Ideas Machine part 6A: "Escape"
My ideas machine can use Lateral Thinking to create or refine ideas or stories.
Edward de Bono argues that most thinking is linear, which is like searching for buried treasure by digging a deeper and deeper hole in the same place. Lateral thinking is akin to clambering out of the first hole and trying to dig somewhere else. It can be very difficult to break out of conventioan habits of problem solving, or creative endevours; De Bono proposes a few strategies to encourage Lateral Thinking. The forst of these is "Escape".
'Escape' is a challenge to reconsider the way things are. Take an established axiom, and negate, or ‘escape’ from the normal convention. For example, looking back at my original lists, I see that I have the word "Photocopier" on there. It is a truism to say that a photocopier creates a duplicate of a document. An escape? "A photocopier makes gives you a different document to the one you put in."
What story ideas does this prompt? What would a photocopier produce a different document to the one you put in? Maybe....be..cause.. the..
I feel a bit like I've dropped the ball with the whole "duality" idea, so I'm going to feed an alternative title into this section of the machine: jinty suggested "finishing".
Edward de Bono argues that most thinking is linear, which is like searching for buried treasure by digging a deeper and deeper hole in the same place. Lateral thinking is akin to clambering out of the first hole and trying to dig somewhere else. It can be very difficult to break out of conventioan habits of problem solving, or creative endevours; De Bono proposes a few strategies to encourage Lateral Thinking. The forst of these is "Escape".
'Escape' is a challenge to reconsider the way things are. Take an established axiom, and negate, or ‘escape’ from the normal convention. For example, looking back at my original lists, I see that I have the word "Photocopier" on there. It is a truism to say that a photocopier creates a duplicate of a document. An escape? "A photocopier makes gives you a different document to the one you put in."
What story ideas does this prompt? What would a photocopier produce a different document to the one you put in? Maybe....be..cause.. the..
- Beacause the machine is cleverer than you? It has a better idea of the actual document that you want/need? Maybe it can spot a lie? So it copies your CV but corrects all the white lies? Or maybe it is simply a bizarre network fault. Some other bugger is getting your twenty copies of a crucial presentation, and you are getting a recipe for macaroons.
- Karma?
- Sabotage? A rival is trying to make you look bad? Or you've pissed of the photocopy technician?
- An innocent mistake? Because somebody has filled it up with the wrong toner. It's broken but nobody told you. But you think it could be because of reasons above, and make innappropriate accusations or conclusions.
- Et cetera..
I feel a bit like I've dropped the ball with the whole "duality" idea, so I'm going to feed an alternative title into this section of the machine: jinty suggested "finishing".
