Stop Silly Putty Sameness
A creative weakness is the temptation to over-stretch our ideas…whether a too-long speech or book or the continuing to churn out endless variations of the same repetitive art.
For those too old to remember Silly Putty, it was a rubbery substance sold as a kid’s toy. One fun use was to flatten it out and push it into the Sunday comics. The cartoon image would transfer to the putty and then you could stretch and stretch the putty so the image was contorted in hilarious ways.
But that kind of stretching isn’t amusing when it comes to our art. No one wants to read a book that’s one hundred pages too long for no good reason other than that the author had to hit a certain word count. No actor should endlessly repeat the same role from their younger days. No one wants the next remake of a past original series.
The way something’s been done isn’t the reason to keep doing it that way. Even if it was successful. That’s playing it safe—which is the opposite of why the first version worked. One is creating. The rest is repeating.
A common temptation among creative people is to stretch their ideas beyond its original intent…whether in a rambling speech, a never-ending book series, or an artist on auto-pilot churning out endless variations of the same repetitive art.
My visual for this tendency is Silly Putty. For those too young to remember, Silly Putty was marketed as a kid’s toy. It was literally just a stretchy piece of putty in an egg-shaped container. You could flatten it out and push it onto a panel of the Sunday comics. The cartoon image would transfer to the putty and then you could stretch the putty until the image was beyond recognition.
I know, kids were easier to entertain in the 1970s.
But that kind of Silly Putty stretching isn’t amusing when it comes to our art. No one wants to read a book that’s twice as long as it needed to be so an author could hit their word count. Nor do we long to see actors endlessly repeat the same role that made them famous forty years ago (I’m talking to you, Indiana Jones). Who prefers a remake of a past original series rather than something that’s equally powerful—but new?
The way something’s been done is never the reason to keep doing it that way. Even if it was successful. That’s playing it safe—which is the opposite of why the first version worked. The first is creating. The follow-ups are repeating.
Silly Putty sameness happens when we copy and stretch what has been. Instead, try something that is unproven. That carries risk. That stretches you.
That’s the only good kind of creative stretching. And there’s nothing silly about that.
