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How does 'Randomise' Work?

Randomise has the potential to generate a new direction for creative work.
Taken to its extreme, the Randomise technique is capable of creating the outline structure of a complete creative work.

In Randomise you establish a mix of random ideas and then look for solutions to the combining of these ideas in order to produce useful creative work by asking the questions:

1. What is this mix of ideas trying to tell me?
2. How can these ideas be developed into a creative solution?
3. What new possibilities do these ideas give me for the creative work I am developing?

The mix of ideas created with the Randomise Technique should be viewed as kindling that can be developed into a larger fire of creativity.

The Randomise Technique has the most to offer when the new ideas are given time to develop into something in their own right - which can be then added back to the creative work-in-progress once they have grown into a standalone possible solution for the development of the creative work.

Cultivation Techniques are effective in seeking out new idea mixes from the Randomise Creative Technique.

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Illustration: Randomise

The following passage from The Tailor was developed using the Randomise Technique.

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In this illustration a series of Random Ideas have been mixed together.
The new ideas created from this combination are then applied back to the specific idea being investigated.

The result is a series of points-of-departure from which a section of creative text can be developed.

The Mixology Technique Link-Ups offers an approach to the mixing of random ideas from which points-of-departure are then derived.

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Specific Idea being developed:

This is the decisive disagreement between the two Anjali and Panya.

What happens when the growing breach between the expectations and desires of the two women reaches a breaking point - and begins to splinter?

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Random words:

• Ensure
• Scream
• Continuance
• Catalogue
• Process
• Preparation

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Random phrases:

• Their citizens overthrew the elites who monopolised power
• Pretty well nobody thought this was the source of prosperity

Random quotation:

It comes as a great shock to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance has not pledged allegiance to you.

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Ideas and Concepts derived from the above mix of random ideas:

1. The shock when expectations are shattered.
2. The tendency to want to maintain normality in exceptional circumstances.
3. The catalogue of procedures that we follow in life.
4. At what point does normality become insupportable?
5. People create beliefs and pursue beliefs. Only the future has a real answer. Even belief often transforms into what could have been and what should have been.
6. Continuation is the art of being true to yourself.

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Points-of-departure created from ideas derived from the Randomise Technique:

1. Panya is rooted in preparation and detail.
2. Anjali is rooted in belief and the momentum provided by belief.
3. When Anjali returns from what she believes to have been a successful meeting, Panya is waiting for her.
4. Their two contrasting approaches - and the unshakable belief that each woman has in her view of the world - will structure the scene and their conflict.
5. Panya has a tailor's view of life, and Anjali has developed the view of the designer. They are both following different flags.
6. The difference in outlook of the two women will pervade the metaphors and language used in the scenes.

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Passages from The Tailor derived from the above points-of-departure:

(Panya) had set out on the table the tools that she would need for the work that was required.  This was a set piece, a planned alteration to the way things would be; a careful measure of what needed to happen, with the last minute adjustment completed as she heard Anjali at the rear shop door.

Anjali entered the room as if this were just another off-the-shelf encounter between the women, placing the files she was carrying on the cupboards to the right of the entrance door.  Panya, who had remained seated as that was the pattern to be followed, was shaken by the unexpected normality of Anjali’s approach, and bought herself some time by asking, ‘How did it go?’

‘You are being pulled out of shape by your ambition,’ she said deliberately but serenely.  ‘There is no foundation to this work.  It can take us nowhere.  You have made our tailoring subversive.  This obsession has corrupted you like a fungus.  It is rotting away the base that we have worked too hard to fasten in place.’

Anjali was thrown.  Panya was always measured, rarely direct, and never this direct.  She drew breath, and then with her words snipping like scissors, she said, ‘The past you repair, Panya, the future you design.  If I could just stitch courage into your backbone we could fabricate something so colourful, so beautiful, here in this drab valley.’

Panya was now on her feet.  She would work to the pattern – or at least as closely to the pattern as this unfurling affair would allow. ‘The role of the Tailor is to sew comfort into the world,’ she said with a rehearsed delivery. ‘If your fashion leads to this outcome of so much upheaval and conflict, what is the good of it?

‘To pull the needle through obstinate fabric you need to have strong fingers.  I have had to sew such strength into my fingers over the last years.  You need to catch a thread before it unravels; and then you ensure it is safely tied down.  There is much that needs repairing here, Anjali.  There are alterations that must be made.’

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