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THINK THUNDER! AND UNLEASH YOUR CREATIVITY Thomas A. Easton, Ph.D. Box 805, RFD 2 Belfast, ME 04915 (207) 338-1074 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Thomas A. Easton holds a doctorate in theoretical biology from the University of Chicago and teaches at Thomas College, a Maine business school. His work on scientific and futuristic issues has appeared in many magazines, from ROAD TEST and ROBOTICS AGE to CONSUMER REPORTS, and he is frequently quoted by the media, here and abroad. His short stories and poems have also appeared widely. Dr. Easton is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America and a well-known science fiction critic, with a monthly book review column in the magazine ANALOG. He has written one book and a number of articles on writing, two books on careers in science, and books on the privatization of social services, entrepreneurs, and consultants, among others. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: USING THUNDER THOUGHT CHAPTER 2: WHAT IS CREATIVITY? CHAPTER 3: CREATIVITY BLOCKS CHAPTER 4: BRAINSTORMING CHAPTER 5: COMPUTER-AIDED BRAINSTORMING CHAPTER 6: EDITING: CREATING BY DESTROYING CHAPTER 7: ELABORATING: CREATING BY DECORATING CHAPTER 8: SEEDING THE MUSE CHAPTER 9: WRITING COMPUTER-CATALYZED POETRY THUNDER THOUGHT: PROGRAM SOURCE CODE The source code for the THUNDER THOUGHT program is available for IBM-compatible personal computers in two forms. The source code for the program as you see it accompanying this book is written in CLIPPER (Summer 1987 release). A shorter, more limited version is available in BASIC. Registered users of THUNDER THOUGHT may obtain either or both by sending a blank disk in a rigid mailer, with sufficient return postage, to: R.K. West Consulting P.O. Box 8059 Mission Hills, CA 91346 The source code will be necessary for anyone who wishes to adapt THUNDER THOUGHT to non-MS-DOS computers such as the Apple II and Macintosh. Information on becoming a registered user is included elsewhere in this documentation. ------------------------------------------ This is the first of nine chapters of THINK THUNDER! AND UNLEASH YOUR CREATIVITY Copyright (c) 1989 by Thomas A. Easton ------------------------------------------ CHAPTER 1: USING THUNDER THOUGHT THUNDER THOUGHT is not an outlining program. It is not a think tank program. It is computer-aided brainstorming, and it facilitates the creative process by automating its initial stages. With it, you need no longer worry about how to come up with novel combinations of words, images, or ideas. THUNDER THOUGHT will do that for you, leaving you with the task of finding or recognizing sense in whatever combinations of words and ideas it produces. In essence, THUNDER THOUGHT works by throwing dice. You give it a vocabulary of up to 800 words or short phrases by filling in four lists of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. When you then ask it to help you brainstorm, it picks words AT RANDOM from the appropriate word lists and plugs them into fill-in-the-blank sentences. How can such a process possibly generate sensible sentences? YOU provide the vocabulary, generally to go with a specific, defined topic, and random choices from such restricted sets of words can easily seem nonrandom, especially when those choices are arranged to look like sentences. In addition, the human mind has a way of imposing order on disorder, in the process exposing thinking that is going on beneath the surface. This is the key to psychological tests such as the ink-blots so beloved of psychiatrists. Like the ink-blots, THUNDER THOUGHT gives your subconscious a chance to work, and that is the secret. Do you still need convincing? Then let's try the program out. GETTING READY If your computer does not have a hard disk: Whenever you use the THUNDER THOUGHT program, you could put your DOS disk in drive A, start up your computer, replace the DOS disk with the program disk, and at the 'A>' prompt type 'THUNDER'. Or you could start up with the DOS disk in drive A, put the program disk in drive B, at the 'A>' prompt type 'B:', and then at the 'B>' prompt type 'THUNDER'. Either option will quickly become a drag if you use the program often. Before you use the program for the first time, you should therefore set it up to simplify using it in the future. Begin by preparing a self-booting disk. To do so, first turn on your computer with the DOS disk in drive A. When you see the 'A>' prompt, put a blank disk in drive B and type 'FORMAT B:/S'. This turns the blank disk into a system disk--that is, it has on it the file 'COMMAND.COM'. When the 'A>' prompt reappears, replace the DOS disk in drive A with the THUNDER THOUGHT program disk and type 'COPY *.