Have an idea to share? Limit yourself.

There are a handful of scenes in the movie Tick Tick Boom that have played in my head ever since I first saw it.

Tick Tick Boom is a musical by Jonathan Larson, the late writer of the hit musical Rent. The three-person show was recently made into a movie, directed by Lin Manuel Miranda, and is simultaneously a dramatic showing of the musical and a biopic of sorts of Larson's life.

Larson has a workshop of his first musical, Superbia, in a few days. He's in a planning meeting with Ira, the producer who's hosting the workshop at Playwrights Horizons. Ira pleads with him: there's one song in the second act that's missing.

Larson feigns nonchalance. "Maybe the show doesn't need it."

"You do need it," Ira shoots back.

"I dunno," Larson says. "I wrote a song about sugar this morning. Took me an hour."

"Why would you do that?"

"It's an exercise. I like to see if I can write a song about anything. Sugar! She's refined, for a small price, she blows my mind!"

"How about you write the song for your show? Rehearsals start Monday."

Creative limitations

As a creative person, I'm a big fan of constraints.

Yes, you read that right! Constraints, when used well, can be the catalyst for some of our best creative output.

One of my favorite assignments from my time studying composition with the late jazz composer Fred Ho was the first one he gave me. "Write 50 2, 3, or 4 measure ostinato bass lines, all starting on the low E of the bass."

I did as I was told. 50? That seems excessive, I thought. But I wasn't about to say no to my teacher, who only took a few private students at a time. I struggled at first, and then I got into a groove, and turned in my assignments.

"Great," he said. "Now give me 50 more, but this time they all have to be in odd meters."

It's been almost 10 years since my first lesson, and I still go back to my book of 100 basslines when I'm stuck on a composition. In fact, one of them made their way into my musical, Absolute Zero. You can hear the bass line here - with thanks to The York Theatre Company for having Dorie Clark and me to share a little bit of the musical last year.

This assignment was so effective because it placed artificial limitations on my creativity. My bass lines all had to start on the same note, and they all had to be under a certain number of beats, and they had to be repeatable (a feature of the ostinato).

With his exercise, Larson does something similar: he gives himself a random object to write a song about. In doing that, he gives himself a creative challenge.

What speakers can learn from PechaKucha

The same principle applies for speakers. I worked with Rosemary Ravinal ?? on her talk last year (which now has over 100k views!), and was fascinated when she told me about PechaKucha, the storytelling format that uses 20 slides that are displayed for 20 seconds each.

Talk about constraints! I was fascinated, and had to watch Rosemary's PechaKucha talk. Her talk on gratitude works seamlessly: try watching it as if you had no idea that the slides change automatically every 20 seconds. Rosemary's talk is cohesive, and doesn't feel rushed as it progresses naturally through a few anecdotes and leaves the audience with five dimensions of gratitude to consider.

But the real genius of a great PechaKucha talk is how Rosemary uses the constraint to tell an effective story. She opens with an anecdote: she's 6 years old in Cuba, and the ice cream man gives her change for a peso. And her mother says: "Did you say gracias?"

Rosemary's story must take 20 seconds or less, because of the PechaKucha format. But her story, it turns out, only needs that long. We feel her joy as a six year old about to enjoy her ice cream, receiving a shiny coin, and showing her mother with pride. Because of the constraint, she's chosen a story that only takes 20 seconds to tell, and it's one where we can immediately put ourselves in the 6-year-old's shoes. It's a story, that only needs 20 seconds - and from there, we'll listen to whatever Rosemary has to say next.

What would you say if you only had 20 seconds?

When a speaker asks me how long they should speak for, my official answer is: only speak for as long as you need to.

What that means is: no extraneous details in your stories, no side tangents that will confuse your audience. Rosemary's PechaKucha story is a perfect example: it doesn't matter what flavor ice cream she had, or whether the ice cream vendor was in a store, or in a truck, or at a cart on the street. She sticks to the details that matter: the coin she received, the pride she felt, and her mother's prompting to say gracias.

So, as you work on your storytelling, try this exercise: what if your story had to be 1 minute? How about 45 seconds? How about 20 seconds? What details would you need to include? What could you leave out?

There's a saying in the creative arts: Come late and leave early. The heart of the story is best told when you come to the story as late as possible - when the action's already happening - and leave either as soon as it ends or before it's over. Imagine if Rosemary started the story at home, with her mother saying get ready, we're going for ice cream! And included the thought process of her choosing which flavor she wanted. We'd lose the thread of why she's telling the story, because those details don't matter to the takeaway.

As you write your speech, be judicious about cutting those extraneous details. The art of creating a cohesive talk is in the edit.

So, did Jonathan Larson ever write that song?

Back to Tick Tick Boom. Relevant to the story: it's set in 1990, in the era of answering machines and before all the payphones on the street went away.

It's the night before the workshop, and Larson is hunched over his piano, a worried expression on his face, writing furiously. His girlfriend Susan calls, and he lets the machine pick up. Susan leaves a message: she can see that he's home as she's at the payphone across the street. She comes up, and they argue (she's been feeling neglected for many reasons) and they break up.

Larson uses this as fuel to get to work: he cleans his apartment, which has been also been neglected in the push to get ready for the workshop. Just as he sits at his piano again, the lights go out. Of course - he didn't pay his electric bill either.

Larson heads to the gym and swims, using the rhythmic movement to quiet his mind and finally - with less than 12 hours until the start of the workshop the next morning - write the song. He scribbles it by hand onto manuscript paper and hands the original to the singer the next morning. The workshop is a success, and the song is one of the best parts of it.

Larson is employing another constraint: the deadline. So many of us are procrastinators because our brains need the time limitation in order to work on a creative idea.

I'd love to help you take your big swing! Let's get your big idea on stage. Book a time to talk with me.