History Main / ForcedCreativity

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{Misery}}'', author Paul Sheldon is held captive by his "number one fan," Annie Wilkes. When Annie discovers that Paul's latest book kills her favorite character, she forces Paul to write an all-new book just for her in which the character is brought back.

* ''Series/TheSandman2022'', "[[Recap/TheSandman2022S01E11ADreamOfAThousandCatsCalliope Calliope]]": {{Exaggerated|Trope}} as an [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment ironic punishment]] for an author who forced a [[CapturedSuperEntity captive Muse]] to inspire his creativity. Morpheus fills the author's mind with so many ideas that he's left a babbling wreck, frantically [[RoomFullOfCrazy writing on the walls]] in [[CouldntFindAPen his own blood]] in a desperate attempt to record them all.

The art that comes out might be decent or even great, but it's usually worse than if they did it organically. Even if the work is good, though, the creator won't enjoy doing it, and may come to despise the project altogether. Of course, the creator may still find ways to rebel or eventually become desensitized to the threats and free themselves.

Related to KidnappedScientist, which involves science and technology rather than creative endeavors. Contrast MuseAbuse, for when the art's ''subject'' is suffering. Also compare TooUpsetToCreate and CreativeSterility. Has some overlapped with BoxedCrook, when the favor involves creative work.

* In the Czechoslovakian stop-motion short ''The Hand'', a sculptor only wants to make pots for his flower. A giant hand appears and orders it to make a statue of a hand. The artist reluctantly agrees, but then the hand demands more, and gets violent if he resists. [[spoiler:Eventually, the hand makes the artist a literal puppet, forcing him to make hand statues until he dies of exhaustion.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'': In one issue of the short-lived ''[[Characters/BatmanTheJoker Joker]]'' title, the Joker captures a cartoonist who draws a comic strip called "Cashews" (an obvious ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} parody), and demands that he draw pictures of the Joker kicking and drowning the strip's main character. It turns out that the cartoonist hates having to draw the strip to satisfy his contract and is glad to comply.

* ''VideoGame/TheSims'': One of the most popular money-making schemes for players willing to take advantage of the franchise's VideoGameCrueltyPotential is to imprison several Sims inside a room with nothing but the basics necessities and an easel each. With little else to entertain them, they'll quickly become world-class artists whose paintings you can sell for a small fortune. Alternatively, [[DeadArtistsAreBetter a dead artist's work can be sold]] for a much ''larger'' fortune, so it's quite common for players to farm a few masterpieces from their best painters before killing them off!

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': The modus operandi of [[BadSanta SCP-4666]] is to stalk a family that is isolated from a city or large town during Christmas and New Year's, making its presence more known as the days go by. On New Year's Day, SCP-4666 either delivers a crude Christmas/New Year's Gift made out of human remains or, more commonly, break in and kill the entire family gruesomely, only saving the youngest child (aged between 3-8) with the intent of kidnapping them and imprisoning them in its underground lair to force the child into making toys made out of the remains of human children solely for [[{{Sadist}} its own amusement and entertainment]]. Furthermore, the child is forced to keep creating with no pause and if tired or unable to create, SCP-4666 would have the child be dissected and killed to be used as additional material for the toys.

'''Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease''' While things like this happen in real life, most of these examples already fall under pre-existing trivia tropes like ExecutiveMeddling and ContractualObligationProject. Many fictional examples draw on the real-life experiences of the creator or act as a commentary on the media industry, but we don't want to gossip about how actual works got made against the creator's will.

* One {{Creepypasta}}, [[https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Robot_Dance The Robot Dance]], posits this as the end result to a [[AiIsACrapshoot robot takeover]], due to art and entertainment being the one aspect of humanity that intrigues our new overlords.

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* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{Misery}}'', author Paul Sheldon is held captive by his "number one fan," Annie Wilkes. When Annie discovers that Paul's latest book kills her favorite character, she forces Paul to write an all-new book just for her.

* ''Literature/ArchersGoon'' opens with a thug arriving at Howard's father's door to demand "two thousand" (which quickly turns out to be two thousand words of prose) on behalf of someone called Archer.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': The modus operandi of [[BadSanta SCP-4666]] is to stalk a family that is isolated from a city or large town during Christmas and New Year's, making its presence more known as the days go by. On New Year's Day, SCP-4666 either delivers a crude Christmas/New Year's Gift made out of human remains or, more commonly, break in and kill the entire family gruesomely, only saving the youngest child (aged between 3-8) with the intent of kidnapping them and imprisoning them in its underground lair to force the child into making toys made out of the remains of human children solely for [[{{Sadist}} its own amusement and entertainment]]. Furthermore, the child is forced to keep creating with no pause and if tired or unable to create, SCP-4666 would have the child be dissected and killed to be used as additional material for the toys.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS1E11SensesAndInsensitivity Senses and Insensitivity]]", King sells a book he co-wrote with Luz to a shifty publisher named Piniet, claiming it to be a solo work, and becomes a bestselling author overnight. When King's truly solo follow-up fails to meet expectations, Piniet overhears him admitting the truth, kidnaps Luz, and subjects them to the same hidden-in-the-fine-print fate that befell all his previous star authors: A shrinking magic box that will crush them into a tiny cube if they fail to provide a satisfactory sequel in time.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman'', the CompleteMonster Erasmus Fry kidnaps [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Calliope]], the youngest of the Nine Muses, and repeatedly rapes her to gain creative genius. After ''decades'' of this torture, Fry sells Calliope to Richard Madoc, another writer who subjects her to the same horrors. The despairing Muse eventually [[GodzillaThreshold summons the Kindly Ones]] to aid her, and they direct her to Morpheus. Upon gaining his own freedom, a severely angered Morpheus puts Madoc in an IronicHell by overloading him with ideas to the point of near madness.

* ''Literature/TheSagaOfEgilSkallagrimsson'': When Egil falls into the hands of his enemy Eirik Bloodaxe, Arinbjorn, a follower of Eirik but also a friend of Egil, persuades Eirik to postpone executing Egil until the next morning, then advises Egil to use the night to compose a praise poem of twenty stanzas for Eirik. The next day, Egil recites his poem, aptly called "Head-Ransom", in front of Eirik, and it is partially because of the poem that Eirik lets Egil go alive. "Head-Ransom" is usually interpreted as a poem that sounds impressive to a layman (like Eirik), but which a poet would recognize as stylistically mediocre, implying that Egil was sabotaging his own poem in order to signal to the initiated that his praise of Eirik was insincere.

* ''VideoGame/TheSims'': One of the most popular money-making schemes for players willing to take advantage of the franchise's VideoGameCrueltyPotential is to imprison several Sims inside a room with nothing but the basics necessities and an easel each. With little else to entertain them, they'll quickly become world-class artists whose paintings you can sell for a small fortune. Alternatively, a dead artist's work can be sold for a much ''larger'' fortune, so it's quite common for players to farm a few masterpieces from their best painters before killing them off!

* In the ''Literature/FoundationSeries'', a telepath named The Mule uses a very literal and deadly version of this, forcing people to have creative bursts in which they can achieve much more than at their usual level, but eventually the sustained level of work ends up killing them.