Tag: CreativeProcess
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Animation Production: Another Form of Storytelling
When people hear the word storytelling, they usually picture writers, artists, or directors—the folks inventing characters, crafting dialogue, or designing the worlds we fall in love with on screen. But after years working in animation, I’ve come to believe something that might surprise people: production itself is another kind of storytelling. It’s not about writing…
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Story Seeds: How Tiny Emotional Moments Grow into Epic Worlds
Big worlds don’t start big. They start with a feeling.A small, human truth.A flicker of emotion that roots itself quietly — and grows. In storytelling, the most unforgettable worlds aren’t built on spectacle alone.They are planted, nurtured, and expanded from tiny moments that hold something real. Small Emotions, Big Foundations Before there was Middle-earth, there…
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The Invisible Thread: Why Character Psychology Shapes Every Great Story
Some stories stay with us not because of what happened, but because of how they made us feel.Plot might set events into motion. But emotional truth — the felt, living experience of a character — is what binds us to a story long after the final page turns or the credits roll. So how do…
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Creative Resilience: How Storytelling Teaches Us to Navigate Change
Maybe you’ve felt it too: the sense that change isn’t just seasonal anymore — it’s become the very air we breathe. In a world that shifts beneath our feet, resilience isn’t just a survival skill; it’s a creative one. The best of stories all model resilience: characters face obstacles, reframe their challenges, and emerge changed…
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The Craftsman and the Artist: Holding Both Halves of the Creative Self
There’s a tension many of us carry as creatives—quiet, persistent, and often unspoken. On one side is the artist: intuitive, untamed, guided by feeling, willing to break the rules for the sake of meaning.On the other is the craftsman: disciplined, precise, focused on mastery, structure, and doing things well. For a long time, I didn’t…
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A Compass for Creative Work: Lessons from Covey’s 7 Habits
This post is part of a short series on the creative books that have shaped how I think about storytelling, structure, and collaboration—especially in animation. These aren’t reviews, but reflections on the tools and truths I’ve carried into my work. There’s a certain kind of resistance many creative people feel when handed a bestselling self-help…
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The Visual Key: How Bruce Block Unlocked My Storytelling Structure
This post is part of a short series on the creative books that have shaped how I think about storytelling, structure, and collaboration—especially in animation. These aren’t reviews, but reflections on the tools and truths I’ve carried into my work. I discovered Bruce Block’s The Visual Story during my thesis research in grad school, and…
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Solitude and the Shape of Creative Trust
This post is part of a short series on the creative books that have shaped how I think about storytelling, structure, and collaboration—especially in animation. These aren’t reviews, but reflections on the tools and truths I’ve carried into my work. There’s a quote from Krishnamurti that’s stayed with me: “The moment you follow someone you…
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How Storytelling Helps Me Find Comfort, Process Uncertainty, and Believe in What Comes Next
There are days when the world feels unrelenting. The headlines blur together—climate disasters, politics, violence, uncertainty stacked on uncertainty—and the sense of helplessness creeps in before we can stop it. Even on quiet days, it’s there, humming under the surface. That low-level heaviness. That ache of trying to keep up, stay informed, be “on” all…
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The Power of Narrative: Why We’re Wired for Story
There was a time in my life when I was surrounded by stories—shelving them, recommending them, researching them, watching them fly off the shelves. From 2001 to 2009, I worked in bookstores in various roles—researcher, children’s expert, section lead—and in that time, I was able to wander through thousands of narratives, exploring at my own…
Christy Heyob | Building Worlds, Stories & Creative Teams 