This section includes resources on writing poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. In this regard, the clue to modes and methods of research is that creative writing is action. This formulation recognises a range of influences: the traditions they write within and against, relevant literary, social, and political contexts, and the processes of composition and revision undertaken. It focuses on the different ways non-fiction creative writing is researched and how this research can be validated. As university creative writing programmes mature, creative writing research has the potential to develop its own new and distinct theoretical frameworks. This mental construct accounting for how creative writing works then underpins research into the writing process and needs to be examined and compared with other theories on the creative writing process. Journal of Mixed Methods Research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, Political Science and International Relations, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods, https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412963909.n76, Methodological Holism Versus Individualism, Association for Qualitative Research (AQR), Center for Interpretive and Qualitative Research, International Association of Qualitative Inquiry, International Institute for Qualitative Methodology, Membership Categorization Device Analysis (MCDA), Advances in Qualitative Methods Conference, Ethnographic and Qualitative Research Conference, Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies Conference, International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, International Human Science Research Conference, Thinking Qualitatively Workshop Conference, CCPA – Do Not Sell My Personal Information. As we determine our methods of approaching creative writing research we are drawn to consider possible avenues of investigation. My own research used these seminal empirical studies as the foundation for more context-bound interviews with successful publishing novelists in South Africa. Much pioneering research on the cognitive processes of writing was conducted using psychology research methods. Within the traditional framework in South African universities’ language departments, creative writing is studied as a product in literature courses, rather than as a process. This chapter will discuss research on both the writing process and the creative process that was synthesised to form a conceptual framework for interviews with published novelists in South Africa. Creative Writing. Editors: Schonell studied reproductive, narrative-descriptive, ex planatory, and imaginative compositions written by children.1 He found that chil https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-27254-6, Creative Writing | Research Methods in Creative Writing | Macmillan Higher Education. That is, while we can certainly think about it, creative writing cannot exist without us actually. visual arts, performance arts, textile arts Research using technology – e.g. While the term ‘poetics’ has referred to the study of principles and forms of literary composition since Aristotle wrote his treatise in 330``BC`, coming later to refer specifically to the study of poetry, here, ‘poetics’ refers to the means by which writers across a range of genres formulate and discuss a critical attitude to their own work. The focus is on the world created in a text or the socio-political world in which the text is situated. Researching for content brings about new knowledge just as it does in any other field — in the case of creative writing, of course, that content research might find its way into a poem or story, and that creative work may be a combination of personal voices as well as facts. Login or create a profile so that you can create alerts and save clips, playlists, and searches. In response, as more writers, undergraduate students, higher degree candidates and teachers of writing publish or study non-fiction, how to conduct research in, and about, this genre has become a prominent area of interest in creative writing studies. One groundbreaking study by Linda Flower and John Hayes developed a complex cognitive process model of the writing process, challenging the idea that writing occurs in sequential stages. Ways in which these interviews provided insights into altering existing models of the creative writing process, including a new perspective on ‘writer’s block’ and the reiterative nature of creative idea generation and critical judgement, are presented as part of the application of the research methodology. The interviews conducted with contemporary writers sought to broaden this perspective so that the process of creating textual worlds in a particular context could be investigated. In later research into the lives of renowned creative people, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi developed a model of the creative process. How can notions of culture help us to understand and locate literary works as manifestations of new understanding or configurations of knowledge? In the wake of a number of recent ‘scandals’ around non-fiction publications, moreover, the ethical issues involved in producing non-fiction texts have also come to the forefront as a concern for writers. Consciously or not, people often model the process of creative writing based on personal experience. A journal takes on … That being the case, one of the most significant aspects of anyone’s creative writing is its relationship with reading. Find the right match between worlds, and you may be able to avoid this dreaded hurdle. The cornerstone of the Flower and Hayes model was the subprocess of goal setting, similar to Csikszentmihalyi’s emergence of problems as a crucial component of any creative process. Creative writing in qualitative research has several facets. The prospect of providing an introduction, commentary, or some other critical discourse related to their work often leaves students struggling to know how to address this relation. Please choose from an option shown below. This chapter suggests the concept of poetics as a useful way of tackling this issue. That said, such a choice could relate to our ability to provide new knowledge on which future generations might build; knowledge for others as well as knowledge for ourselves. Psychoanalysis is useful in that it suggests that both writing and the subject are constructions. All writing lives in intertextuality. At the same time, the recognition of such work as valid research in the university context, and the justification for this classification, is also important. Although non-fiction writing has been a core part of such disciplines as history, journalism and literature (in the form of writing articles, essays and books), creative writers often find the instructions given regarding researching and writing non-fiction in these disciplines inadequate to serve the increasingly complex procedural and ethical challenges they face. Narrative Inquiry (Journal) Oral History Review (Journal) Qualitative Health Research (Journal) Qualitative Inquiry (Journal) Qualitative Report, The (Journal) Qualitative Research (Journal) Advances in Qualitative Methods Conference. Please log in from an authenticated institution or log into your member profile to access the email feature. Studying the writing process itself is a relatively new field of enquiry; studying the creative writing process even more so. Journals : A journal is different than a diary which helps to keep a track of events. All this can inform the teaching of creative writing, encourage and support individuality, and contribute to originality in the work that emerges from creative writing workshops and programmes. Diaries: A diary is a type of journal in which you write about your daily life. So, with the help of the Faculty Research Working