Perfection is unoriginal anyway
Why we should all be more Mitski.
I’ve been listening to Mistki recently. Her lyrics are poetic and honest, which is one of the reasons I adore her music, but another reason is how Mitski seems very content to do her own thing.
I don’t think there’s a single Mitski song that goes where you think it’s going to go. Often, it seems like her vocals are following a different rhythm, sometimes at odds with the beat itself, her voice forging its own tributary from the ceaseless river of the melody. However, this near discordance always works. I’m not sure how she pulls it off.
As a result, Mitski’s music has a raw quality, this feeling like the music is the equivalent of stream of consciousness in writing, like it’s been pulled from her.
Listening recently to Laurel Hell got me thinking about playing with form and genre in writing. When writing a novel, there is so much advice out there, so much information on structure and beats and plot points. Save the Cat springs to mind as an obvious example - apparently, if you plot your novel to the Save the Cat beat sheet, you’ve got the perfect story, a guaranteed bestseller. I subscribed to that idea for a while, trying to wrestle the story in my head to fit the plot points outlined to me. However, the story always ended up feeling stilted, its flow lost.
I do think structure in storytelling is important. It does work, hence why we’ve been telling our stories in similar structures for centuries (just ask the Ancient Greek playwrights). However, I don’t think there’s one way to tell a story, just like there’s not one way to write a song. We know you probably need a chorus and a verse or two, and a bridge goes down well, but if every song subscribed to the exact same structure and order, it would all be very boring listening. We should be able to play with that structure, to cut and paste to suit the story or mood.
Yet playing with structure is a risk. There will be people who hate Mitski’s music, likely because it does feel discordant to them. And it’s just the same for writing - there will be people who hate particular novels or short stories because the author has fiddled with the structure, moved away from the norm of three acts or let an unreliable narrator mess with the pace.
Story structures like Save the Cat aim to help you plot the perfect, satisfying story. They aim to hook the reader at opportune moments, to give the story a sense of rightness, a manufactured flow. Their goal is to keep your story watertight, free of cracks, and therefore free of criticism. In short, you’re shooting for perfection.
Yet we wield ‘formulaic’ as a sword of criticism in both music and literature. It’s often aimed at pop music - the clue is in the name, ‘popular music’, the kind of music that is supposed to appeal to the largest audience. And whilst I love a pop song, it’s often the kind of music that makes you feel the least - or rather, it only makes you feel blindly, vaguely happy, but nothing more.
In literature, ‘formulaic’ is often aimed as a barb at genres like crime and romance. These are generally genres that aim for some degree of perfection in the sense that they’re looking to portray the perfect love story, or have the satisfying reveal of the perpetrator and their downfall. We tend to read these genres with a particular goal in mind, and so these genres lend themselves to a need for structure, for a winning formula. There are many other aspects of these stories you can play with, but people tend to like the same thing, hence the creation of tropes like enemies to lovers, or the detective with a chip on their shoulder. These tropes aim to satisfy, to hook, to guarantee enjoyment. But they also take away a good chunk of suspense and surprise of play.
My question is: is perfection code for unoriginal? Can perfection and originality go hand in hand? To be original, we must mess with the formula, head off the beaten track, forge a new path. We must do something different. But when we do this, we run the risk of causing dissatisfaction, of alienating.
Are we stifling ourselves then by seeking perfection? By fitting our creative work into a mould, are we unwilling to accept imagination, or to try new things? And, by extension, are we unwilling to accept failure?
But there are no original ideas. Everything creative has likely been done before. So then what is originality? It leads me back to Mitski. Originality, to me, is simply dancing to your own beat. It’s doing what’s true to you. It’s not trying to force your creativity into a box. Structure and formula are brilliant, but it’s about finding the one that works for you, for the story you’re trying to tell. That might mean tweaking that structure, moulding it to suit your vision.
Is it better to aim for perfection at the expense of originality, of imagination? Or is it better to aim for originality at the expense of perfection, of being liked?
I lean towards the latter. I’ve spent years stifling my creativity in pursuit of perfection. If I was aiming for perfection with this newsletter, it simply wouldn’t exist. That’s why it’s all about half-baked arguments and unfinished thoughts - the mumblings and musings. It’s okay for things to be unfinished, to be messy, to not quite tie up at the end. I used to hate stories that had ambiguous endings, that didn’t gather all the threads and tie them into a neat bow. I appreciate that much more as an adult now. It leaves space to study the story afterwards, to ruminate over it and come to your own conclusions. Once a novel or song is out in the world, it is up to the consumer to make of that piece what they will. The creator can say ‘this was my intention’, but they cannot force the consumer to feel the same. And that’s the beauty of it all.
In an interview with The Guardian, the journalist asks Mitski if the themes of romantic betrayal in the track Should’ve Been Me happened to her.
‘Has she been betrayed in this way? She makes an exaggerated shrug. “I’m not going to say.”
‘Perhaps I am behaving like that audience, too determined to get a piece of her pain. She is polite as she draws boundaries around her romantic history.’
In Mitski’s drive for authenticity, for creativity, for truth, she opens herself up to questioning. We don’t question the intent of the formulaic pop song because its intent is clear - to entertain. Vulnerability invites discourse, and I can understand why in our current culture discourse isn’t always welcome. Online, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and some of these can be especially cutting. So it’s not for us to begrudge anyone who sticks to the formula - I do, all the time, and that’s fine. Creation is creation and should be celebrated, if at the very least just by yourself. But if we want connection, both externally with readers and internally with ourselves, we must be vulnerable. And is that not why creators send their work out into the world - for connection?
I no longer plan to aim for perfection in my work, only ‘good enough’. Or maybe not even ‘good enough’. Perhaps all I’ll aim for is honesty. Is it honest, is it true to me, is it what I wanted to say? If I can answer ‘yes’ to these, then I think that’s the only thing that matters.
Thanks for reading! I really appreciate everyone who has subscribed and supported so far. If you know anyone who you think might enjoy this newsletter on all things imperfection, creativity and wellbeing, please do let them know!
Equally, I’m open to collaborations and contributions, so if you have an idea on imperfection, or even an imperfect idea, drop me a message in the comments.