Mixing Creativity and Formula

 

This week I’m reprinting a blog post from July 15, 2019. I originally wrote it for the Indiana Writers’ Consortium blog, where it appeared on February 21, 2018.

Mixing Creativity and Formula

I’m tired of hearing people run down so-called genre fiction because it follows a formula, as if that means it lacks creativity.  Yes, some genre fiction is only minimally creative, but that’s the fault of the author, not the genre.

Take romance, which is often cited as the archetype of formula fiction. I don’t write romance and rarely read it because I have limited time and generally prefer other types of novels. But I do read it occasionally, and one of my favorite authors fits perfectly into the romance “formula.” More about her later.

Here is the definition of the “Romance Genre” found on the Romance Writers of America’s website at www.rwa.org/the-romance-genre.

Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.

A Central Love Story: The main plot centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work. A writer can include as many subplots as they want as long as the love story is the main focus of the novel.

An Emotionally Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love.

This “formula” leaves a lot of room for creativity. As the RWA website goes on to say, “Romance novels may have any tone or style, be set in any place or time, and have varying levels of sensuality—ranging from sweet to extremely hot.” Setting, characterization, plot twists, word choice, and many other elements of romance writing provide as much opportunity for creativity as literary and experimental fiction do.

For illustration, here are summaries of three stories written by my favorite romance novelist. All three books have (1) a central love story developed through a main plot that centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work and (2) an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending where the lovers’ struggles result in emotional justice and unconditional love. See if you can identify the books and/or the author.

1. The two protagonists love each other even before the novel begins, but a well-meaning friend causes her to reject his marriage proposal. When they meet again years later, events, misunderstandings, and the romantic intentions of other parties conspire to keep them from renewing their relationship. Eventually, however, the protagonists realize that they are meant for each other and find happiness together.
2. The female protagonist is brought up by her aunt and uncle but is treated as a poor relation. When she falls in love with one of her cousins, she keeps her attraction secret because she knows his family would never consent to a marriage between them. But when the consequences of the family’s shaky values threaten to ruin their social position, the protagonist’s inner worth shines through and the lovers are united at last.
3. When the protagonists first meet, neither likes the other. They are continually thrown together, and the male protagonist falls in love in spite of himself. He grudgingly proposes, is rejected, and leaves. Soon after, the female protagonist’s sister elopes and threatens to bring disgrace to her family. After the male protagonist spends time and money to secure the marriage, the female protagonist realizes that she loves him after all. But it is too late! No, it isn’t. This is formula romance, and the two lovers end up together after all.

By now, you will have guessed that I’m talking about Jane Austin. Here are the titles that go with the summaries: (1) Persuasion, (2) Mansfield Park, and (3) Pride and Prejudice. I could have used many more examples, since Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey all follow the same formula.

I’m not saying that everyone should write to a formula. On the contrary, the world would be a barren place without any love stories that end in tragedy or authors who dare to try something new.

But I am saying this: don’t condemn genre novels that write to a formula, because creativity and formula CAN mix.

Fueled by Creativity

 

As a writer, creativity is my adrenaline. But it isn’t limited to writing. Lately, I’ve been spending much of my creative energy on thinking up ideas for my camera club.

As acting president, I have taken on the responsibility of finding speakers or, failing that, coming up with my own program ideas. For this month, I asked someone to put together a presentation on creating creative photos using the entries in the club’s recent Mylinda Cane Creative Photo Competition as the examples. My responsibility also means coming up with activities for the annual meeting to fill in the extra time. For that, I’ve created everything from a crossword puzzle with the names of famous photographers to a word seek puzzle of photography vocabulary and a game where participants guess the subject of a photograph from a small detail.

The photo at the top of this post is one of my poorer attempts to be creative for my camera club. We have a competition every month with regular categories for color and monochrome photos and a special that changes monthly. I know how hard it is to come up with a different idea every month because I do the same for the member photo section of the club’s newsletter. Our club is a member of a group of clubs, however, and fortunately the competition special is chosen by someone from the umbrella club so I don’t have to worry about it.

Our local club does the same topic one month earlier so that our members can decide whether their photos will do well enough to enter them into the larger competition at the umbrella club. Usually, that isn’t a problem. But the January special is “Happy New Year,” and the new year hadn’t happened yet when our local club had its competition. That meant finding something in the archives or staging a new photo. We can enter up to three photos in each category, and I found one in the archives that would work in a pinch, but I had nothing else that even implied “Happy New Year.” My motive for entering was not to win but because I was afraid that if only one person entered, he or she would be competing against him-or-herself, and that’s no fun. So I looked around at the props I had on hand and created the photo at the top of this post. In the end, I didn’t enter it or the one from the archives because nobody else from my competition class entered, either.

Still, it got me thinking about the importance of creativity in the arts. For me, of course, that’s primarily writing. Over the years, I have done a number of blog posts about writing creatively, and I decided this was a good month to reprint them.

So stay tuned.

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--Part V

 

The fifth stanza of the version of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” that we are use today was either written or translated by John C. Mattes in 1914. Here are the words:

O Savior, child of Mary,

Who felt our human woe,

O Savior, King of glory,

Who dost our weakness know;

Bring us at length we pray,

To the bright courts of Heaven,

And to the endless day!

 

This stanza brings the earlier ones together and looks forward to our glorious life in Heaven.

