Overview
As a creative worker and novelist, "getting into the mood" often takes time and effort. In the past, without concrete workflows, inspiration arrived randomly — for example, I used to watch entire movies just hoping to spark ideas. Nowadays, however, I have methods that can quickly "tune my brain," as illustrated in the note below:
(Think along those keywords) "坦克轰隆隆", "old-fashioned physical activities"
(Think along 2015 "Era 1" original dream series)
(Think along those keywords) Medieval villages, gothic towns, historic sites
(Think along artistic styles defined in "20221208 Technology Style Genres")
It feels almost magical — a unique phenomenon.
Concept – Rapid Creative Priming
I’m fairly sure others have identified similar techniques. Since I lack formal systematic training in creative work, I don’t know the technical term for these "short statements" that can instantly shift one into a creative mindset. For now, I’ll call this practice rapid creative priming: small cues that help you slip into the right imaginative state.
Drawing on concepts from psychology, creativity studies, and writing practice, I’ll illustrate how this works:
1. Creative Prompts
In writing communities, these short statements resemble writing prompts — brief cues, images, or scenarios meant to spark imagination.
Traditionally, prompts are designed to kickstart a scene or story, but my examples seem more focused on evoking a mood rather than a plot, which is a subtler use.
2. Priming Cues (Psychology)
In cognitive psychology, this falls under priming: exposing the brain to specific words, images, or ideas that bias it toward certain associations.
In my case, these statements act as creative priming cues — they activate mental schemas (e.g., childhood nostalgia, gothic towns, peaceful rural activities) that "tune" my mind into that aesthetic space.
3. Mood Boards (Textual Form)
Designers and visual artists often use mood boards — curated collections of images or textures that capture a tone. What I have is essentially a verbal/textual mood board: compact textual triggers instead of images, but serving the same role of setting a consistent emotional/creative atmosphere.
Personally, I find this form more inspirational than visual cues for novel work, since images can feel "too much" and become distracting.
4. Incantatory Triggers
Some novelists and poets describe repeated creative cues as charms or incantations. It’s not a technical term, but it captures the ritualistic aspect: by revisiting a phrase ("坦克轰隆隆," "old-fashioned physical activities"), you summon an entire sensory-emotional world — almost like casting a spell.
5. Heuristics or Creative Constraints
Another way to frame these is as heuristics — rules of thumb that guide thinking — or as creative constraints. By narrowing attention ("think rural, tactile, peaceful"), we reduce the paralysis of a blank page and channel ourselves into a fertile imaginative corridor.
This may be why I intuitively wanted to call them "directives."
Summary
The Creative Priming Statements or Mood Cues are short, textual triggers designed to align the brain with a productive imaginative mode.
As for visual cues, a commonly used tool in the concept design community is PureRef. It’s excellent, but I’ll give one warning: it requires carefully tuned workflows; otherwise, it can become a severe distraction.
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