Why ‘creative borrowing’ should be encouraged.

Many of us have memories of ‘creatively borrowing’ ideas from our favourite books, television shows, movies or comics. Many of us also have feelings of shame around our copying being exposed - by a teacher, a parent, or a peer. Copying gets a bad rap (sometimes for a good reason...we’re definitely not saying you should copy something and pretend it’s your own original work)! But the truth is: copying is how we learn everything. And when it comes to creativity, copying is a strategy that can help students tap into the rich knowledge and experience of your fellow humans from across time and space, and engage with your own creativity as a social being. 

Artists everywhere start out by copying. Our facilitator Nabilah says, “When I was a kid I used to look at the clouds and copy the shapes of the clouds. This sparked lots of inspiration for me to learn from things that already exist in the world.

“Recently, I've been looking at Quentin Blake's illustrations. I think Quentin Blake has an interesting way of capturing smells in his drawings. This really inspires me when I'm making food inventions in the kitchen. Once I tried to make a really stinky bean stew inspired by the potions and concoctions in George's Marvellous Medicine. I have also tried to make a very large chocolate cake inspired by Matilda.” 

Maylei, another one of our facilitators also mimicked things around her as she learned her craft. “As a child I was always drawing and found myself copying from Snoopy and Garfield comic books. I self taught myself how to draw realistically from technical drawing books and practised with objects that were around me. I have found that learning techniques are important, but as artists we can learn to break all the rules to find new ways to be creative.”

Beginning with out-and-out copying helps fuel creativity: young artists and writers learn their craft as they copy from artists and writers they admire. They start to understand what they like and don’t like, and learn to make creative choices according to their tastes and preferences. When creating stories, one of the best places to start is to borrow your favourite elements from your favourite writers. At 100 Story Building, we teach students and teachers that any idea is a good idea - even if it has been 'creatively borrowed' from another book/story/TV show/video game. The trick is encouraging young writers to adapt those ideas and make them their own…

This is a story created by a class in a recent workshop. It features a main character called Drogon…

Now, Drogon also has a name that might sound familiar to anyone who knows a certain Khaleesi from 'Game of Thrones'...But in the end, there’s not much of a resemblance. By asking the students questions about their version of Drogon, they were able to flesh out the character and develop a story that was wholly original. 

But we had to start somewhere, and copying was the best way to do it. In the end, this group of young writers took Drogon on a perilous quest to Sheep Island, via a skull-infested ocean, and added weapons-grade hand sanitiser to their story (don't remember any of those being in 'Game of Thrones!'). On a second or third draft, they might even choose to change Drogon’s name, or add something else to the character to make them entirely different.

Coming up with characters for your story is hard, and children feel just as vulnerable as adults when facing the tyranny of the blank page. We encourage young writers to collect their ideas from wherever they like - as long as they add their own ideas, too (otherwise George R. R. Martin might come knocking!). 

Our Early Harvest Co-ordinator and facilitator Brendan says that collecting and borrowing ideas from other artists has always been central to his arts practice: 

“In my creative practice as a graphic designer, I try to keep and capture any images, posters, or designs that jump out at me - I have a folder on my computer called 'inspiration file' where I save them all. Then, when I'm working on a new project, I often flick through the folder and let the images wash over me...keeping an eye out for techniques or design elements that suit the vibe of whatever I'm creating. I might borrow little ideas from three or four images and remix them all to create a final product. It's so helpful to have a stockpile of starting points to work from, in part because using pre-existing material can help me narrow down and understand the look and feel that best suits the brief!”

Instead of shutting down students’ ideas because they borrow too closely from other sources, try encouraging them to collect inspiration. Perhaps they could have their own ‘insipiration folder’ (Writer’s Notebooks are great for this!), or you could build time into your writing sessions to actively talk about which writers and illustrators students admire, and why.

‘Creative borrowing’ is a great strategy for getting a project started: in subsequent drafts, you can encourage students to make changes to their borrowed elements so that they can take full control of their own creativity, and make creative decisions that are unique to them. It also helps develop a sense of creative safety, allowing students to test out ideas in the confidence that they won’t be ridiculed or called-out for ideas being ‘borrowed.’ It’s all about finding a starting place, so that students can make changes and develop their own styles. As Maylei says: “Great artists are creative and find new ways to make art and tell stories. I would encourage all children and young people to be brave and to try to find new unique ways to tell stories.”

Want to help your students understand the importance of ‘creative borrowing’? Visit our School & Teacher programs page to learn more about our school workshops or ask us about booking a Professional Learning workshop for your school.