[[quoteright:347:[[Film/AMightyWind https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/calling_it_quits_1.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:347:Wonder what his mood was when he made ''this'' album?]]

->''"It's a Proven Scientific Fact™ that terrible, soul-crushing heartbreak produces the best music (and art of all kinds)."''
-->-- '''[[VideoGame/RockBand Allen Holt]]''', ''[[http://www.rockband.com/blog/be_my_stevie 52 Weeks to Rock]]''

Sometimes, you just have a bad day.

The people who tell stories are just like anyone else. The difference, though, is that if something in their life goes all [[Literature/{{Discworld}} wahoonie-shaped]], they have someone to take it out on -- the fictional characters that inhabit their created worlds. Thus, you occasionally end up with a story taking a sharp left turn into the author's psyche. Characters can [[CharactersDroppingLikeFlies die left and right]], the teenaged hero's schoolteacher will be a [[SadistTeacher sadistic tormentor]], and no one's [[LoveHurts love life]] has any chance of turning out well.

That being said, though, this doesn't necessarily make the show ''bad''; some shows have achieved their highest UsefulNotes/{{ratings}} and even [[GrowingTheBeard Grown the Beard]] in the middle of a bout of Creator Breakdown, and it would be hard to argue that angst can't help you make some really good art. People who have something to work out through their creativity also tend to put a lot of effort into making it good, especially if it's concerning something important or special to them. See also RealitySubtext. However, ''do'' look out for the WriterOnBoard; it can also lead to an overload of {{Wangst}}, DeusAngstMachina, IssueDrift, or TooBleakStoppedCaring if the creator is ''really'' determined to make their creation suffer in their name at the expense of things like "logic" and "good storytelling". The most volatile demonstrations of the SecondLawOfMetafictionalThermodynamics arise from a Creator Breakdown.

A Creator Breakdown may also be the underlying cause of a ScheduleSlip or an OrphanedSeries, mainly due to the author being TooUpsetToCreate. If the author has enough rights over the distribution of the work, more serious instances of this may result in a temporary or even permanent case of KeepCirculatingTheTapes. This is ''very'' common among independently produced WebOriginal works.

Contrast with DiedDuringProduction where the creator of a work just dies, leaving a work in an incomplete state. Of course, they can overlap if the creator was DrivenToSuicide. If this happens to an ''in-universe'' Creator, see MadGod.

Please note, however, that it's hard to tell when Creator Breakdown is happening. This means that if it's a ''planned'' case of GenreShift or CerebusSyndrome for whatever reason, you shouldn't put an example here ''unless'' you have word from either [[WordOfGod the mouth of the creator themselves]] or [[WordOfSaintPaul from someone who knew them well]]. That being said...

When an author simply rebels against a work that he's dissatisfied with, it's CreatorBacklash. While this is trivia it may be accompanied by the AuthorAvatar trope if the author uses a character to write the situation into the story or reflect on it.

Oh, and yes, a ''particularly'' bad Creator Breakdown usually means [[TorchTheFranchiseAndRun that the series will get torn apart piece by piece]], [[CreatorKiller often along with the author's reputation]]. See PrimaDonnaDirector when a director who always behaves in an eccentric way.

The {{Opposite Trope|s}} to this one is CreatorRecovery, in which a creator's newfound happiness positively influences their subsequent work. (Sometimes, an artist can even Recover and Breakdown at the same time, in separate aspects of their life.) See also AuthorPhobia when a creator's fears influence the work. An in-universe version of this can either lead to the creator becoming TooUpsetToCreate or to CopeByCreating.
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!!Sub-categories:
[[index]]
* CreatorBreakdown/AnimeAndManga
* CreatorBreakdown/{{Art}}
* CreatorBreakdown/ComicBooks
* CreatorBreakdown/{{Film}}
* CreatorBreakdown/{{Literature}}
* CreatorBreakdown/LiveActionTV
* CreatorBreakdown/{{Music}}
** CreatorBreakdown/{{Eminem}}
* CreatorBreakdown/NewspaperComics
* CreatorBreakdown/{{Radio}}
* CreatorBreakdown/StandUpComedy
* CreatorBreakdown/{{Theatre}}
* CreatorBreakdown/VideoGames
* CreatorBreakdown/{{Webcomics}}
* CreatorBreakdown/WebOriginal
* CreatorBreakdown/WesternAnimation
* CreatorBreakdown/OtherMedia
[[/index]]
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