* B:' to copy the THUNDER THOUGHT program, 'THUNDER.EXE,' and its data files (the lists of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) onto the "working disk" in drive B. (If you do not have the data files, see the last section of this chapter.) Because the working disk in drive B is a system disk, you can now use it in drive A to turn on your computer. Do so, just to see that it works. Remove all floppy disks from your machine's disk drives, turn the machine off, wait a moment, turn it on again, and put the working disk you have prepared in drive A. Did the 'A>' prompt appear as it should? Fine. Now, if you wish the program to turn on automatically when you boot up using this disk, type 'COPY CON AUTOEXEC.BAT', press <ENTER>, type 'THUNDER', press <ENTER>, press the F6 key, and press <ENTER> again. You have now added to the working disk the file 'AUTOEXEC.BAT'; it tells the computer to load and run the THUNDER THOUGHT program. You may, of course, issue the same instruction yourself. If your computer is already on, just put the working disk in drive A and type 'THUNDER'. However, before you use this working disk, you should prepare a backup copy; prepare a second disk with 'FORMAT B:/S', put your working disk in drive A, and copy it with 'COPY *.* B:'. If your computer has a hard disk: Set up a directory for THUNDER THOUGHT this way: Starting from the 'C>' prompt, type the command 'MKDIR THUNDER' and press <ENTER>. You have created a disk directory named THUNDER. Now, with the program disk in drive A, type 'COPY A:*.*\THUNDER'. All the files from the program disk will be copied to the new directory. When the 'C>' prompt reappears, type 'COPY CON THUNDER.BAT', press <ENTER>, type 'CD\THUNDER', press <ENTER>, type 'THUNDER', press <ENTER>, then press the F6 key and press <ENTER> again. You have now created a batch file that tells the computer to switch to the THUNDER directory and run the THUNDER THOUGHT program. Whenever you turn on your computer, you can just type 'THUNDER' at the 'C>' prompt and press <ENTER> to use the program. STARTING UP The first time you run THUNDER THOUGHT, the program will ask you whether you are using a monographic or a color monitor. Answer appropriately, and the next thing you see will be the title screen. Press <ENTER>, and you will see the initial or main menu: 1. ADD/EDIT VOCABULARY 2. NARRATIVE BRAINSTORM 3. TOPICAL BRAINSTORM 4. CHAIN LIGHTNING 5. POETRY 6. IMAGES 7. FREE ASSOCIATION 8. UTILITIES X. EXIT Throughout the program, pressing the <ESC> key will return you either to this menu or to the sub-menu controlling the options listed here. The <F1> key will call up "Help" scrrens with information appro- priate to the context. Option #1 on this menu allows you to give the program nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that are related to whatever topic you wish to brainstorm about. Each word list will hold 200 words or short phrases, but don't worry about replacing every word with topic-specific vocabulary. The point of brainstorming is to create novel combinations of words, images, and ideas, and you encourage novelty if you let the vocabulary for this week's project mix with that for last week's project. When you choose this option, either by typing '1' and <ENTER> or by using the arrow keys to move the highlight bar over the selection and then pressing <ENTER>, you will see a prompt: WORK WITH <N>OUNS, <V>ERBS, <A>DJECTIVES, OR A<D>VERBS? Pick your category and press the appropriate key. The screen will display, numbered, the words currently in that word list (up to the capacity of the screen) and ask you: <M>ORE, <A>DD, <D>ELETE, <E>DIT, E<X>IT Typing M displays another screenful of words on the list (until you have exhausted the list). Typing A allows you to add words to the list. Typing D allows you to remove words. Typing E allows you to replace words or correct spellings. Typing X returns you to the main menu. Option #2 on the initial menu offers you a NARRATIVE BRAINSTORM. If you choose this option, the program will display the following menu: NARRATIVE BRAINSTORMING 1. BRAINSTORM ONE SENTENCE AT A TIME 2. BRAINSTORM ONE PARAGRAPH AT A TIME 3. BRAINSTORM AN ENDLESS STREAM OF PARAGRAPHS X. EXIT TO MAIN MENU If you make the first choice, the program displays a list of eight sentence frameworks (such as: "We <VERB> the <NOUN> of an <ADJECTIVE> <NOUN> from an <ADJECTIVE> <NOUN>") and asks you to pick one. Once you have done so, it picks words at random from the word lists to fill in the </> blanks, records the result in file 'NARR,' and offers you a chance to do another or to quit. You can get at 'NARR' later on via the UTILITIES option (#8) on the main menu or with your word processor to clean up the grammar and reshape the sentence more to your liking. The second choice on the narrative brainstorm menu causes the program to pick six sentence frames at random, fill them in, and save them in 'NARR'. The third choice simply causes the program to repeat the second over and over, until you press the <ESC> key. In