I think the act of defining the medium is somehow primary to the creative process.

I have only been able to appreciate art as communication. The artist has a message and a perspective, and they use their art to communicate it to the audience. The artist establishes a language with their audience, a creative medium. It is a set of agreed upon signifiers that have an established meanings.

A writer makes many decisions on the form of their art. For example, do you want to get a book printed? Not all writing lands in a book. Maybe instead you write a blog that tells a story in pieces, like Charles Dickens? If you want to write a book, what size would it be? What do you want to put on the cover?

Those questions are obviously concerning the medium, but I propose that decisions about “content” could also be framed as decisions about medium.

When a writer chooses a genre, they inherit all its tropes and conventions. In a fantasy novel, you can count on the audience easily grasping the concepts of “The Chosen One” or “The Sacred Sword.” People know what wizards are supposed to be like. They know the rules of vampires and werewolves. Even when the writer deviates from these conventions, they are employing a storytelling framework that has been refined by a long tradition.

I didn’t get the movie “Avatar” when I first saw it. I thought “this is just Dances with Wolves in space.” I didn’t understand that the story wasn’t the content, it was the medium. The content in “Avatar” is the worldbuilding, the visuals, the biology, and of course the technology that went into making the movie. Who cares if the story wasn’t anything new; it made sense and it delivered the content effectively like a good medium should.

A brief note about Dungeons and Dragons:

When I was a dungeon master, I was stunned by how much of the job could be outsourced. You can download free maps made by enthusiasts at any scale: world maps, town maps, and even encounter maps. You can use other people’s NPCs and magic items. There is endless character art freely available. There are third-party amendments to the game rules to add mechanics. A dungeon master can presumably do their job without having to be creative at all.

I felt so empowered, in such an environment. With the resources available, I could outsource the stuff that didn’t interest me and play with the stuff that did. This, I think, is the dividing line between “medium” and “content.”

Art and creativity are supposed to be joyful, I think. If you’re trying to be creative but you’re blocked by some decision that doesn’t interest you, try defining the medium.