiences and stories of other people as well.

RiidDisBuk
Mar '19

Kinda what I said, but undeniably true!

Even good and bad dreams can give you an idea of reality despite everything being fine in the end. I had a dream that I lost my mother and daughter to a psychopath while tied up (even though I am not a parent). I admit it's a dream and all, but what I did after in a fit of rage before I woke up is exactly what I would have done in real life. That is just simply experience.

Think of it this way, you get a hell of an idea on what that experience feels like without actually experiencing it in real life.

In this sense, you easily have a 3-Dimensional perspective on what others were forced to suffer for real.

punkarsenic
Mar '19

i dunno, i think i tend to find that what im doing is growing a story from a seed that was planted when i was having a hard time, but can only grow into something of substance when im stable. so while im drawing on my own traumatic experiences - from very specific ones to universal hardships - i can only do so once ive got a bit of distance from them

for example, theres a comic i will make one day about a really traumatic 6 months in my teens - but im not gonna actually start working on it until ive had like, a lot of therapy. bc turning your trauma into narratives for the consumption of strangers means not only drudging up a lot of deeply emotional stuff, but also finding a way to repackage it to sell. its very vulnerable.

that said, i think often storytelling can be used to process trauma - in fun home or maus i think theres certainly an element of the authors processing the losses of their fathers and wider cultural traumas in the production, which can be seen particularly in the start of part 2 of maus.

that said, theres a lot of stuff i make that has little or nothing to do with my own experiences, and comes from a place of creative curiosity - i think its really important to have that stuff if you do make work about your own experiences, bc you need a break from that weight.

KRWright
Mar '19

I take the Hannah Gadsby line on this one: that there is no need to suffer to produce art.

Her opinion in full us below but be warned that she swears in it. (Could only find a FB link to the scene in question).