How does the Link-Ups Technique work?

The three steps of the Link-Ups Creative Technique.

Step 1

Search for ideas that can be connected back to the specific idea you are working on. These ideas need to be related to the creative direction you are wanting to take.

Ideas that can be connected back to your specific idea can come your own notes – or from words associated with the direction of travel you wish to take – or perhaps from texts related to the subject you are working on – and so on.

There are many Internet tools that can assist this process – search engines, online thesaurus, word association generators etc.

Step 2

Bring the subject in question and the new ideas together – and then think through the consequences of this combination. What possibilities does this combination of ideas open up? What directions could this new idea take you in?

Don’t take the idea combination literally. You are looking for the new possibilities that this idea combination has the facility to build for you.

Step 3

Use the tools of Cultivation to further extend and build on this new basic idea.

If you find that you are struggling, then leave the problem for a while and allow your brain’s Default Mode Network to continue working on the idea for you.

Illustration: Link-Ups

The following is a simple example of the Link-Ups creative technique as used in the construction of The Tailor.

The Specific Idea

The New Business Venture – which is the core idea (i.e. the breaking is stasis) in the novella The Tailor.

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The General Ideas

The following are selected words related to the possible directions of creative travel for the narrative

• Caution
• Detail
• Procure
• Secure
• Risk
• Cost
• Adaptation

Taking each word in order and then linking this word back to the Specific Idea, results in a core creative proposition.

Applying Cultivation Techniques to this core creative proposition leads to the fabrication of the following sections of copy :-

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Extracts from The Tailor

There are opportunities and there are distractions.  We need to find out quickly what we are fashioning here.  This little business will not survive for long if it miscalculates.  Remember Anjali; you need to think this project through carefully.  Always measure twice, and cut just the once.’

The ‘alterations consulting room’ consumed a large measure of coffee and fashionable biscuits but delivered little beyond the snaring of some extra alteration work, for which the profit was so thin it was see-through.

The theory of ‘fashion through progressive alteration’ seemed to be an illusion and perhaps even a delusion. There were soon tensions twisting between the two business partners, which threatened to tear open the seams of ‘Threads of Arrow Street.’

‘We are doing more work for no extra profit.  That is not a motivator for me in this business,’ said Panya quietly, as another long day was sewn up over some chamomile tea.

A good garment is so designed that if there are tensions, which could lead to its rupture, it will give across a secondary seam.

‘It seems that I am now the secondary seam of Threads,’ thought Anjali.  ‘The tension is rising, and the tempers are fraying.  I must be the one that gives a little.’

The friction was eased by Anjali conceding a date by which there must be an agreed, detailed and measured amount of material progress towards her design.

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