Creativity vs. Craft

At a recent book event, my husband asked the author which part of her writing process was creativity and which part was craft. The poor woman looked startled then said the two were so intertwined that they could not be separated. 

In science, creativity and craft are more easily distinguishable. The creative parts involve identifying interesting problems and figuring out which questions to ask so that a correct answer can be found. Craft comes into play when executing the experiment. Years of practice are often required to produce interpretable results. 

For me, writing is a mixture of creativity and craft. Figuring out what story to write, deducing the best way to tell it, and asking probing questions about my characters and their quests are all creative endeavors. The process of getting the story down for the first time is mostly unbridled creativity. Revision, however, is not exclusively craft. Seemingly, years of practice are often required to produce a clearly written manuscript. But a manuscript that is merely technically adept will not sell. Readers are looking for heart in a novel, characters they can identify with, and situations that are both real and unique. Breathing life into the novel is the creative part of revisions.