Creative Reframing

Haruki Murakimi is one of the world’s best-selling novelists. He’s Japanese but he always writes a first draft in English.

It began as an experiment after his first attempt at a novel failed. His words had felt cold and lifeless, too try hard, and he wondered what would happen if he wrote in a language that he knew less well.

In the ‘Novelist as Vocation’ Murakami explains, “The language had to be simple, my ideas expressed in an easy to understand way, the descriptions stripped of all extraneous fat … I didn’t have to try and impress people with beautiful turns of phrase.”

Once Murakami had completed the text in English, he ‘transplanted’ it back into Japanese, adding a little verve here and there and so his definitive style was born.  

It’s a beautiful illustration of reframing. Often we battle hopelessly on with a piece of creative work because we feel creativity should be tough, and we fail to step back and question the method we’re using. By restricting his palette Murakami discovered that he could achieve far more than he had previously done with a full lexicon at his disposal.

“Writing in my new style felt more like performing music than composing literature … it was as if the words were coming through my body instead of from my head. Sustaining the rhythm, finding the coolest chords, trusting in the power of improvisation - it was tremendously exciting … I felt like I was holding a new, cutting edge tool in my hands. Boy oh boy, it was fun!”

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