On Creative Writing (New Writing Viewpoints) - Hardcover

Harper, Graeme

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847692575 ISBN 13: 9781847692573

Verlag: Multilingual Matters, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

What is Creative Writing? Millions of people do it, but how do we do it, really? What evidence of its human undertaking does Creative Writing produce? How do we explore Creative Writing, as both an art form and a mode of communication? How do we come to understand Creative Writing, creatively and critically? Posing questions about the nature of Creative Writing, On Creative Writing asks us to consider what Creative Writing actually is, and in doing so encourages us to reflect on how our knowledge of Creative Writing can be increased. Emphasizing Creative Writing as an act and actions, On Creative Writing considers what lies at the core of the activity called Creative Writing.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Graeme Harper is a Professor of Creative Writing at Oakland University, Michigan, USA. He is Series Editor of New Writing Viewpoints, as well as Editor of New Writing: the International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing. Graeme was the inaugural chair of the Higher Education Committee at the UK's National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE). He is an award-winning fiction writer and a former Commonwealth Scholar in Creative Writing.

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On Creative Writing

By Graeme Harper

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2010 Graeme Harper
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84769-257-3

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
Part I. Concerning the Nature of Creative Writing, 
1 Creative Writing Primarily Involves Finished Works?, 
2 Acts and Actions of Creative Writing Can Be Observed in Finished Works?, 
3 No Unfinished Works are Created by Creative Writers?, 
4 All Works of Creative Writing are Disseminated?, 
5 All Dissemination of Creative Writing Occurs, and Has Occurred, Similarly?, 
6 There is Always a Direct Relationship Between Acts and Actions of Creative Writing and Disseminated Works?, 
7 The Activities that are Creative Writing Can Always be Grouped Under the Term Process'?, 
Part II. Concerning Human Engagement with Creative Writing, 
8 All Works of Creative Writing Have Aesthetic Appeal?, 
9 All Works of Creative Writing Clearly Communicate?, 
10 Intentions in Creative Writing are Always Met?, 
11 Creative Writing is Solely an Act or Range of Acts?, 
12 Personal and Social Activities Relating to Creative Writing are Always Connected?, 
13 The Personal and Social Activities of Creative Writing Have Equal Status?, 
14 Communication and Art Hold Equal Status in Society?, 
Conclusion, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Creative Writing Primarily Involves Finished Works?

1.

When speaking about 'Creative Writing' it is sometimes the case that we are speaking about two things. That is: the activities of Creative Writing and the finished works that emerge from the activities of Creative Writing. However, most often the term 'Creative Writing' is used to refer to the activities we engage in. The results of these activities, alternatively, are most often referred to by their specific 'artefactual' names -- for example, the 'poem', 'script', 'story' or 'novel' that emerges from the acts and actions of Creative Writing.

This separation in language also represents a separation in attitude, a separation that was extended by the strength of the focus during the 20th century on the objects, the 'finished' artefacts, of creative production. This was particularly the case in the second half of the 20th century when consumerist ideologies, supporting an economic system increasingly dependent on the exchange of goods and services, made material goods a primary mode of human exchange, and the provision of services likewise became highly commodified. In a metropolitan rather than rural focused production system, no longer trading in a relatively leisurely fashion in hand-crafted objects or in a close community of labour exchange, consumerism involved product and purchaser, the role of the producer -- at least as it pertained to the recognition of the individual, or to place of the personal -grew less significant. That is not to pass judgement on the impact of consumer culture in the latter half of the 20th century. Rather, it is simply to note that the rise of consumerism relied on the significance of goods and services for consumption and on the desire, and ability, of the consumer to purchase these goods and services. If there was a producer referenced at all the role of producer 'branding' was more notable than the actual activities of that producer.

Of course, the word 'production' is being used instead of the words 'Creative Writing' or 'creating', to indicate this was a consumption and production cycle of a distinct kind and that it impacted upon how we viewed Creative Writing. In the case of Creative Writing, the words 'creative writer', or 'creator' or 'maker' might seem more appropriate to indicate the often individual nature of the acts and actions of Creative Writing and to highlight the fact that not every piece of Creative Writing was destined to a commercial exchange. Indeed, this is part of a point worth developing later. Here, however, the important aspect of the historical profile is that it was product-consumption related, even while culturally the latter 20th century saw the rise of individualism and the declarations of the importance of individual voices. In the case of economics, it was not the individual human 'maker' who held sway but the individual human 'receiver'. This was a cycle dependent on the willingness of individuals to purchase, to receive according to trade focused on artefactual brand (even in the case of services where commodification used almost identical rhetoric or the imagery of offering 'satisfaction').

Language, then, whether verbal or visual, whether denotative or connotative, bore the significance of finality, the importance of completed 'works', and demoted the relevance of 'working' or 'undertaking' to a secondary rank in which efficiency, delivery to the market, adherence to a promoted brand, and clarity of what was on sale, far outweighed the accuracy of production information. Indeed, while later in the century evidence of some Western concern with 'fair trading' or 'exploitation' of non-Western producers became evident, for the greater part of the 20th century the West, where consumerism most strongly flourished, devoted itself far more to delivery of goods and services than it did to the question of how -- physically or, indeed, ethically -- these goods and services were delivered. This focus on end commodity result even bore an alternate moral standing by which the product, in the broadest sense of the term, was expected to be available when and where the consumer required it. The moral imperative of satisfying the consumer came in many guises, not merely in terms of quantity or quality, and certainly not only relating to the initially observable appearance of the good or service. Rather, it carried with it symbolic and cultural intention, high culture, low culture, 'well-made', 'poorly-made', 'expensive', 'cheap', significant or insignificant for one cultural group or another, whether the dominating or dominated. Categories and ideals that transgressed the boundaries of the material, but were always entirely tied to it.

We could take this historical perspective back further for Creative Writing and note that such a separation of the 'finished' artefact from the acts and actions of creative writers owed much to the commodification borne on the back of the ideal of copyright. Copyright, founded as it was on the 'concept of the unique individual who creates something original and is entitled to reap a profit from those labors'. And yet already can be observed the deductive shift, because in this definition the conflating of 'something' with 'labours' locates copyright in end, indeed final, result rather than in the labour, or creating itself.

From this perspective, we can extend such analysis to show how we have seen considerable importance placed on 'works' rather than on the human 'work' of creation. So, for example, Martha Woodmansee, writing in her chapter in The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature, asks: Will the author in the modern sense prove to have been only a brief episode in the history of writing? By 'author' we mean an individual who is the sole creator of unique 'works' the originality of which warrants their protection under laws of intellectual property known as 'copyright' or 'authors' rights.

This is a reasonable question to ponder, if we begin with 'works' rather than 'working', because if authorship is located in the ownership of completed artefacts then of course the authors of The Construction of Authorship are...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1847692575
• ISBN 13: 9781847692573
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 146
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland