Creativity: Interconnecting & Enriching

By Paul McCarthy - Jan 25 , 2008

There are two essential activities that occur as a book is developed and edited, and they become possible after the book’s fundamental concept is established:

* Interconnecting is the consideration of everything in the book as it’s been written, with the ultimate goal of establishing all the new and unifying connections that are conceivable at that stage.

Author and editor think deeply from the smallest element and idea to the most profound theme and insight. They strive to perceive, conceive, and imagine as many potential and appropriate interconnections as they can.

They consider each possible new joining and decide whether such unifying can be done in the right way and, perhaps, creates new connecting possibilities.

The existing interconnections in a book are one of the highest and purest forms of structure. In a book, structure includes sections, chapters, and parts. These forms are evident and visible to the reader, and each has its own creative purpose.

It’s the thematic, narrative, character, action, plot, and informational elements that transcend these structural forms, while establishing greater progression and unity within and between them.

The “structural” interconnections are subtle and “invisible,” not identified the way the forms are. Instead, author and editor make them strong and clear enough that the reader will respond, consciously, intuitively, and subliminally.

* Enriching begins from the same perspective and authorial and editorial action: the consideration of all that’s been written. What’s different but in parallel is its ultimate goal: the imagining and conceiving of all possible new ideas. In doing so, editor and author maximize the number of good ideas that potentially will improve the book.

Enriching focuses on what’s beyond the book, and thereby has a far greater freedom and range of creative and editorial thinking. The more conceptual thinking author and editor engage in and build on, the more they catalytically stimulate their minds and make possible even more fine ideas.

As they attain and continue to add to a critical mass of potentially valuable ideas, they engage in a rigorous selection process. The few, right, good ideas are identified as such because it’s clear how they increase the book’s originality and quality with the most and best of the new. Those ideas are also easily integrated and connect well with each other and what’s already there. Many ideas have the potential to take the continuing writing and entire book in better, more creatively ambitious directions.

* Interconnecting and Enriching: As author and editor engage in these activities, their guiding goal is the achievement of a book that is read as a single, essential whole, and appreciated for its imaginative power.

Such a final, best book has the maximum number of “moving parts,” good and great ideas that function with the greatest synchronicity, giving the reader a book in which all is one.