each case, the program saves its results in 'NARR.' You may then work on them as indicated in the previous paragraph. Narrative brainstorms are interesting, but because they are wholly random, they can be baffling. You may get more useful results from the third option on THUNDER THOUGHT's initial menu, which offers TOPICAL BRAINSTORMs. A topical brainstorm is only semi-random, for it allows you to exert some control over the program's choice of words. When you choose initial Option #3, for the TOPICAL BRAINSTORM, the program immediately asks you: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BRAINSTORM ABOUT? That is, it asks you to name a topic, typing in a word or phrase that the program can then plug into sentence frames as if it were a noun. If you type in nothing but <ENTER>, you return immediately to the main menu. Once you have named your topic, the program picks six possible "lightning rods" at random, displays them, and asks you to choose one. A "lightning rod" is simply a noun. We call it a lightning rod because its function here is to attract the lightning of inspiration that is the goal of brainstorming. Once you have named both topic and lightning rod, the program picks six possible "lightning bolts," displays them, and asks you to choose one. As you might expect, a "lightning bolt" is an action word, a verb, whose function is to link topic and lightning rod in a brainstorm. Once you have picked your lightning bolt, the program displays topic, rod, and bolt, picks a sentence frame at random, draws words from the word lists to fill in the blanks in the sentence frame, and displays the result: a topical brainstorm. Below the brainstorm, the program lists a new set of options: 1. SAVE THE BRAINSTORM 2. TRY AGAIN WITH THE SAME TOPIC, LIGHTNING ROD, AND LIGHTNING BOLT 3. TRY AGAIN WITH THE SAME TOPIC BUT A NEW ROD AND NEW BOLT 4. TRY AGAIN WITH A NEW TOPIC X. EXIT The first choice saves the brainstorm in the text file 'TOPIC.' The second keeps the same topic, lightning rod, and lightning bolt but selects a new sentence frame and new words to fill in its blanks. The third offers you new lists of six lightning rods and six lightning bolts; when you have chosen, the program picks a sentence frame and fills in its blanks. The fourth allows you to start over by specifying a new topic. The last returns you to the main menu. You will be astonished by how much sense a topical brainstorm can make, at least until you pause to reflect that you have, after all, picked three of the major words in the sentence. The random component is much less than in the narrative brainstorm. However, that random component is enough to produce the novel combinations of words, images, and ideas that are the point of brainstorming. Some of the novelty enters the process when you are forced to choose from just six nouns and six verbs, all randomly picked, to go with your topic. More comes in when the program fleshes out the brainstorm sentences. When you choose Option #4 on the main menu, you can try CHAIN LIGHTNING brainstorming. Once more, the program first asks you: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BRAINSTORM ABOUT? That is, as with topical brainstorming, it asks you to name a topic, typing in a word or phrase that the program can then plug into sentence frames as if it were a noun. If you type in nothing but <ENTER>, you return immediately to the main menu. Once you have named a topic, the program offers you a list of six nouns. Pick one. It then links the noun you chose to your topic to form a "guided free association" chain. By answering the prompts, you may continue to add links to the chain (although you should stop before the chain reaches 256 characters--about three screen lines--in length). Whenever you end the chain, the program offers you the choice of saving the result in file 'CHAIN' or of trying again. You may find the "chain lightning" brainstorm even more astonishing than the sentence-format topical brainstorm. The chain you forge link by link is similar to the chain of free associations one makes on a psychiatrist's couch, and it can take you in strange directions indeed. Randomness remains only in the choice of possible links the program offers you. All else, from the initial specification of the program's vocabulary to your choice of specific links, lies in the workings of your mind. Option #5 on the main menu, POETRY, is a variant of the "narrative brainstorm" approach. Choose it, and the program asks you to specify a number of lines of "poetry" to generate. It then generates precisely that many sentences, using sentence frameworks constructed to seem a little more poetic than those for "narrative brainstorms." It saves the results in file 'POEMS.' When you pick Option #6, IMAGES, the program generates twenty adjective-noun, verb-noun, and adverb-verb-noun combinations and saves them in file 'IMAGE.' Pressing <ENTER> then returns you to the main menu. When you pick Option #7, FREE ASSOCIATION, the program offers you a noun chosen randomly from the noun list. It then asks you to type in a response (a free association) and repeats the process. After the first few rounds, you will notice that some of your own responses are being echoed back to you for further response. This allows you to create a chain of related responses. At any time during this process, you can view and edit the word pairs on screen by pressing the F10 key. You may quit at any time by leaving a response blank. The word pairs are saved in the file 'FREE.' Option #8, UTILITIES, is a list of several "management" actions you may take. Choose it, and the program will display the following menu: UTILITIES 1. SCREEN COLORS 2. DELETE ALL NOUNS 3. DELETE ALL VERBS 4. DELETE ALL ADJECTIVES 5. DELETE ALL ADVERBS 6. READ/EDIT A FILE 7. PRINT A FILE 8. DELETE A FILE X. EXIT Option #1 allows you to specify the screen colors used by your monitor, if that monitor is a color monitor and you told the program so when you first turned it on. Options 2-5 do precisely what they suggest. The "files" of Options 6-8 are the text files generated by the program as you use it ('NARR,' 'TOPIC,' 'CHAIN,' 'POEMS,' 'FREE,' and 'IMAGE'). Choice #6 allows you to look at and change one of these files without having to exit the program, though you may well prefer to use your word processor. Because extremely large files can be awkward to handle, THUNDER THOUGHT will rename files that have become too large by adding numbers to their names ('NARR1', NARR2', etc.). The current file is always the one with the base name; past files are numbered sequentially. Option X returns you to the main menu. You still have one option left on the main menu. Option X. EXIT is obvious: It drops you out of the program to the 'A>' prompt. (The same choice elsewhere in the program, as on the UTILITIES menu, returns you to the main menu.) NOW FOR THE HARD PART Many people find it very difficult to loosen up their heads enough to generate new ideas. If you are one of these people, you can now rest easy, for THUNDER THOUGHT takes care of that hard job. But THUNDER THOUGHT leaves another hard job for you. Like the program, creative people generate new ideas by the dozens and hundreds. But they don't shout "AHA!" for every notion that pops into--or out of--their heads. Most notions they throw away immediately, and the hardest part of real creativity is the ability to spot a good idea when you get one. And that is something THUNDER THOUGHT cannot help you with. When you have used the program for awhile and saved a number of brainstorms, lines of poetry, or images, you should put THUNDER THOUGHT away. Boot up your word-processor instead, and use it to look at all the brainstorms in the text files ('NARR,' 'TOPIC,' 'CHAIN,' 'POEMS,' 'FREE,' and 'IMAGE'). Ask yourself, as you stare at each brainstorm, "How can this possibly make sense? How can I MAKE it make sense?" Throw away the obvious baloney. Clean up the rest by adjusting the grammar, adding or subtracting words, and otherwise fiddling. Before long, you will find some very clear statements, images, or suggestions emerging. Some will be trivial. A few will strike you as pretty nifty ideas, and those are the ones you want to keep and turn into poems, stories, papers, projects, and so on. Good luck, and have fun. YOU SAY THE PROGRAM WON'T WORK? You are most likely to run into trouble with THUNDER THOUGHT because you just can't get past the random nonsense the program generates. You tell yourself that it looks like garbage, it IS garbage, and the hell with it! In this case, there is no help for you. Give the program to someone else. If you have more tolerance for the ambiguity of randomly generated sentences, you are most likely to run into trouble with the program because you have somehow lost or mislaid the data files containing your word lists. If you can't find them in a different directory or on a different floppy disk, you must now tell the program to create those files for you. Fortunately, it's easy. The program itself will tell you it can't function, remind you to look for the missing files, and ask for your go-ahead to create them. Just answer the prompt. You will then have the four necessary word lists. To make the program work properly, however, you will have to use the vocabulary input function to build the lists up to useful size (see Option #1 on the main menu). Experience will tell you just how big "useful size" is; you may be happy with as few as 50 or 60 words, or you may prefer over 100. ------------------------------------------------------------- Press <ESC> to exit this chapter and BROWSE the next chapter. ------------------------------------------------------------- Complete book and software available from R.K. West Consulting P.O. Box 8059, Mission Hills, CA 91346.