Blogger: Rachel Zurakowski
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Traveling abroad has always been portrayed in literature as a way to refinement. When I think of the dream of traveling to foreign lands, I can’t help but think of Jo from Little Women and her wish to travel. My interest in traveling to other countries was piqued this week because one of my clients is considering a three-month trip to Italy. According to the article I found for today, written by Audrey Hamilton from the APA, traveling abroad might actually boost creativity! So this might be one more reason for my client to make that trip.
The article covers many experiments done by Dr. Adam Galinsky, PhD, and his team, (I encourage you to check out the article to read about the various experiments), but the one I found most relevant to writing is the following:
Two groups of students were told to write an essay as a priming technique for the experiment. One group was instructed to write about their experience traveling abroad; the other group was instructed to write about something mundane, like a trip to the grocery store. After the “priming,” the two groups were asked to perform tasks like drawing an alien or solving word puzzles. The groups were monitored during these experiments, and the research team determined that those who had written about their experience abroad were more creative in their execution of the tasks.
None of the experiments measuring creativity in this study measured creativity specifically in writing, but I would love to see a study where they had a group of students who are currently abroad write an essay on a mundane topic and a group of students at home write about the same topic with impartial graders judging creativity between the two groups. The results would be interesting for sure!
Have you ever spent time abroad? Did you write and/or feel more creative while you were there?
What in your experience might either prove or disprove this experiment’s finding?
I’ve taken a handful of trips abroad and experienced high levels of creativity. There’s something about it that heightens the senses. Everything is so new, and the only way to process it is through some creative release. Fascinating study!
Ah, another reason to plan a trip to Europe!
I’ve never been abroad…this summer I am going to spend a couple weeks in England and Paris. . . so we’ll see what that does to the creative juices, huh? I bet it’ll stir something. 🙂
Thanks for the post!
I’ve written up my stories about major trips abroad–China, New Zealand, and a coming-of-age story about the summer my mother took us camping through Europe. I then hand them out to the other participants and have passed them on to friends who are planning similar trips. It’s been wonderful to relive the experience.
But then, I love travel memoirs.
It’s easy to dream up story lines, too, when everything is unfamiliar. Because, you could be just about anybody . . . 🙂
When I travel abroad, I know that I practice a higher level of alertness. The excitment of new places and faces, new tastes, new sounds – they’re all great ways to turn on the brain cells.
Sue Harrison
I agree. In a new environment, observations are fresh. Exposure to foreign speech, too, opens up new opportunities for communication as they use words that we might not, or use them differently.
An example: We had the opportunity to live in Germany for four years. During that time, our dog got loose in our neighbor’s prized garden. In apologizing, my husband remarked that the dog was an air-head. He translated it literally, and our neighbor stared at him blankly while he worked out the meaning, then burst out laughing. “Air where the brains go!” Then he informed us that they would say, “She has a bird”–nesting straw, I guess, something akin to “bats in the belfry.” 🙂
We lived in the Middle East for five years (1981-83 and 1988-1990), including being kicked out of Kuwait by Sadaam Hussein. Our kids were toddlers then early elementary. I have not been able to work those into much writing. However, I have a novel planned based on our China trip in 1983. I have to finish the novel I’m working on (or not working on) before getting to that one. I also worked in a scene from Saudi Arabia into my completed novel.
I have not been abroad since the writing bug bit me, so any creativity resulting therefrom must come from memory and trip diaries.
Travel challenges all our preconceptions, which naturally leads to a period of re-ordering our universe. It tells us as much about the homeland we left as the destination we are visiting. That can only lead to creativity. However, any scientific study of the subject needs to account for the possibility that travel tends to separate the stay-at-homes from those who have both the desire to experience something mind-changing and the gumption to pull it off. When one of my students in China observed that all Americans loved to travel, I had to point out that the sampling of Americans she had met in China were only there because they loved to travel. Her sample was skewed. I think travel fosters creativity, but creativity also fosters travel.
The taste of a Sachertorte, chills up the spine after hiking to an ancient bone house at night with red candles flickering (my character was locked in the bone house), the uncomfortable silence and smell of ash at a concentration camp, or the vivid sounds, colors and changing scents of a street market in Manila…being there makes a huge difference.
Being there shapes every aspect of a novel by providing facts and new stories that shape the plot, giving authenticity to the setting and details, and shaping the characters through place and culture.
If you can go to the place of your novel, do so. It truly does spark creativity. Just be sure to include time to explore as your character and to actually write on site. It’s easy to get caught up in the travel. I remember writing in Salzburg alone with the sound of someone playing a violin. In the Philippines, I wrote above a street with children playing basketball and street vendors calling for customers. Gee, now I’m feeling that wanderlust rise up…. 🙂
I take a journal, laptop or Alpha Smart, tape recorder and camera. And again, for the best in creativity, be sure to write while there.
Very nice post Rachel!
I wonder if any sort of new environments and experiences increase creativity. Do people also become more creative as a result of moving to a new town, joining a different church, or going on a local vacation to a place they’ve never been before? Those things aren’t as different as traveling to another country, but perhaps they have the same effect in a small way.
Thanks for the comments!
Janet Ann, what an interesting idea! I bet that’s true. Any exciting, new experience must inspire creativity in some way. We’ll have to host our own experiment someday to prove it.
I’ll take any excuse to travel! Am sure that creativity is heightened as everything is seen through fresh eyes–almost like being a child again: struggling with languages, native customs and mores. Even the way garbage is set on the curb . . . I think you’re right, Rachel. An experiment is in order. I vote for Tuscany!