Group, we have developed a working definition of creative research which … But institutions need rubrics against which to assess outcomes. Studies in Creative Writing One group of studies lias explored the type of subject matter which produces the best writing on the part of elemen tary school children. We can all agree that any type of serious, thoughtful creative production is vital. Such a concept of poetics offers a means by which writers in the academy can develop an ethos towards their work in order to gain perspective on the interrelated aspects of practice and theory, and the critical and creative activities involved in the act of writing, helping them to express the knowledge gained through practice-led research. One of the key challenges of creative writing research lies in successfully articulating the relationship between the creative work and the critical context, thinking, and outcomes associated with its production. How does research in creative writing relate to other forms of academic research and how do its artistic outputs relate to readerships both inside and outside the academy? Writers in the academy are researchers within an institutional community whose goal is the production of new knowledge. And it slowly dawned on me that the field of creative research methods could be conceptualised as having four broad categories: Arts-based research – e.g. This chapter presents the epistemology of statistical market research as a detailed example of one possible kind of ‘new’ creative writing research and challenges creative writing researchers to construct additional theoretical frameworks by utilising processes of interdisciplinary induction and innovation. It also highlights the ethical issues involved in researching and writing non-fiction texts, and how the writer of non-fiction can approach and deal with these challenges. Theory has been dead for well over a decade. Macmillan Education UK. The development of creative writing as a research discipline in universities and colleges has not yet been well documented, even though many teachers and students pursue it and many degree programmes incorporate forms of creative writing research. Research in creative writing therefore has a relationship to ideals of sustainability. What we read, how we read, for what purposes we read. A guide to the modes and methods of Creative Writing research, designed to be invaluable to university staff and students in formulating research ideas, and in selecting appropriate strategies. Copy and paste the following HTML into your website. But what was/is theory? Unfortunately, this research was conducted in an artificial laboratory environment, and was not aimed specifically at creative writing. It is the knowledge of two minds, that of the writer and that of the reader, actively engaging in exchange and in the kind of understanding that cannot be reduced to the abstract. This chapter reassesses the significance of theory for creative writing research. What kinds of research are involved in a postgraduate degree in creative writing and how does an international and transcultural writing community give them a special resonance? Knowledge in creative writing is also not necessarily the knowledge found in other fields. Non-traditional and interdisciplinary modes of research may help researchers to address the myriad questions creative writers face — questions of process versus product, audience versus profit, quality versus marketability, theory versus output, criticism versus creativity, inspiration versus analysis, etc. A guide to the modes and methods of Creative Writing research, designed to be invaluable to university staff and students in formulating research ideas, and in selecting appropriate strategies. If you encounter a problem downloading a file, please try again from a laptop or desktop. Creative Writing These OWL resources will help you with the basics of creative writing. Conversely, an examination of writing and research processes can help illuminate and expand on psychoanalytic understandings of subjectivity. While many theories highlight the textual specificity of creative writing research, they also highlight that, at its core, the object of creative writing inquiry is twofold, namely, By focusing on the case of psychoanalysis, this chapter argues for a privileging of a ‘theory without credentials’, one that would disrupt our certainties and thus open up creative possibilities that can in turn be theorised. This chapter will discuss creative writing and its role as a practice-led research discipline in relation to forms of cultural identity. It argues against a favouritism towards any one theory, for there are special affinities between creative writing and certain theories, particularly those underpinned by poststructuralist theories of language. This is possibly the place where the world of the writer and the world being created in their fiction are most closely mapped onto one another and could be a primary factor in understanding writer’s block. Jeri Kroll, Graeme Harper, Publisher: Some diaries are written … In my interviews, it emerged that this could indeed be the driving force of the entire creative writing process. The kinds of texts we find in the world bridge time and space, offer exchanges between one writer and another, between writers and readers. Sign into your Profile to find your Reading Lists and Saved Searches. A psychoanalytic understanding of subjectivity sheds light on the creative process and on the very concept of knowledge production in ways that are not envisioned by other models of subjectivity. Drawing upon the image of the triptych, whose three interconnected panels allow the two outer panels to hinge, folding over the central one in a dynamic movement involving close touching, I suggest that poetics might usefully become the anchoring panel at the centre of research practice that sets out to produce creative work in knowing close connection with critical and theoretical influences. Creative writing researchers from around the globe offer a selection of models that readers can explore and on … This chapter defines research in the context of the discipline of writing generally and non-fiction writing more specifically. This kind of research has knowledge value and this knowledge is such that it is certainly worthy of funding by organisations that fund research in and around academe, even if frequently it remains difficult to convince such funders of its value. Please enable JavaScript on your browser, so that you can use all features of this website. Asking key questions about the ontology of what I am calling the ‘Creative Writing Laboratory’ — the, Research through, and in, creative writing offers substantial opportunities for the creation of new knowledge, both for the individual creative writer undertaking that research and for us all, generally. These avenues are many, and they are varied. Please note that some file types are incompatible with some mobile and tablet devices. This is partly because creative writers read and research differently from theorists and critics. However, choosing to engage in such research is a choice not a requirement of being a creative writer. Creative writing consists of writing in literary forms such as poetry, fiction, plays, creative nonfiction, and memoir. Creative writing researchers from around the globe offer a selection of models that readers can explore and on which they can build. And what lessons can we learn from its apparent demise? Specifically at creative writing is action regard, the clue to modes and methods of creative. Distinct theoretical frameworks track of events creative writers read and research differently from and. Laptop or desktop note that some file types are incompatible with some mobile and tablet devices is useful that! 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