Whatever the coming year brings, and however many more I have ahead of me, I know that my life on this earth will transform into endless day in the bright courts of Heaven. And nothing is better than that.

May you have a Christ-filled new year.

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--Part IV

Here is Harriet Reynolds Krauth’s translation of stanza 4:

This flower, whose fragrance tender

With sweetness fills the air,

Dispels with glorious splendor

The darkness everywhere;

True man, yet very God,

From sin and death He saves us,

And lightens every load.

 

The sweetness of the flower may refer to Christ’s death. Before embalming became a common practice, fragrant flowers were used at funerals to cover up the odor of decaying flesh.

As both true man and very God, Christ was the only person who could save us from sin and death. Through His death, He brought us salvation and more. We no longer have to fear the darkness, and we carry a much lighter load because His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

As we approach the new year, next week’s post will cover the fifth stanza, which addresses the future.

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--Part III

 

The third and fourth stanzas of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” were translated into English by Harriet Reynolds Krauth in 1875, almost twenty years before Theodore Baker translated the first two. Stanzas three and four may have been composed and added to the hymn by Fridrich Lasyriz some time around 1844, but that isn’t clear. The earliest printed text that has been found ( in the Alta Catholishche Geistliche Kirchengansang published in 1599) had 23 stanzas, but these stanzas may not have been among them.¹

In any event, the first four stanzas would have been included in the carol before Harriet Reynolds Krauth translated any of it, so I’m not sure why she chose what are now stanzas three and four. Maybe they were in a different order at the time. Or maybe she started with stanza 3 because it referenced the familiar story in Luke 2:8-20 rather than Isaiah’s prophesies, which are not as well-known even to many Christians.

Here is Harriet Reynolds Krauth’s translation of stanza 3:

The shepherds heard the story

Proclaimed by angels bright,

How Christ, the Lord of glory

Was born on earth this night.

To Bethlehem they sped

And in the manger found Him,

As angel heralds said.

 

This verse makes it obvious that the song is a Christmas carol talking about the birth of Jesus.

Next week’s post will cover the other stanza translated by Harriet Reynolds Krauth.

__________

¹This information comes from https://hymnstudiesblog.wordpress.com/2021/04/22/lo-how-a-rose-eer-blooming/.

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--Part II

 

Like the first, the second stanza of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” was translated into English by Theodore Baker in 1894. Here is his translation:

Isaiah ‘twas foretold it,

The rose I have in mind;

With Mary we behold it,

The virgin mother kind.

To show God’s love aright,

She bore to men a Savior,

When half spent was the night.

 

Although Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), all of his prophesies point to the Messiah himself. The reference to the virgin who bore Him was a sign to identify the Messiah by, not a way to deify His mother.

Still, there is some discussion over whether the rose in the carol originally referred to Mary and was later “Protestantized” to make it refer to Jesus. It is clear to me, however, that the current version does not equate the rose with Mary. The English language has changed over the years, but even so the “it” in line three appears to refer back to the rose. Mary was unlikely to have beheld herself, but she did behold Jesus.

In spite of that controversy, the meaning of the stanza is clear. The Messiah was born of a virgin, and He came as our Savior.

Next week we’ll cover stanza three, which is the one that tells us most clearly that the prophesied Messiah is Jesus.

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--Part I

 

This Advent season I’m doing a series about one of my favorite traditional Christmas carols, “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.” The fifteenth century German carol tells the Christmas story in an unusual way by comparing Jesus to a rose.¹

The origin of the rose comparison is Biblically unclear. The carol seems to be combining Isaiah 11:1 and Isaiah 35:1.

Isaiah 11:1 clearly refers to the Messiah, who was to come from Jesse’s lineage. Here it is from the King James Version:

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.

The verses that lead up to Isaiah 35, on the other hand, seem to indicate that Isaiah 35:1 refers to God’s kingdom rather than to the Messiah. Isaiah’s original audience may have assumed they would return from exile to rebuild the worldly Jerusalem. For most Christians today, however, the reference is to the heavenly Jerusalem. With that background to build on, here is Isaiah 35:1 from the King James Version:

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." 

To further complicate matters, the translations can’t even agree on the flower that the passage refers to. The NIV and the ESV translates it as crocus rather than rose, and Martin Luther’s German translation uses lily. According to my internet research, what we usually think of as a crocus comes from the iris family, not the rose family, although there is apparently a shrub called a crocus rose.

The carol was written before the King James Version of the Bible came out, so it didn’t get the rose reference from there. Still, the actual flower is not the point of these passages so, for purposes of these blog posts, I’ll accept the comparison.

The first stanza of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” was translated from the original German into English by Theodore Baker in 1894. Here are the words:

Lo, how a rose e’er blooming

From tender stem hath sprung!

Of Jesse’s lineage coming,

As men of old have sung.

It came a floweret bright,

Amid the cold of winter,

When half spent was the night.

 

Jesus probably wasn’t born in the winter, since the shepherds were unlikely to be watching their flocks in the fields at that time of year, but Christmas was firmly established in December by the time this carol was written. And even if the carol got the season wrong, the reference to the Messiah is clear, at least to me.

There are some people who believe the rose originally referred to Mary rather than to Jesus. Next week’s post on the second stanza will discuss what it means today.

__________

¹Although the carol is generally acknowledged to be from the 15^th century, the first printed text appeared in 1599. See https://hymnstudiesblog.wordpress.com/2021/04/22/lo-how-a-rose-eer-blooming/.