Written by Jason Hill

A recent article about Pixar tells the story of how their first movie, Toy Story, almost didn't make it past the Disney execs' slush pile. To quote the article:

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"as Pixar celebrated the 10th anniversary of "Toy Story", its debut film, the creative minds behind the studio for the first time told the real story of how they almost lost the picture. Not only did the big-money folks at Disney who bankrolled the film not understand the vision of "Toy Story,'' they hated it so much they shut down production."
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This is one of many examples of why I have always advocated the freedom of artistic expression, of creating the things you want to make, which are not always what businessmen may think is profitable, and why I say that advice isn't necessarily good advice just because an editor said it. One thing I am fond of saying is "when everyone writes what sells, nobody is writing anything good." On the surface that sentence may seem like the ramblings of a frustrated writer, but there is logic behind it.

Progress is achieved by those who are not afraid to do something different. In narrow-minded business thought, "different" is unprofitable (it's true everyone is looking for innovation but too many places are only looking for what they deem the "right," meaning lowest-risk, innovation), which is why many of the creative community's greatest achievements had to go through a trial-by-fire in the form of editors and execs concerned with the bottom line.

Here I will give some famous examples. A manager named Brian Epstein was trying to get a contract for a band he represented. He approached Decca records, where he met a man named Dick Rowe who had this to say to him: "Go back to Liverpool Mr. Epstein, groups with guitars are out!"

You may have heard of the band in question. They were the Beatles.

A young man who worked for a newspaper was once told by his editor that he should forget about a career doing anything creative because he "lacked ideas."

That young man was Walt Disney.

The movie Jaws was rejected by 20th Century Fox. They said it would only make a mediocre TV movie. Star Wars was rejected by Universal Studios, who said that the movie audience wasn’t interested in "antiquated Buck Rogers comic books".

Can you imagine how the world would be if people like these just gave up when they were rejected? If George Lucas had left his script for Star Wars unfinished, condemning it to fester in his closet? If Walt Disney had resigned himself to menial work instead of doing what he loved? If the Beatles had put down their guitars and got "real jobs" instead? It doesn't take a psychic to say that the world would be a far less interesting place.

Take any "helpful" advice with a grain of salt, no matter who it comes from. Stephen King once wrote this on the subject of taking editorial advice:

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"Show your piece to a number of people - ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story - a plot twist that doesn't work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibilities - change that facet. It doesn't matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with your piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I'd still suggest changing it. But if everyone - or even most everyone - is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say."
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Now, more than ever, the creative world is in need of innovators. The current statistics paint a picture of jaded consumers who are seemingly uninterested in the stories and movies presented to them. I do not believe this is true because when something truly fantastic is released nothing on Earth can keep movie goers out of theaters, or fiction fans out of bookstores (think Star Wars Episode 3 and Harry Potter 6).

It's not the consumers who have lost their passion, it's the writers. With Hollywood churning out the same formulaic crap every month you can understand why movie goers seem jaded. When you've read the umpteenth story about an intrepid group of adventurers setting out to save the world from an ancient evil you can understand why some people say fantasy is a dead genre.

This current ultra-competitive, sink or swim marketplace is the result of a self-fulfilling prophesy. You cannot blame companies for erring on the side of caution, given the great amounts of money involved in the production of a movie and the printing of a book. However, the intrinsic problem in all this caution is that the majority of people are now afraid to take risks, of doing anything that may rock the boat. This kind of environment is like a straightjacket on true creativity. When companies choose to take the path most traveled in order to ensure security they neglect to notice that they are walking to the same place everyone else is, and by the time they reach their destination there may not be enough room for them in the marketplace anymore.

We need people who are willing to tread in unexplored territory and cut a path through for others to follow. We need people with the ability to take a thing that works and make it work better. We need weirdoes and eccentrics---the kind of people others tend to laugh at until they become successful. So whatever you do, never give up just because someone shook his head and said "no", or called you an idiot or said you have no talent.

In closing, there was once a writer who devoted her time to writing when she was not working as a teacher. She was very poor, raised a kid, and battled with depression. Her completed manuscript was rejected by several publishers before it was finally printed.

That writer was J.K. Rowling.